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5900XT or ATI 9800pro

J

Jader88

Member
I Need to upgrade my card. Im running Unreal tournement 2004 with an NVIDIA Gforce 3 TI200 and i can barely get a decent framerate at 800 X 600 resolution with the in game shadows turned off.

What should I buy, a 5900XT or 9800pro. I want a card thats reliable, that can play UT2004 with high resolution and framrates.


Heres my system specs:

Intel Pentium 4 1.6 Ghz
756 PC800 RDRAM
Lian li PC60
Plextor CDRW
Xtasy Geforce 3 ti200
Creative Audigy gamer
Windows XP Pro
 
Originally posted by: JiggaJohn
would it be a good idea to upgrade now or to wait for the next line of cards?
Click to expand...
With an Athlon XP at 2.2GHz and an FX5900 at 475/950 I'm CPU bound in almost any game or benchmark, so I'd get the 9800 Pro now or the CPU now and wait for the prices to drop on 9800 Pros.
 
What about the Drivers on the 9800 pros. Arent they more unstable than the Nvidia drivers on the 5900xt.

And I cant buy more memory for my system, its too expensive. I dont get it, isint RDRAM obsolete? why is it still expensive when everyone has jumped to DDR memory
 
Originally posted by: Jader88
What about the Drivers on the 9800 pros. Arent they more unstable than the Nvidia drivers on the 5900xt.

And I cant buy more memory for my system, its too expensive. I dont get it, isint RDRAM obsolete? why is it still expensive when everyone has jumped to DDR memory
Click to expand...
ATI's drivers aren't bad, and the reason RDRAM is so expensive is because everyone shifted to DDR, making it pretty rare (not to mention Rambus' licensing fees). You've got enough memory, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Wow. My Geforce 4 Mx420 can run UT2k4 on 1024x768 with "normal" settings with a constant ~35 Framerate.

Don't know what your card's problem is :/
 
9800 non-pro for $173 could be a good compromise.

- You can most likely overclock it very close to 9800Pro speeds and save about $30 in the process

But

- It is true your CPU is a tad slow and a faster one would help out in FPS games but to upgrade the CPu u'd need a new motherboard, a new cpu and new ram making it very costly indeed. This is a tough call since I dont know what you are willing to spend. If your budget only permits getting a new videocard, then you'll either have to choose between a fast videocard or a faster cpu + ram + motherboard (this latter option will even cost you more). See what the fastest cpu your motherboard supports and then try to make a compromise and see if you can scrape extra $100 to get the faster CPu if that is possible so you do not have to buy new 512mb DDR ram and new motherboard on top of the cpu ugprade. You'll still have to spend a bit more to have a balanced setup.

Still if I was really on a tight budget and could afford only 1 option, I'd get a faster graphics card since it will give you more improvement per $ spent, but unfortunately you would not utilize it fully with a 1.6ghz p4.

Finally your last option would involve getting a new motherboard, new ram and a new cpu and waiting for either a) the current generation cards to drop down in price once the new NV40 and R420 come into retail or b) end up upgrading later when you finally have the money to get the NV40 or whatever card you desire of course now leaving your geforce 3 struggling in games like Far Cry.
 
i believe if only upgrading videocard, a 9800pro will give u more performance gain.
of course like everyword RussianSensation said is right( and i hear this all the time.)

u will need to balance ur videocard and cpu. either way will not give u a huge gain, only both will.

the downside is money..
wait till r420 and nv40, and look for 9800p. it will be $400 or more for the newer cards.

like my setup, i don't even bother gaming.😉
 
My motherboard is an Intel D850GB. THe fastest chip it can support is 2.0, would that really give me an edge over 1.6 ghz in games like ut2004. I leave my computer on a lot, almost all day, so will that be a problem if i get the 9800pro, because ive heard of overheating problems.

 
only 400mhz, and it is p4 1st gen cpu, it won't do much.

get at least 2.8 in intel or axp in amd.

u turn on the computer alot almost all day, does it work all day, i don't think so, so overheating i think it is not a problem for r9800p

better ventilation on the case will do the work.
 
