9800 Pro ---> Buy a New Card or Save?

aeonrevolution

aeonrevolution

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 30, 2004
Messages
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I'm debating buyaing a 7x Series card to last another year or so until I can afford a full system build and was wondering if anyone could point me towards some benchmarks that might just have a 9800 series card stacked up against various 7x nvidia cards...

I mean for friggin $160 or so on Newegg a 7600GT really isn't that expensive but I'm not sure if its worth it...

Lemme know, thanks.
 
X850XT from a 9800se->9700pro and was happy with the jump in performance.

I'd do it.
 
aeonrevolution said:
Ergg heres the rest of my system if it matters
2.66P4
1.5gb pc2700
9800 pro
Click to expand...

My system is almost identical and over the past few months I've basically been going through the same debate that you are doing right now. Ultimately I decided to hold off till February and just do a fresh Vista system build with either R600 or G80.

The downside of that decision is that unfortunately till then I'm not playing Oblivion, Prey, NWN2, Company of Heroes,..or pretty much any other modern decent game. :( But when I finally do try Oblivion, its gonna look so nice on that system... :)

Till then I've just been playing older games that I never got to try.

BUT, if you aren't doing a new build for a year or so, then I'd take the plunge and get either a 7600GT, 1900pro or a 7800GS.
 
silentsammy said:
My system is almost identical and over the past few months I've basically been going through the same debate that you are doing right now. Ultimately I decided to hold off till February and just do a fresh Vista system build with either R600 or G80.

But...the downside of that decision unfortunately till then I'm not playing Oblivion, Prey, NWN2, Company of Heroes,..or pretty much any other modern decent game. :( But when I finally do try Oblivion, its gonna look so nice on that system... :)

Till then I've just been playing older games that I never got to try.
Click to expand...

I really love your approach, its a nice balance. To the OP, If you can't do this then I'd get the 7 series, it would be a huge upgrade for you visually. Also, check around and see what the fastest processor you can get into your system is. A lot of those p4 chips are selling on various websites like the fs\ft forums or ebay for a very reasonable price. quite a few 4778 boards supported 3+ ghz procs with a bios upgrade.

Finally, i notice you've got 1.5g ram. If you system supports it, make sure you are running the ram in dual channel mode for maximum performance.
 
I'm not familiar with Intel chipsets - any PCI-E + DDR chipsets that he could migrate his P4 and RAM over to?

AGP cards are so expensive that you gotta consider saving towards a new cheap system. You could get a used Athlon 64 like my 3000+ for $30, run it at 4000+ speeds on a $50 motherboard. That's like $80 total, then you can shop cheap PCI-E cards.
 
Varmint said:
I'm not familiar with Intel chipsets - any PCI-E + DDR chipsets that he could migrate his P4 and RAM over to?

AGP cards are so expensive that you gotta consider saving towards a new cheap system. You could get a used Athlon 64 like my 3000+ for $30, run it at 4000+ speeds on a $50 motherboard. That's like $80 total, then you can shop cheap PCI-E cards.
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Good point about the cheap a64 upgrade... very nice performance out of that too... regarding moving the p4 over there's no option.. The ddr wouldn't be a problem since there are a couple of boards that allow that but none for s478 unfortunately.
 
dekard said:
Finally, i notice you've got 1.5g ram. If you system supports it, make sure you are running the ram in dual channel mode for maximum performance.
Click to expand...



Yeah I originally had 2gb of ram but one of the sticks was defective and crapped out :(
 
aeonrevolution said:
Yeah I originally had 2gb of ram but one of the sticks was defective and crapped out :(
Click to expand...

running in dual channel mode will have a pretty big impact on your framerate on those systems. Even if you had to drop to 1 gig you'd get higher framerates in most games by doing this. If you are playing bf2, wow or other ram heavy games then you need more... your call.
 
Nah I gave up BF2...I'm mostly wanting to upgrade for Quake Wars. Whats crazy though is Quake 4 and Prey run friggin amazing and look spectacular compared to the drab and boring BF2 which ran like crap! Prey runs completely smooth at 1024x768 High 2xaa w/ the shader type on High.

I'm hoping to get a 20.1"lcd for myself on christmas, depends on my tuition payments :mad: , so I doubt my 9800 pro will suffice at 1280x...
 
aeonrevolution said:
Okay I'm going to pull the trigger and grab a 7600GS. Newegg has a decent selection I suppose...can anyone recommend one out of these?

[a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Category=38&N=2010380048+1069609639+1305520548+106790717+1067920619&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=48"]Link[/a]


Also a question thats been bugging me for ages now....

My 9800 Pro memory interface is 256-bit. It seems a lot of the newer cards are all 128-bit....what gives?
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faster memory on the newer chips... cheaper.. etc...
 
Dont buy a card that has 128bit memory, they may be faster in lower resolutions but when you turn it up they chug like a mofo.

~Adam
 
CleanSlate said:
Dont buy a card that has 128bit memory, they may be faster in lower resolutions but when you turn it up they chug like a mofo.

~Adam
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I'll probably stay at 1024x768 or 1152x864 so it doesn't sound like the 128bit memory thing would affect me much.

So...7600GS it is for around $130. Would you guys recommend the Chaintech over the Leadtek? The Chaintech is on sale for $119


This is off topic but can anyone recommend a $20-30 sound card? I've still got integrated and figured a generic audio card wouldn't hurt while I'm at it.
 
