9700 PRO; The right card for my system?

[edm]

looking to upgrade my old geforce 2 gts. Even though it's expensive, I really have my eye set on a ATI 9700 PRO. But is this card if too fast for my system. Would it just be overkill, or could I expect to get the max (or close to the max) amount of performance out of it?

Also, would my 340WATT Enlight case be enough juice for that card?

System:
340WATT Enlight
Athlon T-Bird 1400
256MB DDR ram
Geforce 2 GTS 32
SBlive
ECS K7S5A
Win XP
Lite-On 40x12x48

 

[KH85]

should be fine

 

[hcarlson]

your cpu will be your new bottleneck, even the latest amd and intel procs might not fully utilize the 9700. Not sure about your PSU, could be iffy.

 

[Wolfsraider]

you will be fine

i have a p-4 1.5 willie that i put that card into(up from a gf2mx200 64mb.256 rdram liteon cdrw and dvd sblive all with a 320 watt psu
i now have moved it over to lilo in my sig running a generic 350 watt psu.everyone warned me my power supply was too small to run it too.(hcarlson not meaning you just talking third person here)

i am running xp also.

it won't get the full capabilities out of your processor but you will definately notice the difference.

for reference only:i got around 9700 in 3dmark2001 se and in this system i get 15570.
as you can see the difference is big.but then so is the jump in processor speed 1500 mhz to 3150 mhz

so its your call...

hope i helped


mike

 

[eaadams]

this is why Anand needs to do a range of CPUs against the new cards. We must find where the sweet spot is!

 

[Brian48]

Just a thought. Seeing as you're willing to spend up to $350 for a 9700, could you stretch yourself just a little bit more and spend an additional $50-60 for a 1600XP or higher?

 

[Deskstar]

I thought I recal a thread in this forum that named the "sweet spot" for video cards for Intel P4 processors. I have no idea where it is now, however. But, someone has done this, I think.

 

[BFG10K]

The card will work fine but you will be CPU limited. Even the fastest Intel processors around bottleneck the card in certain situations at 1600 x 1200 with 16x anisotropic filtering.

Your power supply should also be fine.

 

[Skibby9]

edm:

My machine is pretty close to yours, and I upgraded from an 8500 to the 9700 Pro. OH YEAH!!! BIG difference in gaming. I now run everything at max detail, max FSAA + aniso filtering, and at pretty much whatever resolution I want. My 8500 ran everything at max detail @ 1024x768 just fine, but turn on the FSAA and aniso and it bit the weenie pretty hard.

I am all over the place gaming-wise... Mafia (gorgeous!), UT2003, NOLF 2 (possibly favorite game, ever), Jedi Knight 2, RTCW, MOH:AA, and various SNES emulations. Wish I was back in the US to hook up with friends for Operation Flashpoint games...

I know that the rest of the machine is the bottleneck, but I maintain that my machine works fine for most of what I use it for. I am waiting for Hammer benches, and SATA to be commonplace.

Oh, BTW-- There are now Linux 3D-acceleration drivers available for the 9700 Pro, too (woo-hoo, tux racer!). Funny that I had been waiting for them for the 8500 and they were released one week after I sold it.

 

[nRollo]

Don't listen to the people who tell you about "being cpu limited". I have an Athlon XP 1600+ (which IS a 1.4GHz Athlon, BTW, so that wouldn't be much of an upgrade) and my 3dmark went from low 8K range with a GF4 4400 to low 11K range with a R9700. The review of the card on this site says "you really start to see the advantage at 1.4 GHZ ".
So buy the card if you want to upgrade. The people who tell you that you're "cpu limited" better have P4 3 GHZ, or they are just as "cpu limited" compared to the guys who do.

 

[Serp86]

I agree with rollo.

I have a p3 1ghz and it is waaaaaay better than the gf2mx 400 i used to own.

What will happen is this; If a game could not run at 1280x1024x32 4xaa, it will propably also not run at 640x480x16

 

[cbuchach]

But remember, with the Radeon 9700, you can just increase the amount of antialiasing and basically increase performance that way since antialiasing and running at higher resolutions and such is completely limited to the video card. So you in any event you will be able to maximize the performance of the Radeon 9700 (with image quality enhancements that is).

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Don't listen to the people who tell you about "being cpu limited".

its not that you should not lissen to them, its just you should not take it as something bad. there are plenty of benifts to running a 9700 over any other card even on and or 700mhz tbird or such, just because there is a lot more of a benift on faster processor does not make the benifts of it on a slow processor any worse.

