Nvidia FX 5500 with 256 MB AGP - good or bad?

[fsgregs]

Hi. I just came from Best Buy and they have on sale the Nvidia GeForce FX 5500 AGP card with 256 MB video RAM. It is only $129.00, and the sales rep said in some ways it is faster and has better performance than the FX 5700.

My current card is the Nvidia GeForce 4 TI 4200 AGP, with 128 MB. Christmas is coming and my family wants to buy me a faster card. Will the FX 5500 do everything I would want it to do for at least another year of Celestia development (Chris ... input please!! ), or should I forget it and try for a more expensive card?

anxiously awaiting !!

Frank

[timcrews]

Frank:

The new NVIDIA FX 6600 looks interesting, too. Although it is a chopped-down version of a higher-performance card, its performance in many ways exceeds the top-of-the-line of the previous generation. There is a review at http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q3/geforce-6600gt/index.x?pg=1

[Don. Edwards]

Frank,
I would just skip the FX generation cards and move to the 6600 or 6800 series cards. Much more video memory bandwidth, faster memory chips, more rendering piplines to speed things up. The 6600 series have speeds that are close to the FX 5900\5950 series were the 6800s blow the doors off all of them.
I myself am looking to upgrade to a 6800 series card in the next few months. I am probably looking at a complete system upgrade at that point. I am hoping to move to an Athlon 64 with PCI express.
Hopefully by the aniversery of when you set me up with my last card.
BTW that card has been great for almost every game I have thrown at it. From Far Cry to Doom 3 this card has been a trooper and given me very beautiful rendered scenery in these games. Not to mantion that is has speed the loading of those 16k textures in Celestia. If it wern't for this card I probably wouldn't have been able to the texture projects I have done to this point.
So as far as I am concered I would only look forward when it comes to a new card.

Don. Edwards

[selden]

Frank,

The 5500 at our local Best Buy is an "overclocked" model. I didn't look closely at that detail, but overclocking usually means that the chips will be running rather hot. Also, the back of the box has a checklist of the features of the various models of 5000 series cards. You don't have to take the word of the salesman (who was fibbing to you: the 5700 has better antialiasing than the 5500, for examplej.

I'm not so optimistic about the availablity of the 6000 series cards as Don is. Although the PCIe version of the 6600 is supposed to be available RSN, it's going to be even longer before the AGP version is available.

I came across a Web article (on Tom's Hardware site, i think) that mentioned that both ATI and Nvidia are overstating the availability of their new chipsets. Most of the cards are hard to find and are selling at a premium on ebay -- well above the "suggested price".

[Don. Edwards]

Frank,
If your family is willing to put out at least $179.00 than go for a FX 5900se like the one you got me. You will love it even if it has only 128mb of VRAM. It is faster by a factor of almost 3 over your 4200.

Don. Edwards

[fsgregs]

Given your excellent opinions, I guess I can wait for the 6600 to be released in AGP, since it is the next generation so to speak. My problem will be that I am still running the FX 5200 on my school computers and will have to be satisfied with them for at least another 2 years (schools change things slowly). If I get a home card that is much faster, I will have to extrapolate any new activities I write and view on the 6600 to see if they run on the 5200.

Oh Well!

Thanks again.

Frank

[ANDREA]

Frank, ... I myself am looking to upgrade to a 6800 series card in the next few months. Don. Edwards

I have the same problem, because in my personal PC I've a 4600Ti 256 Mb, that a couple years ago was the best one, and now has many problems to move all that huge stuff in Celestia.
So I've taken my decision, and with the help of my family (Xmas gifts), I'll migrate to the 6800.
But after a check I have a doubt, because in Italy are available:
FX 6800-256 MB-RAMDAC 400-Engine CLK 350-Memory CLK 1000
FX 6800 ULTRA-256 MB-RAMDAC 400-Engine CLK 400-Memory CLK 1100
The other difference is that the ULTRA has double DVI.
The price: 440 Euro for the 6800, and 600 Euro (!!!) for the 6800 ULTRA.
My question: the performance improvement between 6800 and 6800 ULTRA justifies a 36.5% price increase?
Or, with a little quality/speed loss, can I save a lot of money taking the 6800?
160 Euro are about 200 US $, for me a lot of money!
Please, someone expert on the matter can give me a valid suggestion?
Thanks a lot.
By

Andrea

[selden]

Andrea,

Only you can decide if the extra performance is worth the extra money. I don't think you'll see all of the 30% speed difference, though. Other things will slow it down, too.

