Buying a new Gfx Card

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:07 pm **Post subject:** Buying a new Gfx Card

OK, just looking for opinions here, I'm about to buy a 9800 pro (128Mb). Has anyone here got one? What are it's good and bad points? How much speed difference will I see from a 4200Ti (64Mb)? and lastly, is this purchase worth making?

Some Random Dude · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:46 pm **Post subject:** Re: Buying a new Gfx Card

PC_Arcade wrote:

OK, just looking for opinions here, I'm about to buy a 9800 pro (128Mb). Has anyone here got one? What are it's good and bad points? How much speed difference will I see from a 4200Ti (64Mb)? and lastly, is this purchase worth making?

You can't play games with the TI4200 or just not statisfied with the picture and want it to look smoother?

I own a TI4600 and is still doing a fine job (BF1942, Unreal, Wolfenstein, etc..) although when I tried Far Cry it had some trouble. Not a big problem, because I didn't like the game and won't be buying it. But with the new generation games I'll have to buy a new GFX card for example for Half-Life 2, but that game won't come out until April and guess what around that time the R420 and the Nv40 will be on the market. These are the ones that'll follow up the current cards.

Man I'm babbling :oops:

, what I'm saying is. Wait about 2 or 3 months and you'll get a bigger bang out of that buck you want to spend now and get more joy out of it :wacky:

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:53 pm **Post subject:**

LOL, NOoooooo, not the old "wait 2 months", there's NEVER a good time to upgrade, and there's always another upgrade round the corner

It's gonna cost ~?170 for the 9800 Pro, which for the increase in speed / Direct x 9 capability I think is pretty good. Recent games which have been slow are : Deus Ex 2 and Halo, also, the 9800 is a DX9 card, which the 4200 isn't and also, I want better picture quality.

Some Random Dude · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 6:03 pm **Post subject:**

PC_Arcade wrote:

LOL, NOoooooo, not the old "wait 2 months", there's NEVER a good time to upgrade, and there's always another upgrade round the corner

It's gonna cost ~?170 for the 9800 Pro, which for the increase in speed / Direct x 9 capability I think is pretty good. Recent games which have been slow are : Deus Ex 2 and Halo, also, the 9800 is a DX9 card, which the 4200 isn't and also, I want better picture quality.

Lol, I know. You do know that the next generation cards will be the last AGP cards and PCI Express will be next best thing, which would be incompatible with the current motherboard

Anyway, Deus EX could profit from a faster card, but Halo will run hardly on any system smoothly at least that's what I read from lots of people. I'll buy a new GFX card with HL2, it seems such a waste to buy a new card now while I would know that in 2, 3 months a better card will be out.

Some pretty pics with benchmarks..

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863&p=8

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/200 ... ts-09.html

It's up to you :wink:

d0c · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 6:36 pm **Post subject:**

"PCI Express will be next best thing" wtf is this??? :roll:

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 8:22 pm **Post subject:**

PCI express is a replacement for the archaic PCI interface. Much much faster, and is set to replace AGP interface too. In about a year or two, motherboards will be PCI express, maybe a hybrid with PCI normal interface too so all your cards aint redundant. Regardless, its a bit off, and gfx cards for it are even further away.

Regardless, the ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256mb plays HL2 fine, baring in mind its an unmastered beta of hl2 too, lacking optimisation.

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 9:47 pm **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

PCI express is a replacement for the archaic PCI interface. Much much faster, and is set to replace AGP interface too. In about a year or two, motherboards will be PCI express, maybe a hybrid with PCI normal interface too so all your cards aint redundant. Regardless, its a bit off, and gfx cards for it are even further away.

Regardless, the ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256mb plays HL2 fine, baring in mind its an unmastered beta of hl2 too, lacking optimisation.

To be fair to my aging ti4200, it plays HL2 beta perfectly well @ 1024x768

mmm, I might hold off for a while.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 9:52 pm **Post subject:**

ATI Radeon 9800 XT is a great card, 9600XT for budget users too.

The AIW is way down in price now too, so if you go for one get a AIW 9800 or an XT

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2004 10:01 pm **Post subject:**

The 9800XT is nearly double the price of the 9800pro, and for the differences in the benchmarks here and here hardly seems work an extra ?50 let alone ?150.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 12:16 am **Post subject:**

PC_Arcade wrote:

The 9800XT is nearly double the price of the 9800pro, and for the differences in the benchmarks here and here hardly seems work an extra ?50 let alone ?150.

toms hardware is a piece of shit (I stopped using it a while back because of lots of inaccurate and inconsistant reviews), but the increase in fps isn't that great true, just a constant first by about 10fps. Although you have to take note that there are significant particle and graphical improvements rather than just a frame rate hike. The clock speed of both ram and gpu are hiked

Overclock it and it rips the shit out of everything

Although I don't have enough cooling power atm.

