Video Cards for the K8T Neo

[uggdugge]

I am looking at getting this motherboard (K8T Neo) as an upgrade in the near future. I am also looking at getting a new video card. I was wondering what graphic cards that people are using in there machines using this MB and how they run? I play lots games, so I am looking for performance and stability throughout different games.

Uggdugge

 

[JLP]

At first I had ATI Radeon 8500 and it was runing just fine. A little slow in the newest games but still a lot of fun playing games. I then also collected enough parts to assemble a new computer and so I also had to buy a new videocard. I bought ATI Radeon 9600XT and it is runing all games without a problem.

 

[NsTiG8r]

One thing I will say for ATI, they know how to market thier products. For years I was a hardcore ATI customer. Yes on paper their specs seem to blow away the competition (they've always been on the cutting edge when it comes to specs), but once you buy into it and install the video card, then the fun begins. I too am a hard core gamer and a major annoyance I encountered with ATI over and over again was their fickle drivers. I don't know if they release them too early or what, but I would encounter problems running some games (Half Life as an example). I would then have to revert back to an older driver or the reference driver to get one game to play. Of course other games required the latest drivers so I was forced to go back and forth with driver versions. In fairness to ATI, I don't know if this has improved with the Radeon series. I reached my wits end with them and have been an Nvidia customer ever since. And I have to tell you, Nvidia does put out a good product. In my newest Athlon64 system, I went with the Gainward GeForce FX 5900 Ultra/1200 XP. The card I replaced with this one is the ASUS V8200 T5 Pure which has the GeForce 3 Ti500 chip. I ran that card for 2 years and I'm not kidding you when I tell you this - I never had to update the original drivers that came with that card. Every game I played...just ran with no video glitches and no crashes. Just before I built my new system, I upgraded to DirectX 9.0b and at that point upgraded to the latest Nvidia drivers. And the Gainward card...just looks cool.

Andy

 

[Sazar]

am running a 9700pro AIW and it has worked great on all 3 msi boards I have used it on so far... the kt8 will be the 4th once I get my system to boot (my new cpu will be here within the hour. its on the truck for delivery)

either get an ati r3xx series card (make sure its a pro or an XT) or get an nv3x series card @ nv35 and above...

the 5900 non-ultra is a great value card as it can be flashed to perform @ almost nv38 levels (everyone's mileage varies)

if you want to run a multimedia machine I highly recommend an AIW card like mine... tv/xbox/pc gaming bliss

 

[diesel_travis]

Originally posted by NsTiG8r
...
I ran that card for 2 years and I'm not kidding you when I tell you this - I never had to update the original drivers that came with that card. Every game I played...just ran with no video glitches and no crashes.
...

Hehe, that's funny, I can say the same thing about my old Radeon 7000 VE 32MB. It hasn't given me a single problem, and I've had it since 2001. It is extremely underpowered by todays standards though. The only nVidia product that I've worked with was my g/f's nForce 2 board. Very fast and no problems with that either. Both great experiences with those products.

Here are some products I've had bad experiences with:
- every S3 chipset or graphics card I've ever used
- I have a 3dfx Voodoo3 that has occaisional XP issues and general quality issues
- I've had bad luck with 2 different #9 cards in the past
- The original card in my work computer was an Evans and Sutherland behemoth POS
- an old Diamond FireGL 1000pro always seemed to give me problems as well

 

[amxandy]

I'll also recomend the ATI AIW 9700 pro. It does everything!

I've been an AIW supporter since my first AIW 16mb PCI video card. The drivers now are MUCH better than they used to be. I've been using the Omega drivers for the card for the last year or so and have been very pleased with them.

I have tried a GeForce 2 video card prior to my getting the 8500 AIW and I found myself missing the AIW functions If you get the AIW card, don't ever expect to go back to a plain video card.

 

[threedaysdwn]

The best value in the market right now is the Radeon 9600 Pro. Or the 9600XT if you can find a good deal.

The Geforce FX 5700 and 5700 Ultra are the Nvidia equilivants.

Personally I liked my Radeon 9700 Pro for its performance and hated it for its drivers.

Now I have a Geforce FX 5900 Ultra w/ VIVO that overclocks insanely well for using only stock cooling. The drivers are rock solid and performance is a dream. Currently there are some situations where the 5900U/5950 beats the 9800XT, and others where it doesn't. Nvidia has done a pretty good job of increasing performance through driver updates, and I expect them to continue to do so.

 

[zerox_no1]

ATI's drivers rocks never had a problem with them.

 

[JLP]

I also have no problems with new Catalyst drivers. ATI drivers were quite buggy in the days before Radeon 8500, but after that they have improved a lot. The only area they are still behind nVidia now are the drivers for Linux. They are also improving quite fast in this area so I hope we see some great Linux drivers soon.

 

[Jocko]

I also use a Gainward geforce FX5900 Ultra/ 1200XP, which gives no probs, and is easy to update and clock. Using latest Nvidea all card drivers

I use Flight simulator a good bit - Cool

Jocko

 

[angler]

That's quite an upgrade! If you're replacing the motherboard, the processor (most likely), and the graphics card, I would consider just giving in and building a new system. Of course, that depends on your budget, I suppose.

I have worked with several video cards on this board and have never had any problems to speak of. The most powerful card I have observed on it is an ATI 9800 Pro: which performs outstandingly, as one would expect. Numerically, ATI cards seems to offer a somewhat better performance to price ratio at the high-end, but for the most part preference in this area is subjective.

