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What should I expect from a stock 9800NP?

N

nbarb99

Senior member
(Cross-post from Rage3D)

I recently received an R9800NP from ATI (RMA process; ATI is *awesome* - I sent in a dead 9500 Pro). The description on the RMA packing slip is "R350 128MB BGA V-VO-DI I- (290M/324E)", with a product code of 102A0751301. Naturally, PowerStrip reports the core clock at 324MHz and the memory clock at 290MHz.

The system I'm pairing it with is:

Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0GHz)
1024MB PC3200 DDR RAM
120GB PATA Maxtor HD
Onboard LAN/Audio
WinXP Home SP2

I'm wondering what some reasonable expectations for this card are. My first impression was good: I got over 25,000 points in the default AquaMark3 benchmark.
However, I've been *slightly* disappointed with the "real-world" gaming performance I've been getting: 6-25 FPS in Rome:TW @ 1024x768 using the "detect best graphics settings" option; 20-50 FPS @ 1024x768 in America's Army with all detail settings maxed out. I'm not a hard-core gamer by any means, and the performance is certainly better than what I was getting with my previous card (Radeon 7200), but I was expecting it to be a *bit* better.

I realize that the 9800 is a couple of generations old by now, but still - 6 FPS in Rome: Total War? That has me a bit confused.

Any ideas, suggestions, corrections, etc. are most welcome 🙂
 
I think if it uses samsung or hynx memory you can flash it to a pro, if it uses infineon memory your screwed, still an alright card. Use medium settings btw.
 
I'm probably going to keep it stock to preserve the warranty 😉

Yeah, I can live with medium settings - but the odd thing is, I'm using the "detect best settings" option in R:TW and still getting a very bad framerate.

@MisterChief: It almost "feels" like AA and AF are enabled, even though I've specifically told the Catalyst driver panel to keep them off. 😛 6 FPS at 1024x768 is what I'd expect with AA/AF enabled, but not when disabled.
 
There really isn't any difference between the 9800pro and np. My old old 9800np was detected as a pro with the newer drivers. I had samsung memory (this was a few years ago) and was able to overclock it to 430/340. I didn't go further, but it was rock stable. I have since replaced it with a 9800pro and was able to achieve 425/350 with it. My friend is running my 9800np currently and loves it to death.
 
Make sure you used Driver Cleaner and have the latest Catalyst drivers installed. You shouldn't be getting 6fps anywhere with that card at 10x7 with no AA/AF.
 
Here's what I tried:

- Uninstalling ATI drivers (via the "Software Uninstall Utility")
- Rebooting into safe mode, running Driver Cleaner using the "ATI" profile
- Rebooting, installing the latest OmegaDrivers set
- Rebooting a final time

Unfortunately, I didn't gain any points in any benchmark that I ran. I have yet to try it in R:TW.
 
I had a "Built by ATI" 9800NP with the crappy Infineon chips and they wouldn't even OC to Pro speeds (the chips maxed out at around 320-325). The core overclocked pretty good, though.
 
Originally posted by: Triforceofcourage
Something is wrong.
Click to expand...

That's what I thought - I'm glad I'm not going crazy! 😉 I don't really see what else could be the issue here; I suppose there's a chance that some of my other components are limiting the video card, but that's kind of a long shot since I've got a decent system.
 
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