Well i desperately need an upgrade from my MX440 :sick: and I was looking at a Radeon 9600 or 9800. Im looking to spend under $175 CAD ($145 USD). I found a 128mb 9600 XT for $135 CAD ($112 USD). This seemed like a great deal bassed on the high clock speed and other factors, the only thing is lagged behind on the 9800's (sub XT) was a few factors which I have a vauge idea of what they mean (geometry rate, pixel fill rate and it only has 4 pipelines vs the 9800's 8) and the memory speed. Ive heard fairly good things about this card, but with technology as it is, to be able to play recent games on semi decent settings (read: medium to medium low) on my rig (P4 2.4 512DDR (going to a full gig soon) will it last me long before i need to upgrade. I'm not expecting it to last the almost 2 years that my MX440 did, but something close to that.
A 9600XT is a very good card, however if you can wait, or stretch your budget i would go for a 9800Pro or 9800XT. Or IF you can find one, get a 9700Pro. The 9700/9800 Range all have 8 pipelines, where as anything lower only has 4 for newer games you really would be Much better off with the 8 pipelines as it make a big difference. The 9700Pro has slightly lower clock speeds than the 9800Pro, however has 8 Pipelines, the problem is that this card is rather hard to find. Or, if you wanted a cheap 9800Pro, buy a: ATI Radeon 9800SE All In Wonder, it will cost you slightly more if not equal to a 9600XT, and with a simple software modification (merely done by downloading different drivers), you can "unlock" the other 4 pipelines, as they are Actually on the card, just disabled by the drivers :good:
ProcalX is absolutly right, I sold my 9800 SE to someone so they could softmod it to a 9800 Pro. The 9700 is also an excellent card in your price range, you can run World of Warcraft without slowdown on the higher settings.
Although it might work, I wouldn't advise you to buy a card in the hope of soft-modding it. Sometimes (like the 9500 to 9700 mod), the disabled pipelines are disabled because they are not working right. Therefore, once you enable them, you get artifacts. I suggest you at least get a 9800 Pro 128mb. Anything slower is a waste of money IMO, because you'll have to replace it soon, whereas the 9800 pro still has some life into it.
So would you recomend a 9800 Pro or SE above a 6900XT? EDIT: I will probably end up with a Saphire made card if i go into the 9800's if it makes a diffrence (which i doubt)
The performance (and price) should be very similar when compared to the Pro, it should run FarCry and maybe even HL2 on higher settings without much of a hitch. It's a little harder to come by though, Newegg only has one in stock but it's over $200.
yeh I have the sapphire 9800 pro 128mbm, and it's so far handled every thing I've thrown at it and spat it back out again. And with my new chip n mobo, only D3 slows me down on 1600*1200, which is no major biggy.
The place where i found them (this is in Canadian funds) Sapphire ATI 9800Pro Atlantis AGP8X 256MB DDR W/VGA/DVI/TV-out W/Completed Cables $265 Sapphire ATI 9800 Atlantis AGP8X 128MB DDR W/VGA/DVI/TV-out/ADP $179 Given, the pro does have double the ram, but i really like the price of that 9800, without any objections, i think i might go for that once i sell my old bike.
I think you should, it's a better deal in the long run. Why pay $86 dollars more for something that will only give you between 5-10 fps better (or less)? The Pro does have more vram but depending on what your playing you wont notice it. My card has 128mb's of vram and I only have one stick of 512mb ram yet FarCry still runs smoothly. There are 9800's with 256mb's of vram but you will have a hard time finding them for $179 CAD. If you had PCI-express I'd suggest the GeForce 6600 line but oh well.
Wow, what detail settings were you using? I'm impressed you cranked it up that high before the slowdown became particularly evident.
remember this, every SE card has 64bit vRAM. Not 128, or 256 like the 9800pro/XT's. So they cannot be fully softmodded. They will still be SE's.
He's exaggerating. Im running 1GB Dual Channel 2-2-2-5 / AMD64 3200+ / 6600GT @ 900/1.04GHz using DX9.0C & Omega Forceware and i can't run 1600x1200 at high graphics using my system (he'll be on lower graphics).
Ah, I see. I personally don't see any visual difference in games like UT2k4 from 1280x1024 to 1600x1200. My current monitor I use for the PC doesn't even support 1600x1200 nor will my future monitor so I'll never have to deal with that for a while. Frankly I think Doom3 is too much of a performance hog, even at high settings I think Painkiller looks a whole lot sharper and more crisp, not to mentions it runs like a dream. With the exceptions of the character models on D3 I don't see what all the buzz is about (graphically).
Max. I'm loving it [ot] And I can seriously notice the difference the athlon makes from my old pentium. Like not just the overall system performance, things like in HL2 where say a huge stack of crates get destroyed, it no longer stutters...smooth as polished glass.[/ot]
Yeah, the 3000 Winchesters are the bomb. I went from "playing" Unreal Tournament 2k4 on the ol' Mac (it wasn't all bad, the GeForce 4 MX still gave me about 10-40 fps @ very high settings on 1280x1024 depending on the level) to fragging like a mother in Painkiller (on the highest settings) on the PC (w/ the 3000+).