I hope that helps some. Good luck with your upgrade!

-Angler

 

[threedaysdwn]

"ATI's drivers rocks never had a problem with them." - zerox_no1

You must only play the most popular games. And must not have installed the Cat 3.7 (or was it 3.8?) monitor-blowing-up drivers?

ATIs drivers have improved a lot. But here's the thing... ATI tunes their drivers for benchmarks and games that are most commonly used as benchmarks. Nvidia's drivers work on EVERYTHING.
It took a year for ATI to fix a major bug that affected Neverwinter Nights and Asheron's Call 2. And the only reason they fixed it was because it also affected Enter the Matrix when it first came... and because we bugged Cat Maker until he promised to get it fixed. But it never should've taken so long. We catalyst beta testers told them over and over that it wasn't fixed. We even narrowed down where the problem was. We told them during the AC2 beta. They fixed it over a year after ac2 was *released*. I think they need to listen more to their testers and not worry solely about reviews and benchmarks.

 

[diesel_travis]

Originally posted by threedaysdwn
"ATI's drivers rocks never had a problem with them." - zerox_no1

You must only play the most popular games. And must not have installed the Cat 3.7 (or was it 3.8?) monitor-blowing-up drivers?
...

This is possible with so many different drivers it's rarer to find one that won't let you. If you don't believe me, get an old monitor (non plug & play) and override the scan frequency in the display settings to something ridiculously high. Windows will warn you by default that it could damage your monitor (at least it has since 3.1). That's like complaining about Windows because it can let you format your hard drive.

Originally posted by threedaysdwn
...
ATIs drivers have improved a lot. But here's the thing... ATI tunes their drivers for benchmarks and games that are most commonly used as benchmarks. Nvidia's drivers work on EVERYTHING.
...

You're really kidding yourself if you think that nVidia doesn't tweak their drivers for the benchmarks. nVidia has been dishonest to consumers since the 3dfx days. Remember the original GeForce 256? Do some research on what the 256 stood for.

I can't believe that you made me defend the guy in #1 instead of the underdog. That driver bug you mention is pretty serious though. Was it a major bug, like a blue screen or core dump? or was it an artifact or quality issue?

[EDIT] added link to explanation of the '256' in 'GeForce256'

 

[jpadron]

Damn, I don?t know what I want to get, we have forces that say ATI and we have forces that say NVIDIA. I guess I just need more and more information to make my decision... But so far I was planning on buying the ATI Radeon 9600XT or ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. I am not a big gamer at all, but would like to see any game I install run fine and have heard good things about these. I guess I need Pros and Cons of ATI and NVIDIA...

 

[bznotins]

Originally posted by onnightfall
Damn, I don?t know what I want to get, we have forces that say ATI and we have forces that say NVIDIA. I guess I just need more and more information to make my decision... But so far I was planning on buying the ATI Radeon 9600XT or ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. I am not a big gamer at all, but would like to see any game I install run fine and have heard good things about these. I guess I need Pros and Cons of ATI and NVIDIA...

Don't spur this discussion on any more, please! All we're going to get are more ATI/nVidia flame wars (see above).

To be honest, I think as long as you are very careful about what model you select (vanilla/"Pro"/"SE"/"XT"/etc) you will do fine with either nVidia or ATI. Just go for the best value (you can get a 5900 pretty cheap these days). Find the right models in each line and pick the one that is the better value...

 

[NsTiG8r]

I agree with bznotins. One thing you might consider to help in your decision is to visit the user support forums at ATI and NVIDIA. See what customers are raving or complaining about.

Andy

 

[bman08]

For me the thing tipping the scales toward nvidia in this case is the availability of 64 bit drivers for windows and linux.

 

[MG37221]

I'd like to say that I'm really pleased with my ATI 9700Pro All In Wonder. However, I don't think you can go wrong with either a higher-end ATI or nVidia graphics card. They're all excellent products. What are you wanting it for? For games, both are superb. If you want TV, the ATI AIW products have the edge. But seriously, they both make terrific products. That's why they're virtually the only one's left.

 

[Tiresmoke]

Well my card is pretty old (1 year) for this motherboard. GeForce 4 4400/128 but it still has a lot of juice and allows me plenty of speed within high end SIM's like F1 99-02 or Nascar Thunder. I am clocking in with some benchs around 15,000 in 3D Marks 2001 and do pretty darn well in 3D Marksa 2003 and Aquamarks as well.

So the moral of the story is that if my old card does good most anything you buy should be fine. You can spend a ton getting the latest and greatest but with just about any card out today you will be high end enough to run about any game out there.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[step-dad]

Hehe, that's funny, I can say the same thing about my old Radeon 7000 VE 32MB. It hasn't given me a single problem, and I've had it since 2001. It is extremely underpowered by todays standards though. The only nVidia product that I've worked with was my g/f's nForce 2 board. Very fast and no problems with that either. Both great experiences with those products.

Here are some products I've had bad experiences with:
- every S3 chipset or graphics card I've ever used
- I have a 3dfx Voodoo3 that has occaisional XP issues and general quality issues
- I've had bad luck with 2 different #9 cards in the past
- The original card in my work computer was an Evans and Sutherland behemoth POS
- an old Diamond FireGL 1000pro always seemed to give me problems as well[/quote]

I still have a voodoo3 with a 800 that I keep for a spare. XP pro with no problems.