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9700 Pro still a viable card?

A

Agentbolt

Diamond Member
Got a quick question:

I need to decide on either a 9700 Pro video card (which would basically be free, because of a 140 dollar refund I received for a previous card that died) or spending the extra 50 or so dollars for a 9800 Pro.

Some people have told me the 9700 Pro is definitely the way to go, and when overclocked it beats a stock 9800 Pro (the 128 MB 9800 Pro, anyways) Is there any way this can be true? The 9700 Pro is like 3 years old with an R300 core, it can't really be that close in performance in newer DirectX 9 games, can it? Will it still be a useable card a year from now?

Others say the 9700 Pro is showing its age and in newer games is getting badly beaten by the 9800 Pro and even the 9600 Pro, and will not be a viable card in 6 months.

Of course, pretty much everyone is telling me to get a 6600GT, but good luck finding one of THOSE in AGP right now :disgust:
 
It depends, a 9700 Pro will definitely beat a 9600 Pro or XT, and is fine for Doom3 engine games at 800x600 and Half-Life 2 / Source engine at 1024x768. Maybe D3 at 1024x768 if you can overclock without getting artifacts.

If you insist on 1024x768 or higher all the time, then you probably need to go ahead and get the 6600GT ($220-250) or even a plain 6800 ($250-280).
 
Look, I'll put it this way my 9800 pro = 25 frames better than my friend's 9700. Plus in all likelihood you will get a 9800 capable of flashing to the XT bios, which is a noticble preformance jump. Hope that helps. And for the record the 9800 wll run Source on 16X12
 
Take the 9700 Pro. Difference between it and 9800 Pro is not worth worrying about and it's much faster than 9600 Pro. It's still very viable card.
 
The one thing that would deter me from getting a 9700 Pro is thier physical age. Your right most of them are probably 3 or so years old and buying a used one while it may last awhile it has a pretty good chance of dying at that age esspecially with some of the dopes that OC that crap out of them. I stilll think they are decent cards obviously they can't play games at the highiest settings anymore but they should still be faster than most peoples cards and be able to run at ok eye candy.
 
I have a GeForce 3 Ti and I've been wondering the same myself, "should i get a 9700 or 9800" as my next upgrade.

Considering that I am running a 2 yr old setup (AMD Athlon 1600+, 768 MB of some kind of DDR) can I even dream of playing Doom 3 or HL2 smoothly with anything less than a 6800?

Judging from the Anand articles all these GPU cards are so CPU bound that I don't even think a 6800 Ultra would run HL2 at 1680x1050 (widescreen LCD native res) on my comp. Am I right?
 
Originally posted by: Cryption
I have a GeForce 3 Ti and I've been wondering the same myself, "should i get a 9700 or 9800" as my next upgrade.

Considering that I am running a 2 yr old setup (AMD Athlon 1600+, 768 MB of some kind of DDR) can I even dream of playing Doom 3 or HL2 smoothly with anything less than a 6800?

Judging from the Anand articles all these GPU cards are so CPU bound that I don't even think a 6800 Ultra would run HL2 at 1680x1050 (widescreen LCD native res) on my comp. Am I right?
Click to expand...

Basically, yes.

A new 6800 would do wonders for you machine, but you will be severly CPU bound. More like a 6600GT for your rig and you'll still be a bit CPU bound.
 
Wow, lots of replies, thanks guys.

That's the basic problem I'm running into. I obviously checked Anandtech's card roundup for the latest games (Doom III, Half Life, whatever) and THEY seem to show the 9700 Pro being only 5-8 FPS behind the 9800 Pro most of the time, but a lot of people like Zeke are saying it's more like 30 FPS. 5-8 isn't worth the extra 50 bucks and time I'd have to wait, 30 is. With a 3200+ Barton CPU I'm probably going to run into CPU problems before I could really push a 600GT, and I really don't have more than 50 to spend right now anyways on the replacement card.
 
You can't really just say "it's X fps faster"... There are just too many variables.

I have three rigs... Two have 9800 PROs and one has a 9700 PRO. The 9700 is definitely still a viable card and will be in six months. But the 9800 is definitely a faster card.

Now the statement "Some people have told me the 9700 Pro is definitely the way to go, and when overclocked it beats a stock 9800 Pro..." is incredibly flawed because if you are overclocking, you are going to also overclock the 9800 PRO and it will be significantly faster.

I'd vote for spending the $50. But if it's not in your budget or is a huge hassle for ya, don't sweat it. It's not like you'll be unhappy with the 9700 PRO. 🙂
 
Now the statement "Some people have told me the 9700 Pro is definitely the way to go, and when overclocked it beats a stock 9800 Pro..." is incredibly flawed because if you are overclocking, you are going to also overclock the 9800 PRO and it will be significantly faster.
Click to expand...