I'm in a similar situation with a lesser system and card. :/ I'm just holding off, it'll be more money for my new build.
 
aeonrevolution said:
This is off topic but can anyone recommend a $20-30 sound card? I've still got integrated and figured a generic audio card wouldn't hurt while I'm at it.
Click to expand...

EVERY soundcard I've ever had has caused random crashes, IRQ issue I think but I could never get them to run right. I just usually stick to motherboards with good sound already installed. (A note to look at for your next build).

Oh and I've been building computers for about 8 years now, I'm no noob. All the tricks I've read about haven't helped and tech support never helped either. I've tried 3 different sound cards from soundblaster.

~Adam
 
dont aim for anything less than 7600 GS AGP. anything lower is less performance on the AGP front. and a waste of money.

I am in the same ship. I have a 9800 Pro AiW with a 256-Bit interface. and in all seriousness, only a 7600, 7900 or 1600 Pro 256MB is worth the upgrade. my 9800 pro plays games I didnt think it could handle 32 -bit, 1280 x 1024, all goodies on.

my system specs below.
 
I also realize the I own an ATi AIW 9800 Pro. with 128 MB ram, and a 256-Bit interface memory setup.

almost every other video card Ive seen short of 7900 and 7950 nvidias show the flaw of smaller memory interface.

When will they get it? 256-Bit is a no brainer?

for the OP, get a 7900 AGP, its the only card spec and performance wise worth the money. wait for black Friday. 7600 and 7900 are $70-100
 
You can always try and find a 7800GS for cheap, it has a 256 bit memory bus and is AGP. I haven't seen one for less than $200 yet.
 
dekard said:
running in dual channel mode will have a pretty big impact on your framerate on those systems. Even if you had to drop to 1 gig you'd get higher framerates in most games by doing this. If you are playing bf2, wow or other ram heavy games then you need more... your call.
Click to expand...


As a builder and tester of many systems and many different types of systems, dual channel is pure fantasy when it comes to improving your gaming performance. Your memory bandwidth will vastly improve, but it won't do you a damn bit of good. You'll never even come close to using half of it.

You are an idiot, dekard, telling him that dropping to 1 gig dual channel is better than 2 gigs without dual channel. Unless, of course, you intentionally want to mislead the dude.


Dopes in this forum......DOPES.


Your wasting your money, hoping a 7600 GS will give you improvement. A P4 at 2.66 GHz ins't strong enough to give you the best bang for your buck out of that card. You can get an AMD 64+ CPU / Mobo combo for 90 bucks at Newegg, keep all your other stuff and get better performance with the 9800 Pro than with a p4 2.66 and a 7600 GS. The only possible thing the GS will help you with on a p4 2.66 is the frame buffer...

P4's are for offices and soccer moms. Pure garbage...much like the dum-dums on these message boards.
 
Meh I already ordered the 7600GS a few days ago.

And yeah I have the same 128mb 256-bit 9800 pro. It runs everything except FEAR fine at medium to medium/high'ish right now at 800x600 or 1024x768 just fine.

The problem being that I'm going to be getting a 20" LCD soon and the 9800pro won't cut it at higher resolutions.





So when I go to swap the video cards should I uninstall all ATI stuff first? Or does it even matter...When I went from the fx5200 to the 9800 pro I think i just swapped the cards haha :D
 
aeonrevolution said:
Meh I already ordered the 7600GS a few days ago.

And yeah I have the same 128mb 256-bit 9800 pro. It runs everything except FEAR fine at medium to medium/high'ish right now at 800x600 or 1024x768 just fine.

The problem being that I'm going to be getting a 20" LCD soon and the 9800pro won't cut it at higher resolutions.





So when I go to swap the video cards should I uninstall all ATI stuff first? Or does it even matter...When I went from the fx5200 to the 9800 pro I think i just swapped the cards haha :D
Click to expand...


These "experts" will tell you to get a driver cleaner. I honestly never saw any difference. And with a 20" LCD, you're gonna be wanting a whole lot more than a 7600 GS. Unless you like a large workspace and only dabble in occasional gaming, of course. The only video card I ever owned that ran FEAR really well is the one I have now- 8800 GTS. Even my 7900 SLI system didn't run it the way it should be run....
 
aeonrevolution said:
Meh I already ordered the 7600GS a few days ago.

And yeah I have the same 128mb 256-bit 9800 pro. It runs everything except FEAR fine at medium to medium/high'ish right now at 800x600 or 1024x768 just fine.

The problem being that I'm going to be getting a 20" LCD soon and the 9800pro won't cut it at higher resolutions.





So when I go to swap the video cards should I uninstall all ATI stuff first? Or does it even matter...When I went from the fx5200 to the 9800 pro I think i just swapped the cards haha :D
Click to expand...


There are some folks who religiously run driver cleaner before installing new drivers. I've never been one of those, guess things just go right for me... Its certainly not a bad idea though.
 
CleanSlate said:
X850XT from a 9800se->9700pro and was happy with the jump in performance.

I'd do it.
Click to expand...
I was happy with that upgrade too, x800 only goes for 99 bucks at CompUSA and its a nice jump for AGP system.
 
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