I figured I would post here since given any "X vs X" topic can send some of you Llama's into a flaming tangent. Here's my quandry.

I am in the process of updating my machine and am going to buy a new video card. I get SEVERAL suggestions back and forth and no one can give me DEFINITE play info so I come to the community that hopefully has useful play information. (yea I know it's a stretch but I can hope).

ATI Radeon All in Wonder 9800 Pro 128M

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256M

FX 5900 Ultra 128

FX 5900 Ultra 256

These are the choices I am going with atm. Yes, I know the ATI Fire GL X1 is out but not quite willing to drop $700 on a card atm.

So, I'm looking at performance in EQ. It's what I play 99.5% of the time. I don't care which card will play Half Life 2 smooth as silk (i.e My husbands only input about it). I want to know how it does with EQ specifically. I would also like the card to carry me thru to EQ2. Any one have any input?

I have a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128M, coupled with an Athlon 2800+. It runs EQ fine in most situations at 1280x1024 with 2x FSAA enabled.

The framerate drops into "chop" range on large raids or in the bazaar, but I suspect that I'm not getting all of the performance I could get due to the crufty old EQ installation I'm using (I'm still using my original EQ installation from 1999) and the "old" Win XP installation.

Really, either the 9800 series or Geforce 5900 series will do fine in EQ and should carry you over into EQ2.

I have a FX 5900 Ultra 256. I've also been a die hard Nvidia user for a long time.

I believe that Nvidia is going downhill. ATI is whipping their ass on all the new benchmarks and Nvidia has played some dirty little tricks recently.

I also saw a blurb where Half Life 2 was running almost twice as fast on an ATI card.

I'd go with the 9800 Pro.

Wait a few months for the next generation. ATI is currently winning the horsepower war, but Nvidia is still winning the "games work properly out of the box" war (no graphical glitches). ATI or the game developer usually has the problems fixed within a few months of release.

Still... I'd wait for the next generation cards from Nvidia and ATI at this point, it's only a few months away.

There really is no reason to go with nvidia at the moment. Get the 9800 pro, it's a great card.

I've always used Nvidia, until about a year ago when I upgraded from my ti4600 to a 9700. After that, I never looked back. On top of the very noticable speed difference, I think the quality of the output looks better too.

To me, the ATI drivers are easier to deal with also. I run three monitors off this PC, and the Nvidia drivers were a headache for that. ATI's are great. I've definitely never had any "graphical glitches". I think most of that comes from people using the cheap versions of the card, with flaky hardware. I got the ATI brand card, and have been very happy with it.

Given that ATI's maintained a solid lead over Nvidia, just by increasing bandwidths and clock speeds, even though Nvidia released a completely new generation of GPU chip; I don't see myself going back to Nvidia anytime soon. When ATI's new core chip is released, I bet we see them pull even farther ahead of Nvidia.

a faster card is not going to change any performnce for eq, but if you want it for doom3, HL2, or anything of hte sort, go with ATI, and unless you like hooking the TV, or other gadgets to your comp, don't get the all-in-wonder

Let me say a few things about capture cards. Unless you have to have capture, and you have to have capture on THAT card, don't get the AiW - stay with the normal 9800.

If you have to do capture, try something like the Hauppauge that does realtime MPEG-2 on the board freeing the CPU to do other things while you record ready-for-DVD video.

Just make sure if you get an ATI that you have a massive power source. I got a 9700 a few months back with a 450 watt ps, and It wasnt getting enough juice unless I started disconnecting disk drives and shit, needless to say, that went back to the store.

I bought a 9800 128 pro and have been loving it ever since. Honestly the only game i've had any chop on has been EQ (raids and bazaar). But it's great in single groups to actually be able to turn all the spell effects and char models on in 1024X and not get any lag. :) As far as the other chop... well i think it's mostly serverside.

Oh yeah, power is an issue. Though at this time, i'm not sure if it's the power supply or I just need a battery backup to regulate the voltage from the wall socket. Either way, I might get some wierd bug about once every two weeks... nothing that i'm going to spend money to fix atm.

9800 rocks!

Read here before you buy anything.

Tom's Hardware Guide (http://www.tomshardwareguide.com)

If it isn't on here, it probably isn't all the box says it is.

I'm running a 250 watt power supply, with 2 case fans, 2 7200 RPM drives, the 9700, another pci video card, a sb live, and an overclocked p4 chip. Never had power trouble once.

Are you sure it's the 9700 that's the real trouble with your system? Sounds like something else already had you to the edge, if a 9700 alone was enough to bring down your 450 watt power supply.

theres a difference between a good power supply that always puts out 250watts, and a generic one thats very speratic

Case fans take like .5 watts of power. Spinning up a hard drive takes more power than you think.

250 watts is very low for that initial surge, considering most processors start up at 50% of that total, then downshift from there.

I am guessing you are putting a lot of initial strain on your computer to boot it up.

does the SBlive! have the docking station? it still doesn't use that much watts, but it still adds up

No, I don't use the extra stuff for the SB.

I've been using the PS for damn near ever too. I guess around 4.5 years, roughly. It was originally for my big, bad p3 450; when that was cutting edge. Also, don't forget I'm running two video cards, not just the 9700. That other card's probably taking a bit of power.

Still, it's beside the point. If my 250 can somehow manage to drag my system along without ever crashing, it's hard for me to understand blaming a 9700 for dragging down a 450.

When they rate an amplifier for a car stereo, they say 200 watts of power at 14.4 volts.

If 14.4 volts isn't at the tap to the amplifier, you aren't getting the full 200 watts of power.

I think you are starving your system, and would see a vast improvement in performance with a larger power supply.