As for ?150 price difference

More like ?80 between an XT and pro, remember with 256mb onboard. Unless your talking about cheap 128mb boards.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ ... 2d029_2dhe

Take a look at the bottom two, ?200 + VAT for a 9800 pro 128mb, ?280 + VAT for 9800 XT 256mb. You aren't looking at cheap and nasty 9800s are you? Because they simply don't compare.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 12:18 am **Post subject:**

oh and go for a saphire or hercules
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ ... cards.html
much better than those cheap ones.

edit:
I just read your wanting a 128mb one. The reason XT is much more is that standard is 256mb onboard, which completely rips on a 9800 Pro 128mb (this is not evident now, but when Doom3 and HL2 come out it will be very evident, read the explaination on reviews about XT

). You'll have to trust me that the price tag is justified and there is already significant performance increase over 9800pro 128mb. It doesn't appear in tests because frankly, no games really need that much memory atm. Although BF1942 seems to be a memory hog

XT are for the high end of the market, hence the price tag. Sorry i didn't notice that you were wanting a cheaper 128mb model, and thought you wanted a 256mb one, which the XT is replacing (Pro 256 production has or is very soon going to stop). Still, an XT is significantly better than a ATI 9800pro 128mb.

I'd hold out if I were you, sorry my bad, skipped the bit about you wanting 128mb.

At the end of the summer a new, entirely new, batch of cards should be about to enter the market.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 12:29 am **Post subject:**

One last thing, I've been reading a lot, but after Doom III and HL2 its been predicted that mere graphical increase will no longer be enough to push games, and already it is not as impressive as when Doom/Quake arrived.

If anyone reads PC gamer there's a great article about what's long been predicted by some pretty big hitters in the game industry.

Plus the new Starship Troopers game looks absolutely shit hot

(and star wars bf1942 type game does too)

Blu_Vein_Throbber · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:52 am **Post subject:**

PCI Express is suppose to be coming out in the second quarter. Also, as of now, PCI-X and AGP slots cannot be on the same motherboard. All high end AGP graphics card will be PCI-X by the end of the year. I say wait until fall then upgrade the motherboard & video card together.

I also have a TI4200 but with 128 meg ram. HALO runs perfect on my system, but I hate the game. With no real good DX9 games coming out until the summer, ie HL2, why buy obsolute gfx cards now unless it was necessary? Just my 2cents :banana:

biggy666 · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:13 am **Post subject:**

blu vein, halo runs perfect in your system??
i have a TI4200 with 128 mb too, but halo runs like shit here. ;ppp very bad performance. ;pppp there is a new patch for that??
i bought a ati 9600 XT 128 mb and arrives tomorrow. its really a good card???

Blu_Vein_Throbber · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:15 am **Post subject:**

http://developer.intel.com/technology/p ... esktop.htm

The above link talks about Intel bringing it to market. All MB manufacturers are suppose to have boards out at least by the beginning of the 2nd half.
Coincidently, Intel came up with it and AMD jumped on it quick. HT is suppose to work really well with it. There is a competing design but it has no chance to become standard. AMD also supports it.

The BTX form factor is also suppose to be coming out this year. It totally rearranges the inside of your computer and does away with most legacy support. It is alot better than ATX but almost every thing you got will need to be repurchased. Intel also designed this. So everybody needs to buy Itel stock :lol:

Blu_Vein_Throbber · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:17 am **Post subject:**

Well, I never played it into the game very far. But all thru the crash and running and killing the landing aliens it worked flawlessly. I dont remeber much else about the game. I did not like it too much.

If I had to buy a card now, it would damn sure be an ATI card. they smoke nVidia and have better driver support for once.

biggy666 · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 3:26 am **Post subject:**

and ati rules on the filters!
fuck nvidia!

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:32 am **Post subject:**

MMM, Looks like i'm going to hold off for a while then, I need a new case too. So I'll grab a (cheap) case until I go BTX, PCI Express and 64bit later in the year.

Looks like new PC time soon :-o

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 2:10 pm **Post subject:**

next jan just make up a new pc when everything is cheap. Great time for making a system

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2004 4:24 pm **Post subject:**

Quote:

Although Nvidia's NV40 may have taped out and is well on schedule, it would seem that ATI may have the jump on their southern rivals since the company appears ready to ship its R420 chips to its partners. Apparently ATI's new chip taped out in December, almost at the same time as Nvidia's offering, the NV40 however, will not ship to partners until February.

Although this time difference in the development process of the chips may not appear significant at first glance, it may become important since ATI could obtain a one month advantage over Nvidia. Both new chips will be introduced at this year's CeBIT show, so any time advantage by one manufacturer over the other could prove important in maintaining an effective supply chain.

Details of clock speeds etc for the new chips cannot even be guessed at yet but both offerings will not really represent a major leap for the hardware arsenal of the companies but just a significant upgrade. ATI is alreadty working on a new, faster product, while Nvidia, no doubt, are doing the same.

Buying a new Gfx Card

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