Msi vid card

[Xelnein]

Hello,
i am going to be buying a new card for hl2 somewhere in the next 124 days 8) . . . I have built my own computer before, the one i am using now, quite a few months ago - and one of the few things i didn't buy that was near the top was a video card. it was given to me from a friend who upgraded to 128 gf, and gave me his old geforce 2, 64 megs.
it has worked fine for what i have had to use it for, ie counter-strike....war3... bw... et cetra.. but now that i am addicted to hl2 and wish for it to run quite flawlessly i'm willing to make a decent investment into a new card.
here are my specs.

Amd xp2000+
MSI KT4-Ultra FISR mobo
512 ddr 2100 (one stick- 2 spots left in mobo)
64mg gf2
C-Media 8738MX 6-channel audio
40gig 7200 maxtor - 120gig slave maxtor - 7200( not installed yet)
Gigabit LAN
48x16x48cdrw cendyne

and this is the card i am considering:
MSI FX5600-TD256 AGP 8X 256MB DDR Video Card w/TV-Out & DVI Retail
i've found it for 202.00 at newegg and that seems to be the lowest so far... i do not have all of the money to spend on it yet so i imagine it would come down a bit more durring the summer - or more so the 124 more days 8-O . . . will it help that it is an msi card going to an msi board or does that even matter/ is this card good and going to last me at least a few years?

any help is very much appreciated,
thanks,
zach.


p.s...YES i have read the other threads, and i DO plan on waiting at least 2-3 months before buying.

p.s.s...hl2, as we all know, was at e3 w/ radeon.. will it run better then nv..?

p.s.s.s...i know i don't NeeD this Much to run hl2, but how about hl3? heh. j/p. thanks for your time.

 

[Jagermeister]

Yea, that should be a pretty good card for HL2. You can't go wrong with the 256MB version.

 

[Xelnein]

...

can anybody answer any of those questions?
;(
also.. i can't seem to find any decently priced radeons in the 256MB range....... how much difference will 256 make over a 128 for hl2?

 

[Jagermeister]

"... is this card good and going to last me at least a few years?"

It's DX9 compatible, so atleast that's something. But with newer and faster cards comming out every 6 months who knows.

"... p.s.s...hl2, as we all know, was at e3 w/ radeon.. will it run better then nv..?"

A Radeon 9700 or 9800 will run better than your 5600. If you don't mind spending an additional $50 then I recommend that you get a 9700 pro. Cheapest I've seen is $245.

" ... also.. i can't seem to find any decently priced radeons in the 256MB range....... how much difference will 256 make over a 128 for hl2?"

There should be a difference, but not a miracle of a difference. I've been trying to look for reviews and benchmarks for the MSI FX5600-TD256, but only found reviews for the 128MB version of the MSI 5600. In almost all tests, a Ti4200 128MB beat the 5600 128MB. The only time the 5600 beat the Ti4200 was when they enabled AA in the tests.

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/msi_geforce_fx5600-vtdr128_review/page5.asp

 

[Ridic]

what ever you do do not buy a 5600. get the 5800, 5900, or an ati 9800 pro, or an ati 9700 pro. the 5600 is the worst new card out.....apart from reading reviews, my buddy has one and its horrible...in some areas my ti 4200 beats it. do not buy a 5600

 

[Hammer]

The GeForce FX 5600 has seen a lot of changes in between the product announcement and the early tests, and the actual delivery. Nvidia "flipped" the chip packaging on 5600s to permit a clockspeed boost and vendors like MSI started bundling the cards with 256MB of RAM.

It's not a bad card. However, it does not have the eight pixel pipes of a Radeon 9500 Pro or 9700 non-Pro, which are both very close in price to this card. The ATi cards have very definite advantages in technology, and also have more headroom in their single-texturing performance for improvement as their drivers mature. These areas are the most relevent for future games. By contrast, the Nvidia GF FX 5600 chipset is pretty efficient in single-texturing, but has room to grow in multi-texturing. In other words, as the 5600 gets older, it will be better for older games. That's a mixed blessing.

It doesn't matter if your mainboard and graphics card are built by the same manufacturer: the main thing is to buy both from a good quality company. I run an MSI mainboard now, and love it. MSI makes good products at a decent price.

Note:

ATi is widely reported to have taped-out new versions of both their high-end and mainstream chips, so by the time you buy in two months or so, those newer ATi cards will be coming to market, giving you the option of buying one of these better-performing cards, or taking advantage of the lower prices on the other cards.

To be honest, I wouldn't buy a 5600 unless it was an Ultra, and unless it came with some memory I could clock the hell out of. Of course, by the time I paid for that kind of card - I could buy a better ATi card...

 

[Xelnein]

thank you.