PCA Forums

I need a video card for my first build.

barton 2500
asus A7N8X

With thses specs and my budget, hopefully not more that 150, what would be the best card for me???
Ive looked at tons of reviews and its just making my head spin.
two that i am considering are the gf4 ti4200, or the 9600np.
Oh, and will any cards in my price range be able to play half life 2 or doom 3???
well, what do you guys think???

What about the 9600 Pro? DirectX 9 compliant and it overclocks greatly.

"Oh, and will any cards in my price range be able to play half life 2 or doom 3???" Yes, probably have to turn down the resolution and eye candy.

I just bought a Sapphire 9500 Atlantis and was able to soft mod and enable the 4 other disabled pixel pipelines .. making damn near the equivalent of a 9700.. I saw nearly a 30% increase just by installing the patch..

See here for info: http://duhvoodooman.com/9500mod/9500mod_1.htm

I bought it here for $140:
Sapphire RADEON 9500 ATLANTIS 128MB DDR AGP8X TVO/DVI (OEM/Red Board)

So far, I've only seen screen artifacts if I've tried to OC it .. I ordered a better cooling kit for the card that should be here early next week .. since the stock cooling is pretty weak.. we'll see how the OC goes then..

you want to get a dx9 compliant card

if you have something to use in the meanwhile and i'd wait until the 9500 pro drops a little more to around 125

the softmod doesn't work on all 9500/regular