Whoopsie, sorry for the misunderstanding. What I meant by that statement was that, in essence, I was being told "Buy a 9700 Pro, OC it, and then you'll have a 9800 Pro" I don't really believe that statement just because the architecture is SO much older than the 9800 Pro that there's got to be some other differences.

However, I think I'll just go with the 9700 and have it limp me through Doom III and Halo, then in a year or two when I'm rich/famous I'll just grab a hopefully 170 dollar 6600 🙂 Thanks for the advice, folks.
 
The 9800 pro is about 10% to 15% faster then a 9700 pro according to most benchmarks. (check out some 9800 pro reviews if you don't believe be).


If it was a free 9700 or $50 for a 9800, I would save the $50 and use it towards my upgrade to a next gen card down the road.

(I currently have a 9700 pro in my main rig, and it plays everything out there pretty well.)

 
Go with the 9700, especially with the 9800 being $50 more - it's only a bit faster.

Originally posted by: Zeke
Look, I'll put it this way my 9800 pro = 25 frames better than my friend's 9700. Plus in all likelihood you will get a 9800 capable of flashing to the XT bios, which is a noticble preformance jump. Hope that helps. And for the record the 9800 wll run Source on 16X12
Click to expand...

I dunno, I keep reading that just overclocking the pro is as good as the bios flash, unless you're talking the 256mb version. Much safer too.
 
VERY rarely can a 9700 Pro even reach 9800 pro clocks, and the 9800 gpu can be as much as 30% faster clock for clock then the 9700 gpu when you enable aa/af. You must take this into consideration.

And yes, a 9700 Pro now will last you a good while.

Just for some info, my 9800 Pro 128MB at stock clocks plays doom 3 at 1024X768 at ULTRA settings with 16XAF at 50+fps 90% of the time.
 
If you're intrested in overclocking them, grab the 9800 Pro. If you plan on leaving things at stock, go with the 9700.

No, I didn't put that backwards.
 
Originally posted by: Agentbolt
Wow, lots of replies, thanks guys.

That's the basic problem I'm running into. I obviously checked Anandtech's card roundup for the latest games (Doom III, Half Life, whatever) and THEY seem to show the 9700 Pro being only 5-8 FPS behind the 9800 Pro most of the time, but a lot of people like Zeke are saying it's more like 30 FPS. 5-8 isn't worth the extra 50 bucks and time I'd have to wait, 30 is. With a 3200+ Barton CPU I'm probably going to run into CPU problems before I could really push a 600GT, and I really don't have more than 50 to spend right now anyways on the replacement card.
Click to expand...
just figure the 9800p is ~10% faster then the 9700p and decide for yourself. It sure ain't 30 FPS faster in ANY game. 😛
:roll:

The 9700p/9800p are now MID-level cards and quite capable of playing Diii, HL2 and FC at 10x7 with all the dx9 eyecandy at mid/hi details even with some AF. The 9800p is just gonna have some extra "room" to run a bit faster and it may last you a bit longer till your NEXT upgrade.

Either are still nice cards. 😉

edit: You answered your own question . . . go for the 9700p.



 
6% faster? It's a little faster than that. I would get the 9800Pro personally (i actually have both the 9700Pro and 9800Pro).
 
I forgot where I saw it exacly, but there was someone that benched a 9700 Pro to a 9800 Pro. They underclocked the 9800 Pro to the EXACT SAME clocks as the 9700 Pro. Clock for clock the 9800 Pro is STILL 10% faster. That is at the same exact clocks. So with the 9800 Pro being clocked even higher it would be around 15% or so faster than a 9700 Pro. I forgot where the review was though



Jason
 
I have both and the 9800 Pro is definitely a little faster. But realistically anything the 9800 Pro can run the 9700 Pro car run about as well. And anything were the 9700 Pro is to slow the couple extra fps you will get with a 9800 Pro will not help.

The 9700 Pro for free is hard to beat but at the same time he 50$ won't really help you upgrade any faster and the 9800 Pro may make those slow games just a little more bearable.
The 9800 Pro is not worth the extra $50 for the added performance. But by the time the $50 will make a difference in the price of your next card both of these will be way to slow in future games.
 
Get the 9700 Pro and overclock it to 9800 speeds. The 9700 will be 6% slower than the 9800, but if you overclock, it will be 1.75% faster so long as you have the 2.2 ram. No wait, get the 9800 and overclock it to 6600 speeds. On second thought, just get a new cpu and skip the new video card.

Confused?



 
Get the 9700 Pro, and OC it a bit. I just got one not too long ago, love it to death, and it beats my old 5700u by a good amount. I'm pleased to say the least. You can get them on ebay like I did for about $130.
 
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