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The upgrade itch...

rivan

rivan

Diamond Member
I've currently got a 9500pro that I've been very happy with for coming up on two years, but I've been getting that upgrade itch. The thing I'm seeing is that the $100-150 card segment doesn't appear to have moved much in well over a year. It seems instead of pricing dropping on the older cards and the newest cards taking the top pricing slots (like it's always been), pricing has stayed somewhat static on older cards, with newer cards just getting a $100-200 premium.

Top end cards went from $300 to $500 now... what gives?

I got turned off to Nvidia after two bad experiences in a row, so I still lean heavily toward ATI, but am I right in thinking the 9800pro or x700 really aren't *that* much faster than what I have? I can't really seem to find any benchmarks that contain cards as old as mine, so I can't really compare.

Thoughts for the budget-constrained upgrader?


FWIW, I've got a 3000+, 1G dual channel, and raid 0 SATA setup. The machine's fairly fast and the 9500 pro still does a great job, so I want to be somewhat confident I'll see a significant improvement if I upgrade.

TIA!


 
Do you game alot? If you do, think about a 6800GT. They're widely availible and the newest drivers have not caused any problems for me so far.

You won't be happy with anything less than a 6800.
 
If you wait a few months when next gen cards come out, it will bring down the prices of current cards, and maybe they will also have a new card that's good for around $150.
 
its going to be more than a few months before the new cards have a big impact on the price of old cards.
 
I think you will find the 9800 Pro to be a significant upgrade over the 9500..

If you can reconsider your feelings about NVIDIA , the 6600GT beats the 9800 pro by a significant amount, depending on the application.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3


I have both, and I prefer the 9800 PRO when it comes to desktop work, such as graphics and DVD viewing. Things just look beter IMO..
It certainly holds it's own when it comes to most games, but if max fps is your primary concern then the 6600GT would be the way to go.
 
You can find older benchies that compare the R9500pro to R9800pro (e.g. Tom's VGA charts 3). You can also find reviews comparing the 9500pro to newer 6800 series cards (see for ex. Tom's VGA Charts 4).
For anything else, the 9600pro is a good stand-in for comparisons.

In my experience, going from a 9500pro to 9800pro was worth it only as a stop-gap. In non-AA/AF modes, the 9800pro was typically only about 35-50% faster than the 9500pro. While perf can almost double in some cases with AA/AF, most new games today are too demanding to use them on the 9800pro.

If you were holding out for ATI, the X800XL is your only real choice for a significant upgrade that's likely to last you for another year or two (AGP versions are now available).
 
Originally posted by: munky
If you wait a few months when next gen cards come out, it will bring down the prices of current cards, and maybe they will also have a new card that's good for around $150.
Click to expand...


Yeah, if we're lucky. Like the OP said, prices on older cards haven't gone down too much. 9800pro's are still in the $200 range, which is what I paid for mine over a year ago. I'm sticking with it for a while.... it still plays any game out there at an acceptable level and I refuse to pay more than $200-$250 for a video card.

 
In my experience, going from a 9500pro to 9800pro was worth it only as a stop-gap. In non-AA/AF modes, the 9800pro was typically only about 35-50% faster than the 9500pro. While perf can almost double in some cases with AA/AF, most new games today are too demanding to use them on the 9800pro.

If you were holding out for ATI, the X800XL is your only real choice for a significant upgrade that's likely to last you for another year or two (AGP versions are now available).
Click to expand...
:thumbsup:
Or buy a PCI-E mobo and a PCI-E 6600GT; SLI for later 😉
 
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