So my 9800 just died...

[Worlocked]

My Sapphire 9800 128mb just gave up the ghost and I am now looking for a replacement... Thing is my rig is rather oldish and cash is kind of tight, so I'm looking for something middle of the road yet still an upgrade over my old 9800.

My specs are:

Athlon XP 2600+ Barton
Gigabyte KT600 Mobo
1024MB Kingston HyperX PC3200
Antec 480 Watt PSU

So far I've been eyeballing these cards:

Sapphire X1600 PRO 256MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102666

Sapphire X1600 PRO 512MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102680
(But there seems to be heat issues with this card, anyone have anything solid on that?)

HIS X1600 PRO 512MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161005

I really am trying not to spend too much over 150 or so USD... The games I play the most are Doom 3, Counter Strike:Source, TES IV, and World of Warcrack...er...craft. Reason I'm really looking more at the X1600 Pros is because they seem to run TES IV a bit better than the 6600 GT's, and I just plain loved my 9800 while it lasted so I'd rather stick with ATi unless there is a much better NVIDIA card at this price range I am somehow missing. I should also mention that I'd like to pick up BF2 as well but put it off because I was almost certain my 9800 would run it like crap.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[isekii]

If I were you I'd try to find a 6800 / 6800gt / 6800GS
for around 150ish (GT/GS)

instead of the X1600

 

[Worlocked]

I'm curious why you would recomend the 6800, most cases as I remember showed the 6600gt beating the 6800 by a slight margin... But the point is moot really on that one, because I really don't want to invest in a 128MB card. I'll see if I can find a 6800gt/gs at a reasonable price I s'pose then...

 

[isekii]

i dont think the 6600GT beats the 6800NU.

anyhow.

you can find 6800GT/GS Ultra all around 150ish price on ebay..

If you want to go with an ATI brand you can always go with the ATI X800 XT or X850XT both comes in AGP.

 

[Worlocked]

I don't do EBAY anymore, had a really bad experience there... The X8*0 XT's are way too expensive, they are pushing the 300 mark.. This is really only going to be a tide me over until I can afford a complete new box in 6 months or so... I don't want to sink a ton of money into a video card that will both be bottlenecked in the present by my sub par cpu+chipset and then be replaced a bit down the road.

 

[tvdang7]

Can i ask why did ur 9800 pro die? i dont understand why alot of ppl's 9800 pro's die .too much overclocking? if so maybe newer generation cards should think about our cards dying in a few years.

 

[Worlocked]

Well I never clocked my card really hard, I've never been a big benchmarker... I just game. The fan on it had been in bad shape for a long time and I could never be bothered to pick up an aftermarket replacement(It seemed to be working well enough, never any artifacts or anything)... I'm sure that had alot to do with it. I woulden't be worried about your card dying, PC hardware in my experience lasts quite a long time.. In fact I'm typing these posts from my now ancient passively cooled Geforce 3 ti 200..

 

[v8envy]

There's a chance the vanilla 6800 (the 6800nu) will unlock to a real 6800GT, and overclock to 6800 ultra levels. That's why it's worth getting one over a 6600GT, if they're the same price.

128 megs vs 256 megs vs 512 megs won't matter on budget video. The 256 meg versions of 6600GTs are a tiny bit slower than the 128 meg versions because you gain absolutely no performance from the larger memory, and the 256 meg versions tend to use slower ram.

The X1600Pro is a pretty good bang for the buck for an AGP gamer on a strict budget. Get the cheapest variant, the amount of ram won't matter with the Pro's awful memory bandwidth and 4 pipes. Don't expect better performance than your 9800, though. Some cases (e.g, enabling 8 sample FSAA, high quality textures) may even result in up to 30% lower frame rates.

Source: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=31&card2=369

 

[Worlocked]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Source: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=31&card2=369

That's a 9800 Pro, I had a non pro model... But it seems that the x1600 pro's have lower fillrate than I had thought... I knew the bandwidth was going to be lower due to the 128bit bus. It seems to have much better shader performance, though. I'm guessing that TES IV is hugely impacted by shader op/s? So I could expect to lose framerate in games like doom 3 that are largely fillrate dependant but gain frames on shader dependent titles such as TES IV? I'm thinking maybe now of going with the 6600gt after all, it seems like a good balance between the two... are you really sure that 128mb is enough VRAM? If there is one thing that bothers me when knocking down settings it is the texture res, that is my pet peeve. I hated to have to do it with oblivion but the higher res textures were really bogging me down...

EDIT: Okay, so I've prety much settled on this bad boy;

Sapphire X800GTO
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102609

But a few questions before I go ahead and pull the trigger:

1. This card has no SM3.0, is this a big enough thing to effect my decision? Would that have been a big nod in favor of the x1600pro?

2. No HDR in Oblivion, would the x1600pro have been able to even run with HDR playable?

3. This model of GTO is not in anyway neutered or crippled, is it? It doesn't appear to be at first glance, but I remember all those crappy crippled 9800 NP's that appeared shortly after I got mine.

4. Is my rig going to bottleneck this card to the point where I should just get the x1600 Pro anyway?

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

1. SM3.0 is meaningless. Don't worry about it.

2. Even at 640x480, the X1600 would put in extremely low frames with HDR, totally unplayable I'm sure. An X1600 is going to have trouble with Oblivion even at the lowest barebones settings. Uh, shouldn't the X800 series be able to do HDR? I think they can. Even the 6800 series can.

