Radeon 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro/ Non Pro?

[DragonSword]

This Christmas I was planning on going for the 9700 Pro but I recently decided to make the big leap to the 9800 pro. I want a card that will last a resonable amount of time but mainly, be a huge upgrade. Will I notice a pretty substantical performance gain when upgrading to this? Will my friend with a GeForce 4, ti4200, get jealous? My neighbor recently bought the Geforce 4 FX 5950 Ultra and me and him like to sort of compete on computer hardware. But he's a man with a job behind him, and Im only 15, so sometimes it's hard to keep up. But now I'm planning to give him a nice, sweet, christmas when I ask him to come over to my house on Christmas.
A worry of mine however, is that my cpu is currently an Athlon Xp 1800. Will this bottleneck my Radeon 9800 pro? I wont get a new cpu until next year around August; when I do, it'll be an Athlon Xp 3200, or something around there; I'll probably have to upgrade my mobo since its only an Asus A7V333. ( Can anyone tell me with bios upgrades how high it can go? ).
Another thing I'm sort of stuck on is that, since this costs 300 bucks, it would basically be my only Christmas present from my parents; however, if I get the Radeon 9700 Pro, I would still have some money for a movie or something. Hmmm..

 

[modedepe]

Try searching. And you don't need two threads on this.

 

[nick1985]

9800NP soft mod into a 9800P

if your doing this just to compete with your neighbor, thats retarded. also, by your post it sounds like you dont know a whole lot about hardware. BUY A 3200??? who in the right mind BUYS a 3200...

<rant over>

 

[DragonSword]

Lol, I'm not doing this JUST to compete with my neighbor at all, though it is a nice addition. Why shouldn't I buy an Xp 3200?? Remember I said NEXT year in August, and I want to have the best possible upgrade from my current Xp 1800. A 2500 wouldn't be great enough by then and the 3200 will most likely be down quite a bit by then.

 

[Zacmaniac]

Because your almost a lock for a 3200+ overclock on the 2500 or 2600 barton.

 

[dnuggett]

Originally posted by: nick1985
9800NP soft mod into a 9800P

if your doing this just to compete with your neighbor, thats retarded. also, by your post it sounds like you dont know a whole lot about hardware. BUY A 3200??? who in the right mind BUYS a 3200...

<rant over>

Why don't you relax and explain things instead of ranting on him? He's obviously new and could use some help... so help him or keep your rants to yourself.

 

[Richdog]

Originally posted by: dnuggett

Originally posted by: nick1985
9800NP soft mod into a 9800P

if your doing this just to compete with your neighbor, thats retarded. also, by your post it sounds like you dont know a whole lot about hardware. BUY A 3200??? who in the right mind BUYS a 3200...

<rant over>

Why don't you relax and explain things instead of ranting on him? He's obviously new and could use some help... so help him or keep your rants to yourself.

Because Nick1985 is notorious for ranting and trolling, just look for his other posts theyre all generally the same, unfriendly and unhelpful. I'm sure he'll improve with age...:beer:

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: nick1985
9800NP soft mod into a 9800P

You dont have to softmod to make it into a Pro. Just OC it.

The XP1800 wont be as big a bottleneck as you think. Despite being pretty old, the XP1800 is still perfectly capible of doing anything that you need it to.
I`d personally go for a 9800np, with a VGA Silencer and some copper ramsinks, and OC the hell out of it. You should easyily be able to hit 9800pro speeds, of not higher.

I`d asume, going of the Asus website, that the A7V333 should be able to do that Barton3200+
Its listed as doing 100mhz fsb(200ddr), 133mhz fsb (266ddr), 200mhz fsb (400ddr). And the 400ddr is what is needed, fsb wise, for a Barton 3200+.
If you want to save a little money, then ive heard that a Barton XP2500s are quite cheap and are very good OCers. Often reaching XP3200+ speeds and above.
So for the same price as a 9800pro and a BartonXP3200, you could get a 9800np (with VGA Silencer and copper ramsinks, then OC it to 9800pro and above speeds), and a Barton 2500 (with a fancy HS, like a SLK-800, and OC that). And still have some money left over from both for other stuff. Liek games and movies.

 

[jim1976]

Take a 9800 pro and when he comes open the door and say to him "in your face baby!!!"
Seriously now, take a 9800 pro/non and tell him MERRY D X9MAS!!!!
Don't take life too seriously, and don't listen to hypocrites. We all have a friend to compete

 

[modedepe]

I seriously doubt he'll "easily" hit 9800 pro speeds. Keep in mind virtually all 9800np's now have infineon ram which just can't cut the buck.