Wanted: beginners guide to graphics cards

Hi

Doom 3 and the forthcoming Half Life 2 have put me back in the market for a
new high-end graphics card.

It's very confusing though, as a lot of graphics cards seem to have the same
names but different specs and costs. Last time I was in the market, I
thought I was buying a high-end card and it turned out to just be an
overpriced mid-range card. I read the magazine reviews, but I can never be
sure if a card I am buying is the same card as one I have read a review for.
For example, there is more than one type of nVidia GeForce 6600 card, and
with varying levels of RAM come varying levels of performance. Why do the
manufacturers have different versions of the same products?!?!?!?!

Anyway, does anyone know of a beginner's guide to understanding graphics
cards and the terminology they use?

Ben

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:47:36 +0100, "Ben C"
wrote:

Hi

Doom 3 and the forthcoming Half Life 2 have put me back in the market for a
new high-end graphics card.

It's very confusing though, as a lot of graphics cards seem to have the same
names but different specs and costs. Last time I was in the market, I
thought I was buying a high-end card and it turned out to just be an
overpriced mid-range card. I read the magazine reviews, but I can never be
sure if a card I am buying is the same card as one I have read a review for.
For example, there is more than one type of nVidia GeForce 6600 card, and
with varying levels of RAM come varying levels of performance. Why do the
manufacturers have different versions of the same products?!?!?!?!

To maximize profit of course.

Suppose they get a good deal on some high-spec memory chips,
might make it worthwhile to crank out some higher-spec
cards. On the other hand if they have a good deal on volume
of a GPU they might want to make low-end cards which sell at
higher volumes... not necessarily one of these two scenarios
but it can be a parts opportunity as well as a market
segment they seek.


Anyway, does anyone know of a beginner's guide to understanding graphics
cards and the terminology they use?


Determine the spec on the specific card.
Primarily focus on:

Memory bus width
GPU clock speed
Amount of memory
Memory bus speed
"expected" memory make/spec'd speed (if you desire to
overclock)

Even a beginners' guide will quickly become dated, new
cards, variations of them, are coming out and old cards
vanishing all the time. More appropriate might be
benchmarks of contemporary cards at the type of games you
like to play, if not the specific game titles.

Right now the high end cards I'd suggest would be Geforce
6800 series.

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 14:19:25 GMT, kony
wrote:


Determine the spec on the specific card.
Primarily focus on:

Memory bus width
GPU clock speed
Amount of memory
Memory bus speed
"expected" memory make/spec'd speed (if you desire to
overclock)



Note that the above is in the context of comparing same
family of cards, GPU clock speed would be compared to
another card with same GPU, not different GPU.

Ben C:
It's very confusing though, as a lot of graphics cards seem to have
the same names but different specs and costs.

One thing is to ignore the manufacturer's name for the card, some names
are deceptive, instead look at the GPU listed for the card...

these are only examples, there are many mo
Geforce 6600
Geforce 6800
Geforce FX5900
Geforce FX5950
Geforce FX5700

Radeon X800
Radeon X600
Radeon 9800
Radeon 9600

These may be followed by designators such as GT, SE, PRO, LE, XT which
will designate particular versions that are either higher performance or
lower performance than the standard chip. In general, designators like
GT and PRO mean higher performance; while designators such as SE, LE and
XT mean lower performance. Keep in mind that this is the graphic
processor's name, not the manufacturer's name.

I read the magazine reviews,
but I can never be sure if a card I am buying is the same card as one
I have read a review for. For example, there is more than one type of
nVidia GeForce 6600 card, and with varying levels of RAM come varying
levels of performance. Why do the manufacturers have different
versions of the same products?!?!?!?!

In the end there is no substitute for self education. I had been out of
the graphics card market for about 3 years until I recently got back
into playing games and decided to upgrade. I felt overwhelmed with all
the new choices, but after a week of research I felt confident enough to
make an intelligent decision.

Finally, you can take a shortcut and just tell us what your budget for a
new card is, what your current system is and we can tell you some
recommendations.