 

[Sarge1]

Snowman is right. They're just saying you may not get the maximum out of the 9700 depending on your CPU, but you will get a BIG BOOST nonetheless. I have an AMD 1600 XP and that card runs sweet! But running the UT2003 benchmark(the one in the game) with all settings set for performance, and with the settings maxed out, the 9700 got the same score on both benches. This tells me that the card has not yet been pushed to it's limit, so when I get a bigger CPU, it will do even better!
[The Force]YOU NEED THIS CARD[/The Force]

 

[BFG10K]

Don't listen to the people who tell you about "being cpu limited".

I'm not saying the card won't run well, all I'm saying is that you won't get the performance boost that you expect as the card will not perform to its full potential.

 

[nRollo]

"I'm not saying the card won't run well, all I'm saying is that you won't get the performance boost that you expect as the card will not perform to its full potential. "
As has been noted here there aren't cpus available that use the card to "it's full potential", so we're all just using it to some degree of it's potential. I don't know what he's "expecting" but going from a GF2 to a R9700 on his system will be like getting a new system.
I have a friend with an original GF3 (a more powerful card than a GF2). He has an Athlon 2100+, water cooled, CAS2 RAM and I get 4-5K higher 3dmark scores with my 1600+/R9700/CAS 2.5 RAM.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1647&p=8
What do you think? If he's used to 25fps with his GF2, will he be getting the "expected boost" when he quadruples his performance? These tests were done with an Athlon 2100+, and I've already shown that my system with a 1.4 GHZ Athlon is significantly faster then my buddy's with a 1.7Ghz Athlon.

I think we've had this discussion before BFG. You said something to the effect "Well, I only run at max res, max detail, max aniso, max FSAA, and if you can't do that it sucks".
But it doesn't "suck". We don't all have to have the fastest cpu out that week coupled with the hottest card to have a good gaming experience. I'm planning on buying a P4 2.53 in the next few weeks, you'd probably tell me,"Well that will be ok, but since it's not the 3GHz you should sell your 9700 and get something more suited to your low system, like a Radeon 7500. Leave the good cards to guys like me who will pay an extra $400 for 10% higher performance."

 

[ScrewFace]

Rollo, you made me laugh! LOL! "...$400 card for 10% more performance." You hit the nail on the head. If you want the maximum benefit from the RADEON 9700 Pro you should have at least a 2.4GHz Pentium4 or an Athlon 2400+ or better.

 

[rbV5]

Q:

Would it just be overkill, or could I expect to get the max (or close to the max) amount of performance out of it?

A: You will not get the MAX or close to the max amount of performance because you will be CPU limited (CPU limited simply infers that your CPU will be the limiting factor keeping you from experiencing maximum performance from the card..not that it will perform poorly), as has been answered. However, It will perform "extremely well" and should scale well with future upgrades as well.

 

[nRollo]

" Rollo, you made me laugh!"
Screwface, I am all about making fellow Anandtechers laugh. (although I was referring to the $400 price premium for a P4 3GHz over a 2.53GHz and the 10% that would get you)
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20021114/p4_306ht-11.html
3GHz 380fps 2.53GHz 340fps = ~10% more preformance for your $400

Anyway, in general I usually agree with BFG, in this thread I think he's undervaluing the performance boost the original poster will see going from a GF2 to a 9700 on a 1.4 GHz Athlon system. I jumped ~40% in 3dmark going from a GF4 4400 to 9700 with a similar processor, and a 4400 stomps a deep mudhole in a GF2s butt. His performance will double. I wouldn't even be upgrading motherboards if it didn't make for something my wife can give me for xmas that I really like.....

 

[WyteWatt]

I think what counts for the ATI 9700 pro is it will run any game a lot faster with maximum FSAA and AF on than any other video card even on a 1 ghz processor! And even with just 4x FSAA and 8x AF it will still run a whole lot faster than any video card. You can't tell the difference from 4x FSAA to 6x FSAA anyway i bet. Then again i could be wrong.

 

[Alkali]

9700 PRO; The right card for my system?

Well duh - Of course

I upgraded from a GeForce II GTS to the Radeon 9700 Pro, and have taken a giant leap up to the next gen (4,800 3Dmarks to over 12,200), very happy. Of course your cpu will be a bottleneck, but your Radeon 9700 Pro would last you at least a couple years while you upgrade the rest of your machine.

 

[eaadams]

it is worth it for you. It wont be fastest in FEB but realize that you will want to upgrade the CPU may ish or juneish to get more fps. the cpu upgrade will be a big bang for buck upgrade.