9800 pro-256mb w/ P4 2.2 ghz

[3leggedbrain]

I'm thinking of waiting to buy the 9800pro 256mb card, but the thing I'm not quite sure of is whether or not my current system will drag down the card's performance. I have a Pentium 4 2.2 ghz with around a gig of RAM. My motherboard only supports 4xAGP, but I've read a whole bunch of posts that claim that's not too big a deal...

What do you guys think?

 

[baldurga]

Man, you have too much money to spend ...

Your system won't be a problem ... just use Aniso & FSAA & 1600x1200 and the GPU will be busy.


Still looking for a <b>good online retailer</b> in Spain :frown:

 

[ad_rach]

What kind of RAM do you have?

no matter how hard you try, you can't polish a turd. :]

 

[vegandago]

I think I agree with baldurga

"There is no dark or light side, only power and those too weak to seek it."

 

[dhlucke]

Have we really gotten to the point where we think 2.2Ghz is too slow?

<font color=red>
<A HREF="http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?dhlucke" target="_new">The French are being described as cheese-eating surrender monkeys.</A></font color=red>

 

[juin]

we can wait a others 2 year for that

[-peep-] french

 

[eden]

Yes, sadly, when you have monkey game programmers which make CPUs the more deciding factor than cards... :frown:

I can't wait to see how Doom III acts with CPUs. Maybe it'll do like Aquanox, ignore the hell outta them.

--
This post is brought to you by Eden, on a Via Eden, in the garden of Eden.

 

[3leggedbrain]

thanks for the answers...

I guess I was kind of forgetting the cost, though. How much more will it be than the 128mb 9800pro? Or is that info not out there yet?

 

[dhlucke]

I don't believe that info is out. Keep in mind that all that extra memory is mainly usefull at higher resolutions. Make sure your monitor can support it.

<font color=red>
<A HREF="http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?dhlucke" target="_new">The French are being described as cheese-eating surrender monkeys.</A></font color=red>

 

[baldurga]

Well, I would say $400 <b>minimum</b>, because is what we see currently in top GPUs (FX apart :lol: ). IMO the extra memory will have cost impact, plus new tecnology, plus probably low volumes (specially at the beginig) = very high price.

As always my point is wait until the fever goes, and pay something more reasonable in some months. Or buy some GPU priced reasonably today.


Still looking for a <b>good online retailer</b> in Spain :frown:

 

[3leggedbrain]

I have an LCD monitor with a native resolution of 1280 x 1024... that's considered a high resolution isn't it? Though I wonder if my LCD monitor would fail to showcase the 9800's visual potential...

 

[Willamette_sucks]

the 256mb one will be 500 when it comes out.
400 for the 128.
think of the expenses though, twice the ram, plus its DDR2... i wonder what theyll clock it at?
technically it could have double the memory bandwidth... man i would kill myself if i got the 128 and the 256 just beat the snot out of it, it better not be that much better.

I dyed my body green, branded an "n" on my chest, and stood on a box in the middle of Time Square for 3 days shouting, "ATI is the Anti-Christ!" to boost sales after nVidia had a losing quarter.

 

[Twitch]

Is your name Dale by any chance? Because you sound just like my friend who has the worst case of upgrade-itis I've ever seen. He's bought ten or eleven graphics cards in the last 3-4 years. It's dumb. If I was nVidia or ATI, I'd love you though.

Try this man. Buy a graphics card, and don't upgrade it for two years. Then, when you do finally upgrade again, you will actually notice the difference!

<-----Insert witty sig line here.

 

[3leggedbrain]

I've actually never upgraded my graphics card before. I bought a Gateway computer last year and the card that came with it is the 64mb Radeon 8500 or 8500LE or something like that. I guess my reason for wanting to wait and buy the 256mb card is that I'm hoping it will perform well for a really loooong time. I start getting bummed when I can't run games with all the extra visual goodies.

 

[lumpyjim]

You know, the card makers are leading us by the nose. Each time they came out with an upgrade we run out and get it in spite of an imperceptible difference in many cases. When I bought the Ti4400 I swore I wouldn't get another card for two years. Each time I upgrade I am underwhelmed with the difference. (Voodoo-TNT-TNT2-TI440) I am falling into the upgrade trap again- do you think it's worth the ticket for either the 9800 128MB or 256 card from a TI4400?

