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LAN Party Forums => Support Group => Started by: Czar on December 13, 2005, 06:24:33 AM

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Czar on December 13, 2005, 06:24:33 AM

::sobs in to hands::

Help me! Back in days of old.. (1999) I did my first video card upgrade from a Trident 3d card to a Diamond Stealth III .. yeah.... Hardcore right? Well. at the time, it made Quake II (yes 2) look amazing and Counter-Strike version Beta 4.2 (before the headshot logo and way before de_dust2) produces great graphics. It wasn't hard to shop for a video card then. I could've put -any- video card in that slot and had something better than the original.

Back then it was just GeForce 1, 2, then 3. Now.. Theres the all these letters next to the names. Like the GeForce 3 Ti500 that i run on my mame cabinet. I didnt shop for it..it came with the system.

Here's where I need help. Can someone find me (or make..) a list of video cards in order of `goodness`? All the SE, LE, Ultra, FX, MX, Ti, and other's confuse me! It would be easy if they just got better as the numbers go higher but I dont think its that simple:

Example, my GeForce 3 Ti500 is better than my GeForce 4 MX 440 i run in a different comp. To my uneducated self, Id expect the 4 to be better than the 3. But its clearly not.

I do recall that MX is the worst as it doesn't support that texture and shading stuff that newer games need. And..in light of my revelation that the Ti500 isnt good enough to play BF2, I need a new card. (Unless Fabio sells me one he has for cheap  :2thumbsup: )

So, please, Is a list available, nVidia or ATI..but I'd rather stick with nVidia.

Thanks!  :bigsmile:

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Fabio on December 13, 2005, 09:01:16 AM

higher end cards down...
newest nvidia series is Geforce 7... 7800GTX(best Card as of right now), 7800GT... and so on

last years line 6... 6800ultra, 6800gt(very good budget pick), 6800, 6800Le, 6600gt(secondbest Budget pick)

(All 7 & 6 series cards support SLI... as long as they are pci express)

GF 5... FX... 5950ultra?... 5900, 5700ultra, 5700le, 5600, 5200...+atleast 5 others, Ther are ALOT of cards in FX series(very over priced series)

i think they still sell Ti4200's and stuff but yea

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Czar on December 13, 2005, 09:36:16 AM

What about the SE series..or is that ATI.. and what is SLI?

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Fabio on December 13, 2005, 09:45:35 AM

se is the same as le but for ati...

Sli was first used back in the days of pci... when cards started reaching ther limits and games needed more vid power, nvidia came up with sli...

its when you plug in 2 or more pci cards and they handle the work equaly... and when agp came out ther was no need for pci anymore...

but since everything is switching of to pci-e nvidia reinvented SLi making it possible for multi card rigs agian....

so you can take 2 sli supported pci-e cards put them on an sli board and run uber video settings.

as for ati they have crossfire which is about the same thing but from what i hear theres is way more glitchy and unstable.

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Czar on December 13, 2005, 10:40:03 AM

Excellent. I think Ill be going with nVidia. Always had good luck with them

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: cuzzNkev on December 13, 2005, 11:03:03 AM

I am running two 6800 GTs in SLI and it is a sweet setup.

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: kona on December 13, 2005, 11:09:11 AM

With ATI, stay away from SE (Worse then LE)

With nVidia, stay away from MX & FX (My opinion)

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Czar on December 13, 2005, 11:54:23 AM

Yeah I know MX is cruddy. Thanks for the info everyone. I hope to get a new card soon.

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Czar on December 13, 2005, 03:57:05 PM

Wait..does it break down like this?

####Ultra
####GT
####
####LE

and

FX####
MX####

..from good to bad and does that formula work with any number?

#### == 6600 || #### == 5700

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Fabio on December 13, 2005, 07:11:49 PM

yea... sept they just added GTX in place of ultra

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: Billabond1 on December 13, 2005, 10:10:48 PM

the ti4200's where some of the best cards nvidia ever made imo.  They are rock solid and perform fairly well.  

Of course, not being dx 9 compatible makes them useless for newer games.  but still...one of the best cards ever made.

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: louber1115 on December 14, 2005, 03:20:01 PM

Just about everyone has had a couple of those ti's

Title: Video Cards: FX, MX, Ultra, SE, LE, OMG, WTF.. Educate me!
Post by: OWN3R on December 14, 2005, 08:49:18 PM

Yeah I too remember the ti series, heck I just gave away my last ti4600 to a friend of mine for his kids computer   :bigsmile:  


Here Czar, you can get anything you want at alices resturant! Oops, I mean you can find anything you want for graphics cards here: http://www.tomshardware.com/graphics/graphicscards/index.html