Which card should I purchase.

Hi im new to the forums and Im sort of in a hap right now of which card I should purchase.
The ATI Radeon 9600SE, or the PNY GEFORCE FX 5200

I think they both may be equal.. except the PNY has an unlimited warranty which is drawing me to the pny side, and ATI's gfx comes with a free half life 2(which i already preordered)..

My system specifications are 512sdram p4 1.5ghz windows xp home (beta)

any opinions would be greatly appreciated also I plan to use the card to play intense computer games.


AND right now i have a PNY geforce fx 5200 PCI installed on my comp im like half satisfied with.. so im going to take it back

Stay away from the Radeon 9600SE. It's basically a regular 9600 with half of its memory bandwidth disabled.

Given your two choices, go with the PNY card. Go for a real 9600 if you have the money.

Gee, I don't know where to begin here.
First of all, you need to swap out that old Willamette core P4 for a Northwood, 2.0GHz or so. That's holding back lots of performance there. And why a beta verson of Windows? GEE!

Ok, the video card. I'm assuming both of those cards cost right at $100. Well, you should get the FX5600, which is the same price, but faster.

See here: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-170-039&depa=0

If this forum didn't ban me from swearing I would say a few things about Radeon but I'll keep it clean.
I gather your price range is $100.00 or so abouts? So
Definetly go with Nvidia and make sure it's DDR RAM.
The only Problem I see in your choice is It's PNY.
PNY has a backlog of 5200's returned for repair.
Albatron 5600's seem to be pretty good.They are 96 bucks @ NewEgg.com.
Have you looked there? Also Tiger Direct.com has pretty good Deals too.
Give both places a scan.But for the money the 5600 over the 5200 is the better idea.

if you have enough cash, buy MSI fx5900xt, or some second-hand Radeon 9800 (se, pro, xt)