 

[eden]

Wait for the 256MB edition with boosted DDR2 bandwidth.

--
This post is brought to you by Eden, on a Via Eden, in the garden of Eden.

 

[umheint0]

The only reason I got a 9700 Pro and didn't stick with my trusty ti500 was that I wanted to make sure my gpu could keep up with my new cpu. I want America's Army to be milky-smooth, even at the harshest settings. I'm sick of 20fps indoors in the pipeline map. Though, it did well in the sewers......

XP 2500+ Barton
A7N8X Dlx
2x512MB Corsair PC3200
ATI 9700 Pro
16x DVD-ROM
2x80GB 7200RPM Maxtor
Onboard audio

 

[Twitch]

Ahhh! I am not alone!

I realized a couple years ago I was trapped in the vicious cycle when I upgraded from a GeForce 3, to a GeForce 3 Ti500. My GeForce 3 suddenly acquired a "defect," and I returned it to CompUSA. Since the GeForce3 had cost $400, they told me to pick any $400 graphics card, so I grabbed the Ti500. That's when I knew that I was really, seriously getting carried away. Before that, I had upgraded religiously, from Voodoo2 to Voodoo2 SLI, to TNT2, to GeForce256 DDR, to GeForce2 GTS, to GeForce3. The Ti500 upgrade was the last straw and when I finally realized how stupid the upgrade cycle really is. All that for a 5-8% upgrade in performance!

Well now, eighteen months later, I can proudly say I still have that GeForce Ti500. I have resisted the temptation many times to buy a new graphics card. I am going to upgrade in May--probably to a 9800 PRO, but we'll see what Fate brings down the pike. I do know that this time, at least I'll notice a difference.


<-----Insert witty sig line here.

 

[LtBlue14]

if you didn't notice the jump from a TNT2 to a ti4400 then what WILL you notice?
maybe your cpu was bottlenecking you

<A HREF="http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=120&dPage=1" target="_new">WinXP tweak guide</A>
<A HREF="http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=guide&dId=145&dPage=1" target="_new">WinXP tweak guide 2</A>

 

[Twitch]

Yeah but when? WHEN EDEN???

Must....upgrade.....sooon! <gasp>


<-----Insert witty sig line here.


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Twitch on 03/19/03 00:13 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[chuck232]

A 2.2GHz will be limiting the R9700 Pro, and even more the R9800 Pro 256MB.

Supposedly the 256MB version will be clocked at 400/460... so take what you may from that.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[Willamette_sucks]

HOLY CRAP!!! ARE YOU KIDDING CHUCK?!!?!
If this is REAL ddr2 not 'fake' ddr2 like on the FX and transfers 2x as much data per clock as ddr then thats MORE than twice the memory bandwidth!!!
Please tell me its 'fake' ddr or that your clock speeds are wrong. thats even a nice gpu boost!
HOLY CRAP! i was planning on pre-ordering a hercules 9800 pro (128mb) soon. is the 256mb 9800 still supposed to come out in april?
i could get another hundred bux by then. dang! crap. i really dont want to wait a month, as i have been so excited about getting the 9800. oh man... what to do.
I guess i just wont pre-order, i mean theres no benefit to it so... in 2 weeks when the cards actually out maybe well know more about the 256mb 9800 pro.

does anybody here have a strong rope? wheres the closest tree?

Long live ATI.

 

[lumpyjim]

Williamette- you took a lot of crap on your last posting about the 9800 - I guess it's time for you to dish some out. (But I bet you preorder anyway....) LtBlue14- thanks for the tweaks- they're good. I saw my biggest performance boost after the switch to the Ti4400 but another consideration is that the graphics continue to get better in the newer games and the min. system requirements keep going up. I would assume that if I played the same new games with the old card I'd better appreciate the change.

 

[chuck232]

K I really doubt that this DDRII is "real" per se. IT'll probably just be DDRI sped up. I don't think ATi would do 256bit DDR bus and 2x DDRI performance combined. It will have more memory bandwidth yes, but because of the 460MHz DDR RAM speed as oppsed to the 340MHz DDR.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[3leggedbrain]

Chuck232,
Would you mind explaining in fairly basic yet specific terms how my pcu would limit these two graphics cards? Would the limitation be significant? Would I see little improvement over my current card, the 8500LE?