I have been thinking about puchasing a radeon 9800 pro. I currently have a TI 4600. My system include a xp 2000+ a7v266e motherboard (AGP 4X max) and a 21 inch nec flat screen monitor. I am running XP home. I want to see what you guys thought. I will be upgrading latter on this year to a AMD64 and hopefully one of those Nforce 3 motherboards if that chipsets comes out for the desktop version of the x86-64 processor. I wanted to know about drivers and any experiences anyone has had with the 9800 pro and if it is worth the upgrade now or wait for the next graphic card generation or evolution.
9800 pro is it worth it?
- Thread starter rhino19
- Start date
Drivers are vary good, but i dunno about upgrading now.
With your setup you can still run all games with full settings.
I suggest waiting, and buying the 9800pro when you buy that rig - it will be a lot cheaper then, and still be one of the best cards out there
With your setup you can still run all games with full settings.
I suggest waiting, and buying the 9800pro when you buy that rig - it will be a lot cheaper then, and still be one of the best cards out there
With your current rig, I don't think it would be a worthwhile upgrade. You're probably better served saving the money for the next big upgrade - at which point the 9800 will most likely be significantly cheaper. The 4600 is still a very good card. Right now the rest of your system is limiting performance much more than the 4600.
Something about running a 9800 at AGP 4X makes me uncomfortable.
Something about running a 9800 at AGP 4X makes me uncomfortable.
i'd wait for NV35 to come out then i will make my conclusion......it's supposed to come out in E3
Megatomic
Lifer
- Nov 9, 2000
- 20,127
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I might be inclined to believe that while many high powered systems out there will see little difference between AGP4X and AGP8X, most systems based on motherboards that only support AGP4X probably don't warrant such a powerful card as the 9800 Pro or the 9700 Pro anyways.
Of course there are going to be exceptions for the latest motherboards that came with AGP4X, but think about putting a Radeon 9800 Pro into a system with a Via 694T and a PIII 1GHz. The Radeon 9800 Pro is going to starve in that situation. Unlike the 9800 Pro being paired with a P4 2.53GHz on a 845PE motherboard.
Quite a few AMD boards with only 4x AGP support can benefit from a 9x00 video card. I have an Abit kx7-333R, and it does great. AGP 8x is more of a moniker than anything, with newer boards having such large amounts of RAM onboard.
Depends on what resoultion, game settings and if you like to run with aa/af set high. If so than I would recommend the 9800 Pro. If you want to save some cash than get a 9700 Pro which is still a great card imo
Yes, I am fully aware of the mythology behind these monikers (e.g. ATA/133, AGP 8X, etc.) and marginal gains in real world applications, but for some reason it would still make me uncomfortable. To me, it's kinda like putting run of the mill pep-boys H-rated tires on a ferrari. It real world applications (city driving, legal driving, basically anything not on a track, autobahn, or cote d'azure) one will notice very little difference, but it's just not right. A 9800 over a 4600 on a A7V266e board IMO is not a worthwhile purchase.
A 9800 over a 4600 maybe isn't a worthwhile purchase, certainly not as an upgrade. Are you saying putting a 9700/9800 graphics card on any motherboard that supports only AGP 4x is a waste? If so, I would certainly have to disagree, especially with your analogy. My board is only AGP 4x, but it can support the fastest AMD processor out there, excluding any Opteron stuff. True, it's not the fastest board out there, but I would recommend anyone with this board to get a 9700 Pro if they are looking to upgrade from an older card. An older card being one less powerful than the 4600 of course.
By real world applications do you mean office type or business programs? Or do you include games? For business software, any video card that works should be more than sufficient, but for games, you could certainly benefit from a fast video card.
Stick with your TI4600. If you feel the need for speed, upgrade that XP 2000+ processor! And that's an upgrade you'll see a difference with - and it'll cost a lot less than a Radeon 9800!
I don't know what people are talking about when they say an upgrade from a GF4 TI4600 to a 9800Pro is not worth it. If you play with everything maxed and 4X AA and 8X AF at 1024x768 minimum res there is a HUGH difference! I have an 8500 and I can't enable 4X AA at 1024 without talking a performance hit that isn't satisfactory to me. The next card I get better be able to handle 4X AA and 8X AF at 1024 and still be playable on newer games!
DannyBoy
Diamond Member
No. NV35 is the next core in line.Originally posted by: DannyBoy
Thought NV35 was already out
Isnt it?
IMO, not knowing rhino's preferences, if he really wanted better performance with higher quality settings, he would have gotten an ATI product anyway. That's what they're better at. Of course a 9800 will give him higher performance at any resolution or quality setting, but unless he's absolutely needing bleeding-edge performance, $400 for a new graphics card is a waste. When it's time, you'll upgrade your card to something at the bleeding edge (it sounds like), but you obviously didn't upgrade to a 9700 Pro when it came out, so how do you justify advising someone else to do basically the same thing?!
Listen, unless you're rich, don't upgrade. And YOU WILL NOT SEE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AGP 4X AND AGP 8X IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS. How many times must that be said. Nobody would have recommended going to ATA133, so why would you think that 8x would be neccessary. Trust me, I'm a geek. I know these things.
No card out now is fast enough to use the additional bandwith provided by AGP8x over AGP4x, period...
DannyBoy
Diamond Member
Originally posted by: Ilmater
No. NV35 is the next core in line.Originally posted by: DannyBoy
Thought NV35 was already out
Isnt it?
And how long will we have to wait for this then
lol
- Mar 20, 2000
- 102,402
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the 4600 is still worth something so if you sell old stuff to help out with the new stuff then do it now. if not, don't bother until your next big upgrade.
and saying putting the 9800 into a non agp 8x board is dumb is, well, dumb.
and saying putting the 9800 into a non agp 8x board is dumb is, well, dumb.
I say, if you think the 9800 uses more bandwidth than 4X AGP can provide, THAT is dumb.
What is up with people falling for the 8X AGP marketing hype. 8X AGP is great for the future, but right now and even the near future, 4X AGP is more than plenty. I'd actually go as far as saying 4X AGP will be plenty for a good long time since video cards are coming with more and more memory. ATi is coming out with their 256MB video card. Why the hell would you want to use your system's memory when you have so much memory on the card which is soooo much faster?
Don't buy into the hype, the Radeon 9800 Pro will perform the SAME on 4X AGP as 8X AGP.
Ketchup
Elite Member
- Sep 1, 2002
- 14,559
- 248
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I hate buying video cards. Well, I don't really hate it, it's just that video cards depreciate and get outdated faster than any other part of a computer, and it gets quite expensive. Why can't they just come out with video cards when they are twice as fast as their predecessor?... Oh yeah, that's right, everybody is out to make a buck
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