I'd hold off and grab a GeForce 6800NU for $299 when they come out if you can wait until around June or so. Of course, I'm expecting some MAJOR price drops once the 6800s are readily available. I figure the 5950's will turn into midrange parts briefly before they disappear, so you might be able to snag one for around $200-$250, and this downward price move will probably force the 5900NU card down below $150 level and might make the 5700 a sub-$100 part. The big question is what will happen to parts like the 5500, which are going to wind up being so cheap that the 5200 cards will have to be sold FAR to get them out the door (which I wouldn't put past OfficeMax).

There are way too many versions of the FX series cards floating around in the retail channels now and they already are competing against each other, like the 5900NU eating into the sales of the 5700 because they are so close together in price, that it is going to take a fire sale to get a lot of inventory cleared out. It is a heck of a lot worse than when I picked up my 4200 Ti for a song last year, since back then there only really was the 4600 Ti and 4200 Ti to worry about since the 4400 had already faded from sight by the time the FX cards were introduced. Take into account the flood of 5900 and 9800-series cards that will be hitting the FS/FT forum shortly and eating into the sales of the retail cards, and I think a lot of retailers will be desperate to get the FX cards off of the shelves.

And this is not even taking into consideration what ATi plans to do when the X800 cards hit the shelves.

I'd hold off and suffer with your GF3 Ti 200 for a little longer until all the new pricing gets sorted out. Right now it looks like anyone buying a new card right now is going to be kicking themselves in a month or so for not waiting.
 
Originally posted by: Jader88
My motherboard is an Intel D850GB. THe fastest chip it can support is 2.0, would that really give me an edge over 1.6 ghz in games like ut2004. I leave my computer on a lot, almost all day, so will that be a problem if i get the 9800pro, because ive heard of overheating problems.
Click to expand...

Only if you leave it looping 3DMark2003 while you're gone. Even then if you have a well ventilated case and the ambient temp's not too high you should be fine. When just displaying 2D graphics, it doesn't put a lot of strain on the GPU, so the graphics card hardly heats up at all.
 
You need a new CPU BAD!

The 1.6ghz is a Wilamette core, and is equal to about a 933mhz pentium 3. Its crippled by tiny cache and low fsb.

I strongly suggest a CPU/Mobo upgrade before you get a graphics card. Youre probably cpu limited on that geforce 3.
 
I had a fx5900se and now have a 9800pro. There is absolutely no comparison using aa and af which anyone wants to use esp with a good card. Get a 9800 pro. If you are worried about heat then get the his iceq. It is a very nice card, I have one. Also I have a similar system albeit its amd. I had a gf3 ti500, 1.6 xp, audigy gamer. I upgraded to the 5900se and had a good performance gain. Upgraded to 2.0ghz xp and not as great gain but decent. Got rid of 5900se and got the iceq and have very very good performance compared to what I had. Some stock benches 3dm 2001: 1.6xp gf3ti500: 7900; 1.6xp 5900se: 11000; 2.0xp 5900se: 12000; 2.0xp 9800p: 13400 When going from nvidia to ati, I ran driver cleaner3 in safe mode (selecting nvidia in the dropdown box) after uninstalling the nvidia driver. Installed the ATI and have had no crashes and very stable. As evidenced by the benches there was not much gain from upgrading 1.6-2.0ghz but there was a significant jump with the video card upgrade. If I had limited budget I would upgrade the video card and wait till I had time and money to upgrade cpu, motherboard and memory. I would argue that our main limiting is from the slow frontside bus, I have 266-a via chipset. With my present system I run Battlefield Vietnam all high settings, 4xaa, 8xaf and get 55-110 range of fps depending on the scenery and action which is pretty darn good and needless to say its very smooth.
IceQ 9800P
 
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