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Radeon 9700 Pro worth upgrading?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Radeon 9700 Pro worth upgrading?

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vinster345   01-28-2007 at 01:40:55 PM

Looking to get a cheap upgrade of my rig (see sig below). looking at overclocking a D805 (£60) and get some ddr2 ram obviously (£60). But as i want to play half life well (radeon runs it nicely) and oblivion not full but ok, do i really need to get a new fancy pci-e motherboard and a pci-e card (looking at 7600GT which is another £100), or just get a moderate agp card and make do (i itend to upgrade bit by bit really).

Or should i just go for a half decent mboard and a 7600Gt? Would that give me a good yr or so? Do a bit of gaming and alot of multitasking (many programs running at once type of person, like TV card in background while surfing and itunes!)

Thanks for help!

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minim3   01-28-2007 at 04:04:41 PM
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your post is confusing. The 9700 is a very good card by itself. Not sure that the 7600gt is worth it.

Pls list your full specs and then your budget for possible upgrade paths.

Reply to minim3
sirheck   01-28-2007 at 04:48:34 PM
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Quote :

The 9700 is a very good card by itself. Not sure that the 7600gt is worth it.



a 76gt would be worth it over a 9700.
and his post is kinda confusing.

Reply to sirheck
daveola   01-28-2007 at 04:51:39 PM
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I am a little confused by what you are asking also but I may have some helpful information. I have three computers in the house right now. Two of them are PCI-e (7900GTO and 7600GT-OC) and the other is an AGP (7800GS-OC). The AGP rig is a standard socket 478 3.0Ghz P4, the other two are LGA775 3.2Ghz P4's. The AGP rig cannot play games the way the PCI-e's do but I wouldn't say that it really that much different than the 7600GT. I upgraded from a 9800Pro to the 7800GS-OC and it was a different world. Now most games (BF2,COH, WOW,Madden07) can be played with much higher settings than the 9800Pro could play them. If you have the extra money than I would definitely advise the upgrade to PCI-e, but an upgrade to the 7800GS-OC would also make you very happy at a fraction of the cost. I think they are going for about $150 after rebate now. Hope this helped.

Reply to daveola
vinster345   01-28-2007 at 05:42:52 PM
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Apologies, I know my post was a bit long winded. Its a case of having about £150 now and wanting to upgrade. I will eventually get a E6300, 1Gb DDR2 ram, a 7600GT or near that, and a motherboard to take them.

I currently have a sempron 2800+ 64 on a ECS Sckt 754 board, with 1gb DDR ram and a Radeon 9700 Pro.

I can't do the option i want just year, but would like to upgrade so I can play games at a reasonable rate but also be able to open quite a few programs simultaeneously on my dekstop (have both XP and Ubuntu)

So far the sensible option seems a ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA for about £40 and a Intel D 805 Dual. this means the board can still use my 1Gb of ddr 3200 ram and my AGP card, but allow me to upgrade to a better Graphics card, E6300 and DDR2 Ram when I get some more cash.

Meanwhile, I can overclock as much as the board will allow me for the moment.

Might still look at a 7600GT to compliment it, but not playing quite as many PC Games at the moment due to my new Wii and Guitar hero 1 & 2. But have a copy of Oblivion on its way so would be nice to get that at Medium settings at least. Any thoughts?

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sirheck   01-28-2007 at 05:52:45 PM
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you could go with that mobo and put your current components in it.

if that mobo has both agp and pci-e.
then i would go with something like the 76gt in pci-e
as it can be found around 100$.

so you can spend the 40 on the mobo and 100 or so on a videocard.
that would keep you at your 150$ budget.

the 76gt is much better than the 9700.

Reply to sirheck
vinster345   01-28-2007 at 06:09:26 PM
- 0 +

Quote :

you could go with that mobo and put your current components in it.

if that mobo has both agp and pci-e.
then i would go with something like the 76gt in pci-e
as it can be found around 100$.

so you can spend the 40 on the mobo and 100 or so on a videocard.
that would keep you at your 150$ budget.

the 76gt is much better than the 9700.



Thanks for the help. I agree that would meet the budget. But I'm going to get a processor first. The sempron is a pile of ..... for my needs. Then I'll get a 7600Gt with part of my next pay packet (expensive xmas just gone!!)

So will get a D 805 and that Mboard

Reply to vinster345
sirheck   01-28-2007 at 06:26:27 PM
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that mobo should be able to handle something like
an e6300. which is way better than the 805.

unless you can get the 805 for really cheap.
but the c2d is a hell of a better choice.

Reply to sirheck
vinster345   01-28-2007 at 06:29:36 PM
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i realise its a better choice, but you add £50 to that, then maybe a £80 Graphics card..... Always been a budget guy. I will play more Zelda + Guitar Hero in the next month and my radeon will cover me for that until i want pay for decent card.

Reply to vinster345
sirheck   01-28-2007 at 06:36:06 PM
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if you can go for the c2d and wait on your gpu.

you can always get a pci-e later. as like you said
the 9700 will work ok til then.

by then the price and availibilty of gpu,s might be
completely different from now.

Reply to sirheck
vinster345   01-28-2007 at 07:05:24 PM
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so would i be better off maybe holding off and spending the extra £50 on the e6300. Even if i don't need optimum performance? To be fair, looking around forums, the general concesus seems to be, go for the e6300 everytime. That plus the mboard, and maybe upgrade the ram and GPU later.

Does that sound right?

Reply to vinster345
sirheck   01-28-2007 at 07:20:24 PM
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thats up to you.

if you can get an 805 for cheap then do that.

you can always get the e6300 or higher later.
as they will probably drop in price even more in the near future.

im not saying just the e6300 it could be an e6600 or what ever.
the c2d,s are the cpu to have right now.
you dont need quadcore yet .

so if you want to upgrade your cpu and gpu later then go for the
mobo and 805 for now.

Reply to sirheck
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