A Great Alternative To GeForce Cards
Written: Jul 31 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Incredibly Fast, 64 MB DDR, plays most new games with perfect frame rates
Cons: Drivers are buggy, annoying fan
The Bottom Line: This card is a great alternative to the expensive GeForce 2 cards and maybe even GeForce 3 cards. You won't be disappointed.
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| shadowmcshadow's Full Review: ATI Radeon 64MB DDR |
ATI has never been taken seriously by gamers for their video cards. They were bug ridden and always many steps behind nVidia's offerings. So when the ATI Radeon came out most people didn't look twice. Why would they, with their past, and the fact that a perfectly good card was already out: The GeForce 2. However, even now that the prices of GeForce 2's a lowering (because of the new GeForce 3) they still can be very expensive. The GeForce 2 Ultra's are still fairly expensive ($350-450). So you might be looking for a cheaper alternative. Well right now, the cheapest I found the ATI Radeon 64 MB DDR for was $150. That's pretty cheap for a very good card. But how good is it? It is in my opinion much better than a GeForce 2 card, and even rivals the expensive Ultras.
The Radeon installs like any other video card. You open the side of your computer and unplug your old video card. Then you plug the Radeon where the old one used to be. Make sure your motherboard has a AGP graphics port though, otherwise you're screwed. Most computers do, however.
Software Installation is fairly easy. After installing my drivers it said I had to restart my computer. I pressed ok, and the computer froze. I was pretty worried, but when I turned my computer off and restarted it, everything worked out fine.
Two problems though: Upgrading the drivers can be buggy, and when I tried to my computer froze a few times. I had to start my computer in safe mode, delete all video drivers except for the generic VGA ones, restart, and then start all over again. However, this has only happened to me so far (because other people aren't complaining about this happening to them), so this shouldn't stop you from buying the card.
Secondly, the card has a tiny fan, which is probably drowned out by your computer's larger fan. When I do homework or need some peace and quite, I would put my computer on standby instead of turning it off. All fans and other noises would shut off, except now the little fan on my Radeon does not! Whenever my computer is on standby I hear an annoying little whirring sound, which ruins the purpose of me putting my computer in standby mode altogether. This can probably be fixed someway, but I still haven't heard of any way to do so.
The memory clock speed on the Radeon runs at 183 MHz, which is pretty fast, but using PowerStrip I safely changed the clock speed to 200.3 MHz. This definitely makes games run faster. Speaking of which, if you like computer games, you will not be disappointed by the ATI Radeon. Games like Unreal Tournament run of highest graphics at a silky 60 fps. Even games that run notoriously slow, such as Deus Ex, run at about 40 fps.
That's probably the only reason you'll get a new video card anyway, for games. If you buy it for video or graphics editing, you won't be disappointed either. Honestly, this card rivals anything short of a brand new GeForce 3. Even compared to a $500 GeForce 3, the card still compares admirably. And since they only go for $150 - $180, I would buy one if I was you and looking for very fast card without spending a crapload of money. I don't care how much you love video games, who the hell spends $500 on a video card?! If you are seriously thinking about getting a $500 GeForce 3, I would strongly recommend you buy this card instead, and with the extra $350 buy 512 MB of RAM, surround sound speakers, a new sound card, and a cordless optical mouse. You'll be much better off, trust me.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
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Epinions.com ID:
shadowmcshadow
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Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 8 members
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