Radeon 9500Pro now or R350 later?

[Dragon365]

Hey AT video people, i have a question for you. I got a job which pays a salary good enough for a 16 year old, and I'll be buying some new PC parts. I know that I'll get an Athlon XP 2100+, 512mb pc2700 ram, and an Albatron Kx400-8x Motherboard. I am wondering about the question in the title though. Will that machine evn have enough power to utilize an R350?

 

[TheWart]

Well, a Radeon 9700 Pro would be held back by your system...so I am thinking no!

Seriosly, my Radeon 9700 Pro is held back in certain games quite a bit by my "slow" 2000+XP Proc.

 

[jamesbond007]

The R9500 Pro is a great card. It is about on par with the GF4 Ti4600 levels.

R350 might be a long wait. Especially since I'm sure ATi wants to see how the GFX stacks up against ATi's own R9700 Pro...that way they can tweak the card to run faster, if need be.

 

[Dragon365]

I probably would upgrade the processor in the future anyways, since that motherboard supports the 333mhz bus. I might get a Radeon 9700 or 9700pro when the GFX or R350 come out. I guess I'll wait and see, but thanks guys.

 

[Ben88]

If you play games make sure you look into the minimum framerate issue on some ATI cards.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Ben88
If you play games make sure you look into the minimum framerate issue on some ATI cards.

um, you mean like the Rage MAXX ???

 

[Ben88]

No

I thought I read a few threads here and on rage3d that alluded to low minimum frame rates on the R300 based cards. Sometimes on benchmarks they dropped into the 20's and 30's when the ti4600 never dropped below 50. Check around i'm too lazy to link.

 

[chizow]

9500pro now or a 9700pro when the R350 comes out. Buying an R350 for full retail is madness!!! Anyways, a nice deal going on a BB right now for the 9700pro, $315 no MIRs (10% coupon and a $349.99 markdown)...tack on BB GC's for a better deal.

Chiz

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Ben88
No

I thought I read a few threads here and on rage3d that alluded to low minimum frame rates on the R300 based cards. Sometimes on benchmarks they dropped into the 20's and 30's when the ti4600 never dropped below 50. Check around i'm too lazy to link.

I've had the Radeon 9700pro for almost 24 hours...only game I've run so far is BF1942. It is an issue. I'm not even sure a driver update can fix it. It is disappointing for the best card on the market to be exhibiting this kind of problem, but honestly, the silly resolutions and eye-candy I can run outweight the occasional drop in frames.

Chiz

 

[BFG10K]

I thought I read a few threads here and on rage3d that alluded to low minimum frame rates on the R300 based cards

The Catalyst 3.0 drivers fix most of these issues.