19 inch crt monitor

[targa_997]

Originally Posted by jeffy777

Real gamers have nice graphics cards, so it's all good

If you need to spend $400 a year for a graphic card to be a "real gamer"...

[Kip_6666]

Originally Posted by targa_997

If you need to spend $400 a year for a graphic card to be a "real gamer"...

I think I'm a real gamer, and i spend 100 euros per year on a graphics card, each year.

Buy a card at about 200 euros, then a year later buy another 200 euro vid card, then sell the old one at %50


And to think if i look back that I've "wasted" so much money :/

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by targa_997

If you need to spend $400 a year for a graphic card to be a "real gamer"...

That's not true. You can buy a card for less than $200 that can support 1600 X 1200 and give you great performance

[targa_997]

Originally Posted by jeffy777

That's not true. You can buy a card for less than $200 that can support 1600 X 1200 and give you great performance

I have a Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 for $250, for which I unlocked the pipelines and increase the frequencies, now it's faster than a X850 XT PE (the X850 XT PE was the best video cards up to Q3 of 2005, and costed at list $500).

I played TES IV: Oblivion and I can barely use all the options @ 1280x1024, so I prefered use 1024x768 with full options for a better image quality.

And it's not a problem of CPU nor RAM: I have an Athlon X2 4200+ and 2GB of RAM.

[Kip_6666]

Originally Posted by targa_997

I have a Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 for $250, for which I unlocked the pipelines and increase the frequencies, now it's faster than a X850 XT PE (the X850 XT PE was the best video cards up to Q3 of 2005, and costed at list $500).

I played TES IV: Oblivion and I can barely use all the options @ 1280x1024, so I prefered use 1024x768 with full options for a better image quality.

And it's not a problem of CPU nor RAM: I have an Athlon X2 4200+ and 2GB of RAM.

What was a $250 card then is now a $100 card. I went from a x800xtPE to a x1950Pro.

Big difference, specialy with some newer games. Thing that really bugged me with my old card was that i couldn't play the new splinter cell and rainbow 6. Won't even start because the card doesn't support shader model 3.0
But except for that most games run fine with the x800 series.

But a few, Fear, Oblivion and some other new games you'll have to take a step back.

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by Kip_6666

What was a $250 card then is now a $100 card. I went from a x800xtPE to a x1950Pro.

Yeah targa_997, if you were to pay $250 for that card now, you'd be nuts. I bought an X800 GTO almost a year ago for just over $100.

You can get an X1950 Pro from newegg for under $200:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102061

....and the Ultimate version (better cooler, etc.) is only 10 bucks more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102070

And the native res on both of my 19" LCDs is 1280 x 1024

[targa_997]

Originally Posted by jeffy777

Yeah targa_997, if you were to pay $250 for that card now, you'd be nuts. I bought an X800 GTO almost a year ago for just over $100.

You can get an X1950 Pro from newegg for under $200:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102061

....and the Ultimate version (better cooler, etc.) is only 10 bucks more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102070

And the native res on both of my 19" LCDs is 1280 x 1024

I bought it when it was just out on the market, the normal GTO was $200-$230 and this specific model, the Sapphire GTO2, was $240-250 because it had the same chip as the X850 XT and XT PE (4 pipelines were unactivated but not broken, so just flashing it and using ATI Tool to increase frequencies, it ended faster than an X850 XT PE).

Therefore I wasn't nuts to pay at most $50 more to have a card as performant as a $600 card!

And I won't buy a card until the DirectX 10 gen.

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by targa_997

Therefore I wasn't nuts to pay at most $50 more to have a card as performant as a $600 card!

I know, I know.....I said if you bought the card now for that price, you'd be nuts. It is no longer worth what you paid for it. The point is that if you spend the same money now (and even less money), you will get much better performance at 1600 x 1200 res.

So your proposed notion that a person has to spend $400 to have that performance is not true.

Again, for emphasis:

You can get an X1950 Pro from newegg for under $200:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102061

....and the Ultimate version (better cooler, etc.) is only 10 bucks more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102070

I rest my case