I like this site for reviews.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...ards-2004.html
--
Mac Cool

Before you spend plenty on a high end video card to play Doom 3, take
a look at this.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2149&p=7

Ben C wrote:

Hi

Doom 3 and the forthcoming Half Life 2 have put me back in the market for a
new high-end graphics card.

It's very confusing though, as a lot of graphics cards seem to have the same
names but different specs and costs. Last time I was in the market, I
thought I was buying a high-end card and it turned out to just be an
overpriced mid-range card. I read the magazine reviews, but I can never be
sure if a card I am buying is the same card as one I have read a review for.
For example, there is more than one type of nVidia GeForce 6600 card, and
with varying levels of RAM come varying levels of performance. Why do the
manufacturers have different versions of the same products?!?!?!?!

Anyway, does anyone know of a beginner's guide to understanding graphics
cards and the terminology they use?

Ben

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:47:36 +0100 There I was minding my own business
and then "Ben C" wrote :

Hi

Doom 3 and the forthcoming Half Life 2 have put me back in the market for a
new high-end graphics card.

It's very confusing though, as a lot of graphics cards seem to have the same
names but different specs and costs. Last time I was in the market, I
thought I was buying a high-end card and it turned out to just be an
overpriced mid-range card. I read the magazine reviews, but I can never be
sure if a card I am buying is the same card as one I have read a review for.
For example, there is more than one type of nVidia GeForce 6600 card, and
with varying levels of RAM come varying levels of performance. Why do the
manufacturers have different versions of the same products?!?!?!?!

Anyway, does anyone know of a beginner's guide to understanding graphics
cards and the terminology they use?

Ben

For Nvidia read this group,

alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia

HTH



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"Ben C" wrote:
Hi

Doom 3 and the forthcoming Half Life 2 have put me back in the market for a
new high-end graphics card.

It's very confusing though, as a lot of graphics cards seem to have the same
names but different specs and costs. Last time I was in the market, I
thought I was buying a high-end card and it turned out to just be an
overpriced mid-range card. I read the magazine reviews, but I can never be
sure if a card I am buying is the same card as one I have read a review for.
For example, there is more than one type of nVidia GeForce 6600 card, and
with varying levels of RAM come varying levels of performance. Why do the
manufacturers have different versions of the same products?!?!?!?!

Anyway, does anyone know of a beginner's guide to understanding graphics
cards and the terminology they use?

While not exactly the information you are looking for, you might nonetheless find it
useful to compare the cards featured in this article:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...004/index.html

Another good resource, which lists the specific properties of each model and submodel,
can be found he
http://www.neeyik.info/3dspecs/

Jon

Anyway, does anyone know of a beginner's guide to understanding graphics
cards and the terminology they use?

http://tinyurl.com/4shwy

snip
Finally, you can take a shortcut and just tell us what your budget for a
new card is, what your current system is and we can tell you some
recommendations.

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions so far. My PC has:
- 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4
- 512MB of DDR RAM
- 40+75GB hard disks
- Running Windows XP, fully patched
- Present graphics card: nVidia GeForce FX 5200

I'm aware that there's little point spending a fortune on a really top-end
graphics card as my chip speed will be a limiting factor. I live in the
United Kingdom and I'm looking to spend no more than £250 on a new card.
What would you recommend?

Thanks!

"Ben C" wrote in message
...
snip
Finally, you can take a shortcut and just tell us what your budget for a
new card is, what your current system is and we can tell you some
recommendations.

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions so far. My PC has:
- 2.0GHz Intel Pentium 4
- 512MB of DDR RAM
- 40+75GB hard disks
- Running Windows XP, fully patched
- Present graphics card: nVidia GeForce FX 5200

I'm aware that there's little point spending a fortune on a really top-end
graphics card as my chip speed will be a limiting factor. I live in the
United Kingdom and I'm looking to spend no more than £250 on a new card.
What would you recommend?

Thanks!


Personally I'd either stump up the extra £40 - £50 for a 6800GT or settle
for a £160 ATI 9800Pro and pay the extra for another 512 stick of RAM.
There seems to be a big gap in between these with little for the price you
want to pay.

Shaun.