Do I really NEED my 9800 Pro now that I'm switching to a LCD??

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: HardWired
Well it turns out this might not be a bad deal after all.

At this link... NewEgg is selling the Sapphire 9500 Non-Pro with the red PCB and L-shaped memory for 149.99 shipped. It is not clock locked so a bios flash is not needed to o'c it, and with a software driver mod, people have been having great success getting 9700 Pro type performance out of it.

I may go for it and see how she runs before getting a refund for my 9800 Pro. I know it's not 100% guaranteed, but the odds look good, and If it works as the reviews at NewEgg are giving it, I may just save the $279 (which includes the local tax I paid) and put that towards the new LCD.

Again, thanks for the discussion back and forth. It's been helpful

If you get the 9500 good luck with the mod. From what I've been reading in forums it sounds like only about 20% of them mod sucessfully now. It used to be 50%.

 

[Corporate Thug]

i wouldnt get the card if your solely relying on the mod working

 

[HardWired]

If you click the "Read the reviews" link at the NewEgg link I posted, which go back from mid March up to 3 days ago, it looks like well over 90% (didn't actually count, just a estimate) are still soft modding just fine to 9700 levels, (9700 Pro levels w/ some o'cing) with only a couple stories out of all of them with soft-mod failures. And even those make me wonder if they have adequate power supplies or something else specific to their systems that's making the soft mod fail for them.

Still, 90%+ is a great ratio and it's worth a try for $$149 shipped. Especially knowing that no permanent hardware mods are necessary.

 

[Oddish]

Originally posted by: shady06

i must agree with you, there is not way software companies are going to release games that requires 9700 pro or better to run. the lesser the requirements, the more they sell

Que? That's like saying you don't need a good stereo system to play a music CD. Sure, you can run Half-life 2 on a 16 MB TNT 2 card on 640x480 at 3 frames per second, but if you want it to look good and play smooth you will need a powerful card.

 

[pelikan]

Originally posted by: HardWired
If you click the "Read the reviews" link at the NewEgg link I posted, which go back from mid March up to 3 days ago, it looks like well over 90% (didn't actually count, just a estimate) are still soft modding just fine to 9700 levels, (9700 Pro levels w/ some o'cing) with only a couple stories out of all of them with soft-mod failures. And even those make me wonder if they have adequate power supplies or something else specific to their systems that's making the soft mod fail for them.

Still, 90%+ is a great ratio and it's worth a try for $$149 shipped. Especially knowing that no permanent hardware mods are necessary.

Believe me, I wish there was a 90% chance of success. If so I'd buy one too. But those NewEgg reviews are not a good representation of real world experience because not everyone who buys a card writes a review. Check out this thread and this other one here at Anand and you will be accurately informed.

 

[gcogger]

I believe there's a lot of rubbish talked about fps in games. If the game runs at a constant 60fps or a constant 100fps, you won't be able to tell the difference - remember that TV runs at 60fps (50 in the UK). Of course the rate is never constant, so a game that shows an average of 60fps may vary between, say 20 and 100.
What would you prefer: a card that gave an average 50fps but never dropped below 30; or one that gave an average of 70fps but dipped to 10 on occasion? I wish that more reviews showed the minimum, as well as the average, frame rate.
What is important is what happens at the lower end of the range, and the monitor refresh rate does not affect that at all. The main reason for using a 9800Pro is to prevent the minimum frame rate dropping too low, and that won't be any different between a CRT or an LCD.

 

[HardWired]

Originally posted by: pelikan -

Believe me, I wish there was a 90% chance of success. If so I'd buy one too. But those NewEgg reviews are not a good representation of real world experience because not everyone who buys a card writes a review. Check out this thread and this other one here at Anand and you will be accurately informed.

Acutally, I think those recent NewEgg reviews are very indicative of the latest real world experiences with the 9500 soft mod success stories, and I'm happy to say that I am yet another one of those success stories. I ran it stock as a 9500 w/ stock 276 core and 270 mem and
scored 12001. I then installed the softmod, ran it again, and scored 15433. Look at the texture scores. Sweet!! I then bumped the core to 325 and mem to 300 (no bios flash required, the Sapphire 9500's are unlocked) and scored 16687!!

Those are some incredible results if you ask me. And all from a $150 card, shipped. And no artifacts at all during the testing (checkerboard, dots, or anything else strange), and so far, NFS:HP2 has run flawlessly. It really feels like I did not take a huge step back at all and saved myself $275 in the process. At those o'c numbers, the PCB is piping hot behind the VPU, so I have a $20 U1 cooler on the way to mod it like I did my 9700 Pro a couple of months ago and I'm confident I'll get close to 350 core and at least 310 mem, if not better.

Wizzard, you are the man!! I couldn't be happier!!

P.S. for any one that wants to try this, the card can be purchased here w/ free shipping Link and the softmod file(s) can be found here Link

Good luck!!