New Graphics Card Advice

[gman69]

What card should I get? I am thinking about a Radeon X1300 or Jetway Radeon 9600XT. I know this is an old timer, but am on a tight budget for a while. Should I get one of these cards or something else? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Are the preceding card compatible with a:
Soyo K7V Dragon Plus
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
768 Megs of Ram
Altec Tru power 450 Watts
Please help this ancient pc. My GForce4 440 died. First the screen just locked up and could not Ctrl+alt+delete out of it. Then it would not post just 2 or 3 fast beeps and nothing. The fan in not woking on the card. That could do it. I am 90% sure it is dead, is that a likely possibility?

Thanks, gman69.

 

[gman69]

I am really needing advice to decide on a card. Can anyone please give some advice on this? :lol:

 

[raven_87]

Yes its a possibility your GPU is dead, whats your budget for a new card?

 

[GeneticWeapon]

AMD Athlon XP 1800+

 

[raven_87]

Let me translate GW's post: Your CPU is going to be a huge bottleneck.....please dont aim very high.

 

[gman69]

My budget is between $50-$85 ish. Yah the cpu is old, but I have to wait a while on a new build. I plan to build a new system in the not-so-distant future. AMD Athlon 1800+ cpu, Soyo k7v dragon + 4X AGP, 430 Wt TruePower is what I have. I am thinking about 3D Fusion Geforce 6600 256MB 128-bit DDR AGP 4x/8x for $74.99 after rebate. Thanks for any help.

 

[sojrner]

for your system that 6600 would be the highest I would go for sure... anything more would be wasted as teh proc would not be able to feed it nearly fast enough, and even that 6600 might be starved on most games.

 

[kaotao]

I've got a 9800pro I'll sell you for $60.

 

[gman69]

I can buy a 9800Pro at newegg for $67 new. Thanks anyway.

 

[gman69]

Thanks for the advice.

 

[gman69]

What is the specs on the 9800 pro and how do I know it won't be doa. I am not sure my syk7v dragon+ will take this card. Does this also include shipping? Thanks.

 

[kaotao]

I can't promise you it won't be DOA, because anything can happen during shipping. I've had this card for about a year and a half, never had ANY problems with it, and it continues to work like the first day I bought it. If you can get one new through Newegg for $67, I'd got for that though. Where are you located?

 

[gman69]

I live in Tulsa, OK. An ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is better than a Geforce 6600? The Specs show it is, but is it really?

 

[gman69]

Oh yah, the $67 Radeon 6800 pro has 128mb on the card not 256.

 

[kaotao]

128MB is all that mine has. I'd go for the $67 9800 pro, it's better than the 6600. I'll try to find some benchmarks pitting the two against each other.

 

[gman69]

Awesome, that would really help! Thanks.

 

[mrquin27]

a 9800 pro is a really good card. I remember when they were 400$

 

[sojrner]

ya, I upgraded to my current one from a 9700pro which was what the 9800pro was based on. (design-wise) Both are great cards, even today.

Look here and you will see some older benches showing the 9800pro soundly beat the snot out of the vanilla 6600. In many tests the way older 9700pro kicks it right in the junk. Doom3 being one exception, but ati has vastly improved openGL performance in their drivers so that is not accurate now. (rally, none of them are as they all have changed I'm sure, but relatively speaking the 9800pro is the better bet)

If you are gonna sell soon and dont want to wait to save for something more like the 6600gt or even better the 7600gs (now in agp) then go w/ the 9800pro

 

[burn-e86]

just a little point of interest...i dont think that the 9600XT is made anymore...i know when i blew mine, i tried to get another one (i had a 9600XT and a mate had a 9800SE...funny as hell i always beat him in benchmarks...even after he tried overclocking.

the 6600 is around the same as 9800SE i think so getting a 9800pro is better...though that being said, the 6600 has SM3 and other features that might make it better for future proofing