Need video card advice

[faye]

Dear Josh,

I am on the verge of buying a new pc, which will be used mainly for games. One of my main requirements is that the Sims 2 will run on it (smoothly). My question is, which one of these two video cards would you recommend?

It's going between:

Asus V9560 TD / 256Mb FX5600 8X TV-Out
256Mb FX5600 8X TV-Out, DVI, 2eVGA

and:

Sapphire ATI 9600 Pro
AGP Tv-out DVI 128mb DDR Retail

As you can see one is GeForce, one is Radeon. A friend who knows about computers recommended the second one to me, but I'd really like a second opinion. Thanks in advance,

Faye

[ManagerJosh]

ASUS V9560-TD/128MB 8XAGP GEFORCE FX5600 DDR W/TV&D and
eVGA FX5600

I would recommend going for a card that supports 256MB DDR Ram on the board. It costs slighly more, however more chance it won't have a massive struggle when generating graphics during gameplay.

Though most cards today may not take full advantage of the 256MB of RAM, its worth having for now because you can take advantage of its power in the future when gaming graphics because advance.

I personally would recommend ASUS and eVGA because they are BOTH superb companies.

An ATI Radeon 9600 is great, however I'm worried about the memory primarily. 128MB won't last you for about 2 years and as The Sims 2 advances even further, it may put extra strain. RAM will help you offset the strain quite a bit.

Price Information with Top Micro Distributions: (http://www.topmic.com)
Asus V9560TD/256 - $178.49
eVGA - No data available currently
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 Pro - $161.99

One other possible alternative you might want to consider is the MSI GeForce FX 5600-VTD256 AGP8X 256MB DDR DVI & VIVO that goes for $190.99 at Top Micro Distributions

MSI has been known on their cards to outdo their competitors in performance on their cards.

[faye]

Thanks :)

The funny thing is that at the store I'm buying, these two cards cost exactly the same amount of money, which is 169 Euros (I'm in Europe). Isn't that weird?

[ManagerJosh]

Indeed that is unusual.