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Radeon 9800Pro Upgrade

JIMA

JIMA

JIMA

Associate
Joined
15 May 2006
Posts
224
Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on a graphics card upgrade and wondered if anybody would be kind enough to spare a few minutes to give me some advice?

Currently my setup is:
CPU - Athlon XP2800
AGP Radeon 9800Pro 128Mb graphics card
768 MB RAM

Recently it's looking a little dated especially when running some of the latest games. In the end I'll need to upgrade to a new setup with PCI-ex. However, for the time being I was wondering if a new, relatively inexpensive, graphics card would breathe a bit of extra like into my system.

I'm currently looking at the AGP versions of the ATI X800GTO, Nvidia 6600GT and possibly the 6800GS. Lots of benchmarks etc. out there but none I can find that use a similar CPU to mine, which I assume affects things like 3DMark results.

Does anyone have any views as to whether any of the above would be worth upgrading to from the 9800Pro? I don't want to spend too much because of the ultimately required move to PCI and also because I've a feeling a really fast card would be wasted on my slowish CPU.

Thanks for any advice anyone can give me.

Jim
 
I have a similar rig to you and just had an upgrade from a ati 9800se to a gf 6800gt and the difference is well worth the 100 notes it cost me.
check out mm for some deals on a used agp card of similar spec

edit : you dont have mm as you need 100 posts so maybe try ebay
edit2: Ignore me im old:)
 
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Welcome to the forums :)

Probably the easiest way would be for you to run 3d mark, go to online result browser and compare your CPU with the other GPUs.

I recently splashed out on a gainward 7800GS (GT) 512mb AGP from my old 9800 pro and saw a very large improvement in speed with lots of additional eye candy turned on but this did cost more £££.

Be prepared for the inevitable advice to upgrade to pci-e now from the following posts :p
 
I needed to stick with AGP too and upgraded from my 9800Pro to an X850XT.
It worked out well - I can play Oblivion at reasonable settings now :)
 
Codmate said:
I needed to stick with AGP too and upgraded from my 9800Pro to an X850XT.
It worked out well - I can play Oblivion at reasonable settings now :)
Click to expand...
Cool, worked out well for me too with my AGP 7800gt :cool:
 
I would suggest for an XP 2800+ something like..

PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-050-PC) £117.44 Including VAT at 17.5%

or

OcUK GeForce 6800 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-035-OK) £152.69 Including VAT at 17.5%

depending on budget.

I dont think you get the most out of any of the quicker cards, so not worth while getting the 7800GS etc.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the advice everyone. Always good to find a friendly forum.

Did a 3DMark2005 benchmark and it looks like either an X800GTO or an X850XT will give my system a fairly big improvement for a modest outlay. It's Oblivion that's causing the real problems, fine when you're inside but could look better when exploring outside. Seems like lots of people are finding problems with this game.

Didn't realise there were so many variations of each card around, all a bit confusing at first. I remember the good ol' days of the original 3DFX Voodoo - very little choice - nice and simple :)

Thanks,
Jim
 
JIMA said:
Hi,

Thanks for the advice everyone. Always good to find a friendly forum.

Did a 3DMark2005 benchmark and it looks like either an X800GTO or an X850XT will give my system a fairly big improvement for a modest outlay. It's Oblivion that's causing the real problems, fine when you're inside but could look better when exploring outside. Seems like lots of people are finding problems with this game.

Didn't realise there were so many variations of each card around, all a bit confusing at first. I remember the good ol' days of the original 3DFX Voodoo - very little choice - nice and simple :)

Thanks,
Jim
Click to expand...
Lol, even better with a sinclair spectrum ~ 48k or 16k ( Edit or was it 32k )

3D mark 2005 can be very useful for comparing different cards, but the numbers don`t give the whole picture such as shader model 3.0 support etc.
Having said that, both the cards you mentioned are good value for money, top of the range cards not that long ago :)
 
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