3. Dunno. Looks OK. Apparently, some GTOs can be unlocked to 16 pipes. No guarantee though.

4. Depends, maybe a bit, but it will still be much better than the X1600.

 

[Worlocked]

Originally posted by: Dethfrumbelo
1. SM3.0 is meaningless. Don't worry about it.

2. Even at 640x480, the X1600 would put in extremely low frames with HDR, totally unplayable I'm sure. An X1600 is going to have trouble with Oblivion even at the lowest barebones settings. Uh, shouldn't the X800 series be able to do HDR? I think they can. Even the 6800 series can.

3. Dunno. Looks OK. Apparently, some GTOs can be unlocked to 16 pipes. No guarantee though.

4. Depends, maybe a bit, but it will still be much better than the X1600.

It can do HDR but not in Oblivion, the game requires SM3.0 for HDR unfortunately... But yeah, even my 9800 could do HDR.

 

[BassBomb]

hdr in source isnt done through FP blend hence u being able to do it, im assuming there

so it does NOT count

get 6600GT/6800GS

you wont be dissapointed in going from 9800pro to the 6600GT... it wont do hdr on many games (i basically only did it in splinter cell cuz low fps doesnt matter in that game too much) and nfs mw

 

[v8envy]

Ouch, $171.

I'm positive 128 meg is enough ram on a low end card. If you turn on high detail textures you'll be viewing a slideshow, so the occasional performance hit of getting the texture from main RAM will be lost in the noise. That being said, atitool says using high detail textures I'm using up about 160 megs of ram on my video card playing Oblivion.

1. Depends. It'd be nice to see a slideshow entitled 'How Oblivion Looks With HDR.' But even cards with twice the oomph of the 6600GT/X1600Pro aren't enough to actually *play* games with HDR on at decent resolution.

2. Sure, I ran oblivion on a 600 3dmark05 box. If you can stand occasional low single digit frames/sec or even seconds per frame or 1024x768 with no AA, you could pull it off.

3. It's a standard 12 pipe GTO. Probably won't unlock to a 16 pipe XL/XT version of the X800 line.

4. No. Your cpu is definitely going to give you lower min frame rates, but with an X1600 you'd have those lower frame rates at a lower resolution or lower eye candy settings.

If I were you I'd just go with the cheapest 9800Pro, 6600GT or X1600Pro I could find. Put the $50 toward a future PCIe+CPU upgrade and a high powered video card. There isn't much in AGP this side of a 7800GS or 6800Ultra that'll make Oblivion run well. Unlock and overclock your 2600, and you should have a satisfactory enough gaming experience.

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

I see. If HDR in Oblivion is important to you, then as suggested, a 6600GT/6800NU or a 6800GS/used 6800GT would work.

 

[Worlocked]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Ouch, $171.

I'm positive 128 meg is enough ram on a low end card. If you turn on high detail textures you'll be viewing a slideshow, so the occasional performance hit of getting the texture from main RAM will be lost in the noise. That being said, atitool says using high detail textures I'm using up about 160 megs of ram on my video card playing Oblivion.

1. Depends. It'd be nice to see a slideshow entitled 'How Oblivion Looks With HDR.' But even cards with twice the oomph of the 6600GT/X1600Pro aren't enough to actually *play* games with HDR on at decent resolution.

2. Sure, I ran oblivion on a 600 3dmark05 box. If you can stand occasional low single digit frames/sec or even seconds per frame or 1024x768 with no AA, you could pull it off.

3. It's a standard 12 pipe GTO. Probably won't unlock to a 16 pipe XL/XT version of the X800 line.

4. No. Your cpu is definitely going to give you lower min frame rates, but with an X1600 you'd have those lower frame rates at a lower resolution or lower eye candy settings.

If I were you I'd just go with the cheapest 9800Pro, 6600GT or X1600Pro I could find. Put the $50 toward a future PCIe+CPU upgrade and a high powered video card. There isn't much in AGP this side of a 7800GS or 6800Ultra that'll make Oblivion run well. Unlock and overclock your 2600, and you should have a satisfactory enough gaming experience.

Dang, you posted that a few mins too late. I went ahead and got the GTO... But what is this about unlocking my CPU? I don't think Bartons are unlockable, are they? It'd be nice as the KT600 chipset has no PCI/AGP lock... About upgrading, though.. I'm intending on waiting and building a whole new box from scratch in about 6 months or so, every component brand new... No more tossing new stuff into this aging box.

 

[crazylegs]

6600GT awesome card for how cheap u can pick them up...

i have absolutely loved mine to bits just got upgrade bug so ordered a 7900GT BUT taking nothing away from the 6600GT it still plays ALL games even manages Oblivion on medium settings, does FEAR and X3 and other highly demanding games espcially if you OC it a little... my Leadtek runs 570/1090 (from 500/1000) fine on the stock cooler

reason is if you going brand new box in 6 months-ish then this will happily keep u going for the minimum £$£$£$£$

 

[crazylegs]

oops too late....

 

[Worlocked]

Ah well, thanks all. It really wasn't that much more and I'm sure I will enjoy the increased performance for the 6 months before I upgrade.

 

[firewolfsm]

7600GT, if you can afford a little more

 

[Remedy]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
7600GT, if you can afford a little more

Where can you purchase a 7600GT in AGP format?