Personally, If I had to choose, I'd get the 6800 instead of the Ultra for several reasons:

1) The cost

2) The 6800 Ultra uses almost twice as much power:
Ultra= 30 Watts idle, 72 Watts with 3D graphics
nonUltra = 17 Watts idle, 39 Watts with 3D

3) As a result, the 6800 Ultra runs at a higher temperature, heating everything else in your computer, too.

See http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-vs-nv-power.html
for power comparisons for many high end cards.

Be sure to get an AGP card. The 6800 cards are available for either AGP or PCIx.

Also, don't forget that both cards need a second power connection from the computer's power supply. They cannot get enough power from the AGP slot.

I hope these comments help a little.

[ANDREA]

Andrea, Only you can decide if the extra performance is worth the extra money. I don't think you'll see all of the 30% speed difference, though. Other things will slow it down, too.
Personally, If I had to choose, I'd get the 6800 instead of the Ultra for several reasons:
1) The cost
2) The 6800 Ultra uses almost twice as much power:
Ultra= 30 Watts idle, 72 Watts with 3D graphics
nonUltra = 17 Watts idle, 39 Watts with 3D
3) As a result, the 6800 Ultra runs at a higher temperature, heating everything else in your computer, too.
See http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-vs-nv-power.html
for power comparisons for many high end cards.
Be sure to get an AGP card. The 6800 cards are available for either AGP or PCIx.
Also, don't forget that both cards need a second power connection from the computer's power supply. They cannot get enough power from the AGP slot.
I hope these comments help a little.

Selden, as always your answer is quick and exhaustive, and I'll buy the 6800 (naturally it's AGP).
Thank you very much!
By

Andrea

[guest jo]

deleted

[ANDREA]

600 Euro for the 6800 Ultra is too much.
I Germany it is available for around 500 !!

I agree with you, but... this is life!
To reduce my sorrow, I can say that in Italy the Sun costs less.
By

Andrea

[danielj]

Sorry,but the Geforce FX 5500 is inferior to the FX 5700.The positions are like that:
GF FX 5500<GF FX 5700 LE/VE(?)<GF FX 5700<GF FX 5700 Ultra<GF FX 5900 XT

Hi. I just came from Best Buy and they have on sale the Nvidia GeForce FX 5500 AGP card with 256 MB video RAM. It is only $129.00, and the sales rep said in some ways it is faster and has better performance than the FX 5700.

My current card is the Nvidia GeForce 4 TI 4200 AGP, with 128 MB. Christmas is coming and my family wants to buy me a faster card. Will the FX 5500 do everything I would want it to do for at least another year of Celestia development (Chris ... input please!! ), or should I forget it and try for a more expensive card?

anxiously awaiting !!

Frank

[chris]

The GeForce 6600 GT is now available with an AGP interface:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.a ... rty&DEPA=1

If anyone's looking to upgrade their graphics card for Celestia and willing to spend ~$200, the 6600 GT is your best bet. It will be much faster than the 5900 or 5700, especially when using the new OpenGL 2.0 render path.

--Chris

[selden]

FWIW, although the NewEgg page only mentions 8x AGP, the XFX Web site at http://www.xfxforce.com/product_view.php?sku=PVT43AND#specifications says it supports 2x through 8x; and it needs a hard-drive power supply connection.

[fsgregs]

Sorry guys, but what is a hard drive power connection? Is that connection already there on a typical motherboard with its own cable connection, or is this something that requires another serparate accessory?

Frank

[maxim]

Thats completely uncritical.

Usually the power supply cable tree that comes from your motherboard has at least 4 (maybe 6) connectors attached. Two of them are usually already plugged. One to your hard disk, and one to your optical drive. If you run out of connectors for any reason, you might simply get a piece of Y-cable that doubles on of the existing connectors. That piece shouldn't cost much more than 1.50$.

You only have to pay attention that the total power input to the attached devices doesn't exceed the power output of your power supply (otherwise your computer may refuse to boot at all or may shutdown after a few seconds).

maxim

[Ptarmigan]

Be sure to get an AGP card.

Why ? why not PCIx ? What did I miss ?
:-))) Sorry to be blunt hehee, it is just that I tried to follow the thread but got lost in all the numbers !
The reason I ask is that a local company is rumoured to be about to offer a "computer system" which includes "G Force 6610 XL Graphics" according to one source.
According to another source it will be a "Bluetooth Graphics card with new PCI-Express x16 bus architecture"
Dunno what Bluetooth has got to do with it but it might be just a typo of commas.
anyhow,,,
Question: Is this the same beast as the FX6600 things that timcrews, chris and peeps have been discussing ? (I put 6610 into the search on the nvidia site but got nothing back)
What questions do I need to ask the supplier ?

(Sorry for daft questions but I got lost with graphics terminology when VESA was but a young thing ! )