AGP card for around £100, ATi or nVidia

[LadFromWales]

Looking to replace my 9700 Pro which has recently began artifacting soon after running games.

I am going to be moving to PCI-E later on this year, so I don't really want to have to spend a huge amount of money, but it would be great if the card could at least outperform the 9700 Pro I've had for over 2 years.

I've read that the Asus V9999 is the best, featuring a 6800U chip or something, and can sometimes run at 16/6.

Are there any other cards for around the same amount of money, either ATi or nVidia will be fine.

Thanks all

 

[LadFromWales]

Will a 6800nu outperform a 6600 GT?

If it will, I'll just pay the extra and take the risk that it will/won't unlock....#

Nothing by ATi around that price or even a little higher?

 

[LadFromWales]

Tough call then...

There doesn't seem much info about the 6800nu, so I'd be buying into a relatively unknown product...may still take the risk though.

Nothing else to consider? even if I up the price a little?

 

[LadFromWales]

/me pulls hair out

V9999 6800 with 128MB for £105
or OcUK 6800 with 256MB for £152

Is the extra memory worth it?

 

[LadFromWales]

Ordered!

 

[LadFromWales]

3DM2003 - 8821
3DM2005 - 3977

How do they sound for a Barton 2500+ @ 220x10, 2x1GB @ DDR440, NF7-S

 

[LadFromWales]

I ordered the ASUS V9999, running it at stock clocks for the time being, but its now running at 16,6 with no artifacts in 3DMark or games

Vengeta: so you scored 1100 or so more than me in 3DMark 2003 with a 55/110 overclock. It hardly seems worth it yet really, as I only have a TFT, so I'm just looking to keep the frames at least 50-60fps, which the card happily manages at its stock clocks. Unlocking the pipes and shader did increase my 2003 scores by about 1200 though

Cyber-Mav, what sort of overclocks to achieve that? If I ever did overclock the card, I'd definately replace the stock cooler first with an arctic cooler, as there is no sinks on the ram currently

I couldn't install the drivers off the ASUS CD that came in the package, it kept saying the installer couldnt find any drivers for my hardware. Looked in the inf, and it only came with support for the 7800 and 7800 GT! Got the latest nVidia drivers and they went in peachy. I also installed the advanced asus driver thingie as SmartDoctor wanted it installed. Disabled Splendid as my AVI's looked all cloudy, how dare it be on by default!

Are there any quality utils like ATI Tray, for nVidia cards, would rather replace SmartDoctor as it looks clunky and would rather not install the asus advanced thing.

Overall am happy with it so far

 

[LadFromWales]

Hmmmm, just noticed that my card is artifacting really bad when running 3DM2003's Battle of Proxycon, when AA is applied, even at 1024x768. It get's worse at 1280 and 1600. It also appeard in Trolls lair, when the woman is walking down the stairs to the trolls.

This effect isn't noticed in any of 2005's tests.

Guess I'll have to RMA

 

[LadFromWales]

I've tried locking it again, it's still artifacting like mad

 

[LadFromWales]

Riva Tuner's Hardware monitoring dialog says the fan is spinning at around 3400RPM or so, and the VPU/MEM are at 324/702. I have not even touched any overclocking settings in either Riva or AsusDoctor, or whatever it was (before i uninstalled it).

Yes it does seem weird that it artifacts in 3dm03 but not 3dm05. It's really really bad in Battle of Proxycon, everything outside goes multicolour'd etc.

What drivers do you use?

EDIT: Uninstalled Riva and the forceware drivers, went into safe mode and drivercleaner'ed the remnants, and installed 77.77. The issues persisted.

Why would it do it in 3dm2003 but not 2005?

 

[LadFromWales]

Fx-Overlord:- Yeah it is odd that its artifacting in a less intensive benchmark. I don't have many games atm, not played games for ages. only San Andreas and NFS:U2. Recommend some! It does appear to be playing my current games fine, but if its artifacting in 3dm03, surely its going to do it in games with utilise the same/similar shader models. Have actioned an RMA now, so will return it early next week

peetee:- Yeah it could be, but its bugging me as it must happen in some games if it happens in 3dm2003