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Worthwile video upgrade?

P

PurdueRy

Lifer
Currently have a 128 MB 9800 pro(not XT) and my friend is offering me his 256MB x800pro for $70. I looked at some benchmarks and it looks good. However, the only game I really play at all right now is a lil bit of BF2 and BF2:SF. They both run well at 1280x1024 with details on medium and no AA.

Anyone have any input on whether this change would be significant enough to warrant it? Thanks for any and all opinions
 
If I was going to spend money on a cheap upgrade I'd go for a used 7600GT or X1650XT since you can find them for only $20-$30 more
 
An X800 Pro isn't really much of an upgrade from a 9800 Pro ... yes it'll be enough faster to notice, but not a whole lot. If your friend had an X800/850XT I'd say the $70 would be worth it, but this case I'd say save your money awhile longer until you can afford to move to a PCIe motherboard & a $100 7600GT (or similar) which will not only be considerably faster but will leave with a continued upgrade path instead of at a dead-end.

Also note that although there are AGP varients of the 7600GT & X1650XT available, they will cost considerably more then their PCIe counterparts ... so much more in fact that the price difference will often come very close to paying for a new PCIe motherboard.
 
Check these charts.

The X800 Pro is MUCH faster than the 9800 Pro. For older games, it won't mean much, but in BF2, you would see a BIG improvement in framerate and/or picture quality (because you could turn up the details higher and keep the same FPS). BF2 is an awesome looking game, and that's a very good price, assuming it's in good condition. An X800 Pro is very close to a 6800GT or a 7600GT, if that helps. I've seen the difference between a 5700 Ultra and an X800XL, which is similar to the difference between a 9800 Pro and an X800 Pro..and it was a completely different game. If you haven't seen BF2 in action with a good card, you will be blown away. Don't forget you're doubling your vram.

The prices on the newer cards mentioned earlier were apparently for the PCI-E versions. If you can find an AGP card of those models at those prices from a reliable source, you're luckier than I am.

If you're considering a $70 upgrade, I'll assume you're not up for a $700 upgrade real soon. Therefore, I'm not in your shoes, but I seriously doubt you'll find something better, and I recommend you hit it.
 
I upgraded my old box from a 9800 Pro to an X800GTO and the increased performance was very noticable in both benchmarks and real world gaming.

$70 is a fair price. I'd say it's a good interim upgrade until you upgrade your whole system to a PCI-E motherboard ($$$). Go for it.
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
I upgraded my old box from a 9800 Pro to an X800GTO and the increased performance was very noticable in both benchmarks and real world gaming.

$70 is a fair price. I'd say it's a good interim upgrade until you upgrade your whole system to a PCI-E motherboard ($$$). Go for it.
Click to expand...

and the x800 pro is > than the x800 GTO I believe right?
 
Originally posted by: PurdueRy
Originally posted by: MichaelD
I upgraded my old box from a 9800 Pro to an X800GTO and the increased performance was very noticable in both benchmarks and real world gaming.

$70 is a fair price. I'd say it's a good interim upgrade until you upgrade your whole system to a PCI-E motherboard ($$$). Go for it.
Click to expand...

and the x800 pro is > than the x800 GTO I believe right?
Click to expand...

Yep, the X800 pro is better. I looked into selling my GTO, but they were going for like $30 (used) on EBay. 🙁 It's a good card, I kept it. It's in my old/backup box.

It's a very worthwhile upgrade; I think you'll be quite pleased. 🙂
 
The X800pro will give a good performance gain, and you can do the mod to open up those locked pipelines to make it even faster (it basically makes it into an X800XT PE, I did it when I was using an X800pro).
 
x800pro is way faster, unlocks easily, and will play BF2 like a dream at the settings you want. Only problem is it wont support the newer shader models or HDR(it runs the Source engine HDR but thats not used in anything but Source based games). Really though that won't matter cuz in your price range no card that supports those is fast enough to use them anyways lol. I say go for the x800pro and let it blow your mind. Counting out the g71-g80 transition (the perfromance leap in that was just sick with the g80 outperforming dual and quad card setups from the g71 and x19 series), the 9 series to x8 series was the single greatest jump in performance from one gen to the next we have ever seen.

morgash
 
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