Ti4200 or Radeon 8500 or possibly 9700PRO

[NashMan]

First of all don't laugh when I tell you my system. Athlon 550MHZ 384 MEG Ram. I am running an ATI Radeon(older) 64mb DDR at present time. I am lookin to upgrade one more time to a better vid card. There is one thing that I did not like about the Radeon I have now. At the time I bought it it ran all the games I played just fine at 1024x768x32. Then a little later on when I started playin some of the newer games at the time the fps would drop some so I though no prob, I would just turn down the res to 800x600x32 or 16 and it would help the fps (I was so wrong!) Dropping the res really had no effect (maybe 5 fps).Anyway my point is before the radeon I had a Nvidia Vanta 8 meg that came with my system. I could turn it down 1 notch on the res and notice a big diff in fps. I have read on a couple of reviews that this was a prob with the Radeon 64 ddr (after I had already bought it).I have been lookin at a Ti4200 as I have reservations about goin with ATI again.Do the newer Radeons suffer from this problem? My case is pretty cramped so I cannot get a 4400 or 4600 as they are too long. I have noticed the 9700PRO is a regular size board also and would probably fit. Would my system be be able to run the 9700PRO good enough to make a difference and for that matter an Ti4200 or 8500 .I have read alot of good things about the 8500 and also the Ti4200.Most of the charts I have looked at the Ti4200 beats the 8500 ,and I am sure the 9700PRO beats them all right now. Any input would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!!!!! Another question .I have noticed the 9700Pro recommends a 300watt power supply if you have alot of xtra things hooked up .As my puter is older it only has 185watt rated power supply.I really don't have any extra things hooked to the power supply . Could this be a problem with the 9700Pro?

 

[gwlam12]

if you look at the cpu scaling graphs, i dont think there'd be that much of a difference if you upgraded your video card.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1608&p=3

 

[Torghn]

Yeah, with a 550 all 3 cards would run at the same speed, and not much faster than the card you have now.

 

[kylebisme]

but with the 9700 you could crank up anti-alising and anisotroy and still get the same speeds as that is all done on the card. however i would recomend updateing your processor, motherboard and ram *for* about the same as a 9700

eidit in **

 

[BFG10K]

Upgrade your platform before you even think about a new videocard. Even your current video card is bottlenecked by your processor.

 

[SpeedyGonzales]

The testing you did already tells you the bottleneck of your system. If going down with the resolution or colordepths does not yield higher frame rates, then it is very likely your CPU, that is holding you back.

Sorry, but I think you have to invest a bit more and buy yourself a new rig. At least it was never as cheap as today in terms of performance you get for your bucks.

Cheers
Speedy

 

[boyRacer]

my 1.52Ghz tualatin is too slow for a 9700 and a GF3 Ti500... same frames on both cards @ 1280x1024.

 

[rancherlee]

Going from a Slot a 900 to a Xp1600 socketA setup brought me from 3100 to 4300 in 3dmark with a Radeon 64meg. I got my Chip, motherboard and 256meg PC2700 for 220$ shipped, and VERY nice upgrade.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: rancherlee
Going from a Slot a 900 to a Xp1600 socketA setup brought me from 3100 to 4300 in 3dmark with a Radeon 64meg. I got my Chip, motherboard and 256meg PC2700 for 220$ shipped, and VERY nice upgrade.

Yup, that's pretty good for the same video card! I went from 2300 --> 3200 with a Radeon 32MB DDR on a P3 733 --> P4 2.2 GHz. I then promptly got a GF3 and got 8200 in 3dmark 2k1se!

Nashman - you need a new CPU before you upgrade the video card to notice any difference. Going to an Athlon XP with a GF3 or Radeon 8500 would be much faster than just getting a GF 4 or Radeon 9700 pro with your 550 MHz Athlon.

 

[Moishe]

I'm wth everyone here on getting a new system.i've got a p3-500/256mb-pc133/voodoo 5 and there is just no way that getting *just* a new card will cut it for me.

In your case as well, I recommend that you get a new power supply, as that one won't run any decent new system.
I'd go for at least a quality brand 350w PS.

I've always built my own systems and the next upgrade I do, I'm gonna mostly just start over. There's only so far you can go before the old parts drag down your new parts. Stuff like hard drives, ram, mobo,cpu,vid are the most common problems.

If you consider getting a whole new system, then everything is new (fast) and you don't have to have parts laying around from your old box. (You can sell it for a couple hun'red at least)