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Thinking of getting a new video card

I

Ioskeha

Junior Member
Newegg has a SAPPHIRE Radeon 9600 256 Mb card for $80 right now and it just so happens that I have $80 to spare at the moment. Before I order this card tho I'd like to know if it would be worth it to replace my current card. My current system is rather old and it's going to be another seven months to a year before the wife will allow me to to spend the money to put another one together.

Anyways here's my system;

P4 1.8 Ghz
Intel i850 Tehama
512 Mb RDRAM
GF3 Ti200

What I'd like to know is what kind of performance incease would I expect to see?
 
The card is a non pro right? In my opinion i would save the $80 to take your wife out some place nice and get her in your good books so she will let you upgrade your system.
 
Yes, it's a non pro card. Also ZipZoomFly has a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 Pro for the same price but with only 128 Mb RAM. Is there a major difference between the two cards? I'm assuming that the 9600 Pro performs a bit better.

In my opinion i would save the $80 to take your wife out some place nice and get her in your good books so she will let you upgrade your system.
Click to expand...

If only that would work. My wife and myself have this silly rule. She's a console gamer, me a PC, and I can only build a new system when the time comes for her to replace her current console. She wants a Playstation 3 so I got to wait until it gets released before I can get myself a new PC. That's why I'm interested in getting a new video card to hold me over until I can build my next system. It sucks having to play newer games at 800x600 with low settings.
 
You want at least 9800Pro. 9600 series cards are simply not going to make a difference. Both them and your current card are just as slow in today's games. Even 9800Pro is pretty slow. Check if you have 1.8A processor as those overclock well. If not I recommend a used 9800Pro. If you can overclock, 6600GT. Your processor is also a major bottleneck. Not having 1 gig of ram is another issue that will start to crop up more often.
 

The consensus on these forums is that you shouldn't be fooled by the extra 128 MB of RAM on the card with the weaker graphics processor. It's likely to be slower RAM anyway and with the weaker graphics processors the extra 128 MB won't do you any good--you can't really make use of it. Best to get the card with the most powerful processor for the price and make sure it is a 128 bit card. For $80 a 9600 Pro might be good. If you could stretch yourself out for $35-45 more you could get twice the card with 9800 Pro.
 
For $80 you're not going to get anything fast enough to run DX9 games at a decent rate... your best bet would be to get the best DX8 level card you can get for $80 if you're really unsatisfied with your GF3 Ti200... which might be a Ti4600 or FX5900 if you're lucky.
 
Save up and get a Geforce 6200...it well outperforms a 9600pro, has shader model 3.0 (which 9600 doesnt) and can SOMTIMES be softmodded and OCed to a 6600

Way better deal than the 9600...
 
Originally posted by: Ioskeha
If only that would work. My wife and myself have this silly rule. She's a console gamer, me a PC, and I can only build a new system when the time comes for her to replace her current console. She wants a Playstation 3 so I got to wait until it gets released before I can get myself a new PC. That's why I'm interested in getting a new video card to hold me over until I can build my next system. It sucks having to play newer games at 800x600 with low settings.
Click to expand...

One option would be lay of the 9600 and try and convice your wife to by a xbox360 (which from what i read should be better than the ps3 and its released 6 months earlier) this will give you less time to wait untill a new system rebuild.

The second would be if you have to have a new card go and buy a 9600pro for the same price. Its only 80 bucks and its no major deal (like wasting $800 on previous years technology for a full upgrade)
 
Originally posted by: Dkcode
Originally posted by: Ioskeha
If only that would work. My wife and myself have this silly rule. She's a console gamer, me a PC, and I can only build a new system when the time comes for her to replace her current console. She wants a Playstation 3 so I got to wait until it gets released before I can get myself a new PC. That's why I'm interested in getting a new video card to hold me over until I can build my next system. It sucks having to play newer games at 800x600 with low settings.
Click to expand...

One option would be lay of the 9600 and try and convice your wife to by a xbox360 (which from what i read should be better than the ps3 and its released 6 months earlier) this will give you less time to wait untill a new system rebuild.

The second would be if you have to have a new card go and buy a 9600pro for the same price. Its only 80 bucks and its no major deal (like wasting $800 on previous years technology for a full upgrade)
Click to expand...

what did you read in which you saw that the xbox360 was better than the PS3?? the PS3 has a much more powerful CPU, the GPU is able to perform double the teraflops of the ATI GPU in the xbox, it is fully backward compatible and has internet access both of which is lacking in the Xbox360!! i dont see the Xbox360 being better than the PS3
 
Originally posted by: ddogg

the GPU is able to perform double the teraflops of the ATI GPU in the xbox
Click to expand...

thats not true. ATI gpu in 360 is 96 billion operations. PS3 is 132 or something. More like 1.35x faster.
 
Originally posted by: Ioskeha
Yes, it's a non pro card. Also ZipZoomFly has a Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 Pro for the same price but with only 128 Mb RAM. Is there a major difference between the two cards? I'm assuming that the 9600 Pro performs a bit better.
Click to expand...

I am thinking that the 9600pro 128mb would perform much better than the 9600 256mb,
but anyway you should spend the $80 on a used 9800pro, or even a 9700pro is a way better performer.
 
Originally posted by: ddogg
Originally posted by: Dkcode
Originally posted by: Ioskeha
If only that would work. My wife and myself have this silly rule. She's a console gamer, me a PC, and I can only build a new system when the time comes for her to replace her current console. She wants a Playstation 3 so I got to wait until it gets released before I can get myself a new PC. That's why I'm interested in getting a new video card to hold me over until I can build my next system. It sucks having to play newer games at 800x600 with low settings.
Click to expand...

One option would be lay of the 9600 and try and convice your wife to by a xbox360 (which from what i read should be better than the ps3 and its released 6 months earlier) this will give you less time to wait untill a new system rebuild.

The second would be if you have to have a new card go and buy a 9600pro for the same price. Its only 80 bucks and its no major deal (like wasting $800 on previous years technology for a full upgrade)
Click to expand...

what did you read in which you saw that the xbox360 was better than the PS3?? the PS3 has a much more powerful CPU, the GPU is able to perform double the teraflops of the ATI GPU in the xbox, it is fully backward compatible and has internet access both of which is lacking in the Xbox360!! i dont see the Xbox360 being better than the PS3
Click to expand...


I read this article

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm starting to think that it really wouldn't be worth it to replace my current video card with a new one. Mostly because it would just be bottle necked by the rest of my system, and also the fact that between now and next year there really isn't anything being release that I'm interested in. Well besides Obilvion, but by the time I get around to buying that (I never buy games at release due to bugs) I should have a new system built.

I was mostly looking to get a new card just to increase performance in my current games. I was thinking that if I can run Farcry at 1024x768 on low settings that with a new card I should be able to run it at 1024x768 with medium settings.

Meh, I guess I'll just go out and buy the wife a GameCube with Zelda and Animal Crossing. She's been wanting to play those to games for years now.

Sorry for wasting your time guys. Tho I do appreciate it. 🙂
 
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