[Solved] 7200 GS Upgrade: 9800 GT vs HD 4850

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 7-10 days

BUDGET RANGE: $100 after rebates

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: E-mail/internet, Gaming (TF2, plus older games like Civ4 & SupCom2)

CURRENT GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 7200 GS

CURRENT POWER SUPPLY: IBM/Lenovo 41A9684 (280W)

MOTHERBOARD: G31T-LM2 Lenovo ver: V1.0 with 1 PCI slot and 1 PCI Express x16 slot (prob. PCIe Version 1.1)

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200

RAM: 4 GB DDR2

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg.com, or the Micro Center not too far from home

PARTS PREFERENCES: I prefer to stick with NVIDIA since I have read about driver difficulties switching from GeForce to Radeon

OVERCLOCKING: No way!

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No thanks.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1440 x 900 @ 75 Hz

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I know I will need a new power supply, so I am hoping to spend $50 on a video card and $50 on a power supply. I'll have to read the power supply forums next, because I have no idea what to look in a power supply other than Watts.


I read the Graphics Hierarchy Chart and compared it to the current deals on NewEgg and at Micro Center. Two cards really piqued my interest because they are high up on the list and only cost $50.

The first is the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCIe 2.0 x16

The second is the XFX HD-485X-ZNFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support

Are these deals too good to be true? Are these good choices for my system? And will I really get a good performance upgrade over my current GPU, since I only have PCIe version 1?

Thanks,
Reknaw

No, they're not "too good to be true", they're just years old. Old tech is cheaper. This isn't to say that they aren't powerful, and they'll both certainly make a 7200 GS look ancient.

I'm not sure where you're getting that they're 50 bucks, though... the 9800 is 50 bucks after rebate, sure (not guaranteed, mind you), but the 4850 is 80, even after the (again, only POSSIBLE) rebate.

So far as I'm aware, the 4850 does surpass the 9800.

Having PCI-e 1 won't matter, the important thing is the x16 bus (which you have).

Get the 4850. It's around 20% faster than the 9800gt. If you prefer nvidia, try finding a gts 250 1gb, this would be on par with the 4850. If your getting a gts 250, get the 1gb version because the extra vram benefits it (makes it faster). If your getting the 4850 or 9800gt, 512mb is enough.

Thanks for the quick, thoughtful replies! I have only been lurking for about 2 weeks, but the knowledge here is truly amazing.

Based on all your input, I went with the GTS 250 this morning. Yes only 512 MB, but a great deal for my price point. Newegg actually had a bundle deal with an XFX 650W power supply. The combo of both together was $139 up front, $79 after rebates. And free 3-day shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.627434

I can't wait to actually use default resolutions while playing TF2... thanks again to all of you!

(edited for grammar)

Yeah, that is a nice combo and a good choice. At your resolution the 512mb of ram is fine actually.