Help me replace my 9800pro AGP

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: Dr G
Is the ATi Radeon 9800 XT an upgrade from the 9800 pro and if so can you still find them? Newegg doesnt have any and I dont know of any trustworthy and good priced sites to look at.

They were a great deal faster, and required a lot better power supply, five or six years ago now (well, maybe only 4-5 years ago, but in computer terms, that is practically forever). There are new 9800 Pro cards on eBay, but I have no idea how much they go for. Probably not so much.

Whatever you think you read about any X1650 Pro, it is a better device than a Radeon 9800 Pro. It is faster, it has SM3, and it is easy on power supplies. AFAIK, there never was any AGP version of the 7600 GT, and the 7600 GS is nowhere near as good as an X1650 Pro.

My direct experience with the HD 2*** and 3*** is strictly limited to my own PCIe version 3850. I have no experience with AGP cards newer than my X1950 Pro card, but it's a real jewel. AMD continues to support AGP, and nVIDIA continues to practically ignore it.

 

[spdfreak]

Originally posted by: Dr G

Originally posted by: spdfreak
You will have a hard time finding new "high-end" agp video cards anywhere. I suggest a 7600GT or GS as they seem to be the most available. My local Best Buy has them on the shelf as well as 2600 series agp cards. Other than that, you can get an agp 2600XT or HD3650 from newegg. Both are in your price range and will be considerably faster than a 9800. Sapphire seems to have worked out their driver problems, so that is not as much an issue as a few months ago. But if you can't get it to work, both BB and NE have excellent return policies.

yea I was thinking about going that way but my fears are about my powersupply.

3650 should be better than the 2600xt power wise. Plus, as I pointed out, you can always return it if it doesn't work.

 

[Dr G]

Originally posted by: Kiwi

Originally posted by: Dr G
Is the ATi Radeon 9800 XT an upgrade from the 9800 pro and if so can you still find them? Newegg doesnt have any and I dont know of any trustworthy and good priced sites to look at.

They were a great deal faster, and required a lot better power supply, five or six years ago now (well, maybe only 4-5 years ago, but in computer terms, that is practically forever). There are new 9800 Pro cards on eBay, but I have no idea how much they go for. Probably not so much.

Whatever you think you read about any X1650 Pro, it is a better device than a Radeon 9800 Pro. It is faster, it has SM3, and it is easy on power supplies. AFAIK, there never was any AGP version of the 7600 GT, and the 7600 GS is nowhere near as good as an X1650 Pro.

My direct experience with the HD 2*** and 3*** is strictly limited to my own PCIe version 3850. I have no experience with AGP cards newer than my X1950 Pro card, but it's a real jewel. AMD continues to support AGP, and nVIDIA continues to practically ignore it.

I've googled the X1650 and some of the hits I got were from WoW players saying that their 9800s got better FPS compaired to the X1650.

 

[Narynan]

I'm going to bet that they didnt have adequate cooling, and it was throtteling or something similar.

Under no circumstance is the 9800 equal to the x1650. Really, no where near equal. while the 9800 is the higher version of that chipset, and the x1650 is lower of those.....

|------------------|-----------------|
9800 x800 x1650

they are just so unsimilar, once again, the concern with going for a 7600 and a x1650 is going to be the 250w psu.

 

[evolucion8]

Probably in old games were there's lot of textures and lots of pixel, the 9800 should be faster since it has 8 pixel pipeline and the X16X0 PRO has only 4, WOW is not a taxing game, I don't even think that it uses pixel shaders extensively. In newer and more advanced games, the X16X0 should be faster overall.

 

[dakels]

I used to run WoW on the X1950 Pro. I'm not entirely sure why but my framerate was good in most situations but large amounts of people, mostly raids were downright horrible. I mean as bad as 2-4fps in many places. While I could get 40-50 fps steady in many areas, going to shatt meant 10fps and Zerg fights like hyjal were just unplayable at 1-3fps. I put everything at it's lowest settings and still it wouldn't help. I always felt it was a driver issue but I don't know. I used Omega drivers and it helped a lot relatively speaking but doubling my fps from 2 to 4 is not really solving my problem. I never did resolve that problem and it made me quit raiding and subsequently quit playing. On a P4 800fsb 3.0-3.2ghz, 2gb DDR400, X1950 pro, Raptor HD, machine, I was expecting 20 fps+ in raids on 1024x768 low details... Old content was fine (15-40fps BWL, AQ, Naxx) it was newer raid content became more and more demanding on the computer (2-12fps SSC, TK, BT).

Sorry to say but a 1650x is substantially less powerful then a 1950x Pro. I would expect like 15-25fps on low settings, potentially a lot worse in raid evironments.

 

[stevodevo]

I upgraded my Dell P4 from a 9800 pro to a X1650 pro. The difference is noticeable.

Settings on BF2 and BF2142 went from mostly medium to mostly high (1024x768 still). Also settings on Splinter Cell Chaos Theory were able to improved and framerate went up.

I would do as some others have suggested (and what I did) - get another 'decent' video card and save your money for a new PC build. Think of it like rent. You can keep dumping money into something that's obsolete or you can start investing in something next-gen that will last you into the future. That's my 2 cts.

Good luck.

 

[gregoryvg]

I don't know if you've upgraded your GPU yet, but after doing some research an x1650Pro handily outperforms a 9800 Pro. Not even close.

While I could not find a direct comparison, I found a review on Anand where an nVidia 6600GT trounces a 9800 Pro and then on Tom's VGA charts you will see the x1650Pro beats a 6600GT (and is very competitive with a 6800GT).

Final answer: the x1650 Pro will be a nice upgrade from your 9800 Pro.