Hi guys.

What is best to buy for a mid priced vid. card out of:

GeForce 4 Ti 4200
or
GeForce FX 5600??

(Both around the $300 mark)

probably the fx, but check around for some benchmarks or something.

FX is newer.. go fo 8X AGP and make sure it's direct x 9 compatable.. I got a Ti 4200 and it's not :(

hehe
my ti4200 is
makes a huge difference 9.0
:o~ with the new detonators

Only get the fx 5600 if you plan on using dx9, the gf4 is faster in just about everything else.

get a rad9500 then hack it into a rad9700. better than both the 4200 and the 5600 put together

and then u can create a motherboard out of dirt

Ok here we go,

If you must get a new gfx card now go for an FX but make sure you motherboard supports it. I highly recomend waiting til the FX 5900 Ultra is out.

DirectX9, dont worry if you card doesnt support this as not enough games use directx9 for it to be a concern. Most games that use Directx9 are mostly using the older directx8 or 7 code that still exists within directx.

I agree with Prefix wait until the Ge Force FX 5900 Ultra is out it is well worth the wait.
ONLY get a Ge Force 4 if you cant afford the FX

I hate reading these forums, too much s*** is posted.

But yeah, like Prefix said, wait till the 5900. it's the first nividia card to have 256bit memory. All previous FX cards are only using the old 128bit memory, and the only way nvidia could make it competative was to crank the absolute s*** outa the card. I'm talking about the 1ghz memory of the 5600ultra. The 5900 has lower actual memory and core speeds, but performs a hell of a lot better.

btw, OmniDummett, that doesn't work. Firstly, there is the 4 pixel per pipeline limit of the 9500 (non pro). The software mod can apparently change this to the 8 pixel per pipeline of the 9500pro and the 9700s. BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to change 128bit memory to 256bit memory. Essentially, the mod leaves you with an overclocked 9500pro (from a 9500non pro). However, some manufactureres were in a rush to get these cards on the market, and some of the first ones to arrives were 9500 cores on 9700 PCBs (with 256bit memory) and the softmod worked on them. This has been fixed and you'll be hard pressed to find one.

as for the other fx cards, the 5200s. They are the ultra budget, which will replace the MX cards. Unfortunatly, the 5200 performs worse than a gf4 mx440.

From initial benchmarks that I saw from a range of sources including websites and magazines I'd be tempted to avoid all FX models bar the FX 5900 Ultra. From these benchmarks the Raedon's still beat the FX series, but only marginally. As mystery in IRC pointed out to me (oh u programmer, and rather rudely too ;>) the FX is still quite a good card. The features on the FX are very impressive, and if you have a card that can play the games you want to play for now, I'd hold off and wait to see how things develop.

My cousin bought a GF FX5200, well it plays Vice city in 1024X768X32 with the frame limiter off and its smooth as a babys bottom.

I got an FX 5200 almost 2 weeks ago, and it seriously rocks :)
Maybey a smidge slower than a top of the line GF4 Ti, but it has full directx9 support (pixel shader v2+ and vertex shader v2+)
GF4's simply dont have dx9 support for all these cool new features, and the best thing is the FX can run them without ANY framerate drop!
My FX5200 was also $100 cheaper than the GF4 speed equivalent card, u do the math :)

Well I have been doing a bit of looking around and these are the conclusions I have come to:

GeForce 5200 ($175) is equivalent (maybe slightly better) to
GeForce 4 Mx440 ($160)

GeForce Ti 4200 ($245) s***s all over GeForce 5600 ($330) for all of the games out the moment.

and the Radeon 9500 pro and 9600 pro (both around $370 and both DX 9 compatible) s*** on absolutely everything below a Radeon 9700.

According to Atomic, 5200's suck absolute s*** compared to other cards such as the Radeons and Ti4200's. The 5800's seem to be doing alright, but they're like $850. 5200's are dirt cheap though, at something like $180. Still, I'd stay with GeForce 4 TI's or MX's with AGP 8X.

If you've got the money, Radeon 9800's are the sickest cards on the market, cept for business cards like the Quadro FX2000 and stuff. $850 for a FX5900, with 300Mhz core, while 9800's are $900 or so and 380Mhz core.

U can see Radeon now owns the Video card market, and if they continue to make such quality products NVidia will turn into 3Dfx...

out of all the people i know who play games seriously (these are like real nerds) none of them own an ATI video card, so i disagree with the so called ATI 'dominance'.

On the subject of performance of FX cards, dont pay any attention to the benchmarks on the net using the 43.45 drivers- the 44.03 drivers give an extra 20% performance in the FX (44.03 is specifically for the FX) so you'll get about the same framerates as the GF4 Ti4200.

Another thing, all FX cards have 8x AGP, and all FX cards are fully directx9 compliant. GF4 cards ARE NOT, and neither are most of the Radeon 9000 series (i dont follow ATI much, so im not sure which are and which arent)
FX cards also have much better performance with full scene Anti-Ailiasing turned on, compared with the GF4, this is also true for Anisotropic Filtering, and it looks much better too.

So- if you want a cheaper video card that can handle all the games coming out (doom3 HL2 etc etc) the FX5200 will do everything fine, and it'll look better than the GF4 which is more expensive. If youve got the cash for a high end GF4, buy an FX5600 or even an FX5200 ultra, just dont get a GF4 when u can afford an FX.
I cant stress this enough: GF4's DO NOT SUPPORT THE COOL DIRECTX9 THINGYS!! FX's DO!!

Shhhh dont tell anyone but....


DIRECTX9 GFX CARD SUPPORT IS A WASTE OF TIME..

The amount of games that say DX9 dont even use the dx9 coding...

Majority of games still run on dx7 and dx8 code...

but, within the next year, all the new games that come out will support directx9- so its a waste of money to buy an old tech GF4, when you can get the FX

and by the way, ive got about 3 games that already support dx9, not many features but they're in there

hrmm i think your not looking hard enough for a good video card i would suggest the winfast geforce 4 ti4800 8x agp support vivo card sells for around 360 and it kicks ass over the 4200 and fx 5600.

Then again, get yourself a gigabyte radeon 9700 maya 2 pro....I did....and it can do anything!!