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Upgrade from an old, old, 9800 pro!

madmaxx

madmaxx

madmaxx

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Joined
18 Aug 2003
Posts
868
Location
S Yorks
Well, OcUK deals of the week are making me think its time to upgrade from my barton 2500 + 9800 pro - about time I hear you all say! So, as I've not bought a graphics card for a few years, i was after some advice. I've not got too much cash to fork out on this, so i was thinking of going for the Athlon 64 3700 san diego, thats on this weeks offer.
What graphics card would be a decent partner for it - being a skinflint, and also bearing in mind that Vista is around the corner with DX10, i was wondering about punting for something cheap, such as a Raedon 1600, or maybe a 7300, and maybe upgrading in a year or so's time. Do folks think thats a fair strategy, will i get a decent performance boost? Or should i consider different cards?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts folks :)
 
LoadsaMoney said:
x1800 XT at £152, will easily last till you decide to go DX10 as theres no need to go DX10 straight away. :)
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Another vote for the x1800xt! It's amazingly zippy and a bargain at that price. :D
 
Try and get a 512MB model if you do.. I'd say that it provides that little extra future proofing yet not that much more Moooola (££) ;) But Yeh, my votes for a X1800XT too :D
 
Thanks for the advice folks, i could ideally do with keeping spend on the graphics card below £100 though. But will see if my wallet can stretch that far.... :p
 
Clearence corner... take your pick, but be quick as they wont last long...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Clearance.html

Asus Extreme AX800XT /2DT ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £96.35 Including VAT, 11th card down.

PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB - £76.32 Including VAT 12th card down. if your looking for


both cards have enough power to keep you happy till DX10 :) although i would go for the GTO myself and clock it to death as the only difference i can see between them is that the Asus AX800XT`s GPU is 100Mhz faster, this you should be able to hit without too much effort with the X800GTO :D
 
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Definitely grab the Connect3D X1800XT 256MB on special this week if you can. Its only £50 or so more than you would pay for a card otherwise.
Its twice as fast as any £100 card you will get, but for only a 50% increase in price. It will also last you a lot longer than any £100 card. Thats why the suggestion again. Dont want to annoy you buy suggesting a higher price card than budget might allow, just that i think it really is a great buy.


If you really cant stretch that much then i would go for the Asus Extreme AX800XT /2DT ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM (GX-054-AS) at £96.35 Including VAT. The 4 extra pixel pipelines help keep its performance above the X800GTO.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Graphics_Cards_637.html

If not that then yeah go for the PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM (GX-054-PC).

But as said be quick if going for the ones in the clearance section, as they can go quick.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys, much as it goes against the grain, im tempted to keep below £100 at the moment. Am I going to see much of an improvement over and above the 9800 pro that im using at the moment? This is bearing in mind that im also going from a barton 2500 running at 3200 speeds, to an Athlon 64 3700 and a DFI mobo?
Again, thanks! :)
 
The best value card for under £100 atm is IMO the 7300GT (DDR3) which costs ~£66. However, performance isn't that huge a leap forward from the 9800pro. It's great bang for back though as you are talking 6600gt-trouncing performance from these babies.
 
Interesting Hangtime - so you think that its either spend more than £100, or i wont see much improvement over what ive got now? Im using a Xerox 19" tft screen, so dont really need to ramp the resolution up to anything over 1280*1024, i'd be hoping for better frame-rates in games i play, which are mainly BF2, Q4 at the moment - but with new kit, i'd like to be able to play some newer games reasonably well! Do you think what I'm considering will be upto the job? (i'm not changing the screen, so wont need to go about the res i just mentioned). Again, ta! :)
 
HangTime said:
The best value card for under £100 atm is IMO the 7300GT (DDR3) which costs ~£66. However, performance isn't that huge a leap forward from the 9800pro. It's great bang for back though as you are talking 6600gt-trouncing performance from these babies.
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:confused: when compaired to an X800XT for £96... your nutts.


X800XT should give you a huge boost over that of the 9800pro, i had a pro myself and eventually went to an X800GTO2, between 200% and 400% extra power, easily. hell the GTO for £76 would wip the 7300GT and thats only a tenner more.
 
Ooh, this is toooo complicated!! :p Any more for any more? Seriously, am interested - i can only afford to splash my cash on thins kind of purchase once every couple of years or so, so all thoughts really are welcome!
 
If you do go for a 7300GT, check the speeds. There are huge differences, with GPU varying from 350 to 550 and memory from 333 ("666") to 700 ("1400"). This, obviously, makes a big difference to performance. The slower ones are OK, but the faster ones are outstanding for a budget card.
 
i had the same issue as your self and went for the asrock dual sata(pcie and agp ports),amd 3700 and 2gb of pc 3200 ram,kept my 9700 pro until i could afford a better card,this gives you the upgrade route without splashing all the cash at once
another option to consider
dave
:D :D :D :D
 
Thanks, the ASrock is seriously cheap! £40! Choices.....are these boards any good? I've always bought the big brands before - Abit, Leadtek etc, so wouldnt mind some more opinions.
 
got two here with 3700 and a 3200 both are rock solid,one with pcie and one on agp graphics,easy to flash bios,easy to overclock,3700 is at 2600mhz stable,built another two for mates and for a budget board they are mint.
i think they are asus budget arm so there quality systems would be in place.
there is a large thread about this board in the motherboard section which includes any known compatability issues.
dave
:D :D :D :D
 
madmaxx said:
Thanks, the ASrock is seriously cheap! £40! Choices.....are these boards any good? I've always bought the big brands before - Abit, Leadtek etc, so wouldnt mind some more opinions.
Click to expand...


using one here on a 2Ghz opty 146, currently clocked to 2.65Ghz... will do 2.8 but nocked it down a touch due to summer. :) fantastic boards, very very future proof too.
 
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