Will my system support Radeon 9700/9800 Pro

[STP]

I'm considering a video card upgrade (ati 9700 pro or 9800),
but my system is pretty old news here are the specs:
AMD 1.2GHz
ASUS A7V133 W/ 512RAM
ELSA GeForce2Ultra
sb 521 soundcard
Plextor cd-rw 16x10x40
dvd rom
300WATT PS

I'm not sure if I want to upgrade my existing system
or build a new one.
Would this be a waste to add this card
since my existing system might not be
able to support it.
Let me know what you think.

 

[error_911]

no you should experience most of what the card has to offer, your system is still fast enough to take it in stride

<b>people are only idiots when they don't realize - when they do it just gets funnier, like a dog chasing its own tail, or like george bush's public address(es)</b>

 

[Ghostdog]

The card should work, but it will be bottlenecked by the rest of the system. That 300W PSU is a bit low thoug, it could couse problems.

If you have the cash, you could upgrade your processor at the same time.

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red>

 

[Mr_Underhill]

You definitely want to up that power supply. Otherwise, you may have trouble. I have a 450w in my machine and just put a Radeon 9700 Pro in. The card comes with an extension cable for daisy chaining in between your power supply and HD, so that they share the same feed. Figuring ATI knew what they were doing, this is what I did. Yet, even with a 450w PS, my machine refused to boot. I had to plug the card directly into the PS so my harddrive would still have enough juice to spin up.

Given that the 9800 uses a 4-pin plug, I'd imagine it sucks even more juice.

 

[Ghostdog]

Nope. A molex connector doesn´t output more power than a floppy-connector, it´s a design thing.

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red>

 

[Mr_Underhill]

OK. Good to know, Ghostdog. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[LtBlue14]

<A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030120/vgacharts-04.html" target="_new">http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030120/vgacharts-04.html</A>
these benchmarks show that with an xp2700+ the card will give about double the performance than in your system, in many games
it's not true with aquanox because it's highly optimized for graphics cards
this means that your system will be a big bottleneck for you, but i don't consider it a reason not to upgrade to a 9700pro/9800 anyway, unless you're not planning on upgrading your system within the life of the card. (that is to say, you will get rid of the card when you upgrade the cpu or whatever else, or you will never again upgrade this computer). otherwise you'll just have to upgrade your graphics card again so that IT'S not the bottleneck. say a 4600 suits your system well now, in the future with your new cpu it will be the bottle neck and you'll probably spend more money getting another new card
that's how i feel about it anyway
also note that you can turn on aniso and anti aliasing without a big hit on the radeon cards

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[STP]

Thanks for info the 4600 seems
like it might be a better choice.
Do you know if this card will get the most
out of new gaming titles like Doom III, Unreal 2.

 

[selfbuilt]

I would say the Radeon 9500 Pro would be a better choice if you are also considering the GeForce4 series. The performance of the 9500 Pro would be equivalent to a Ti4600 on your current setup (or even a 9700 Pro, come to that), and would likely be superior for coming games (i.e. true DirectX9 support).

A point to consider in all of this is that the 9700 Pro or Ti4600 wouldn't give you superior performance to the 9500 Pro with your current system on just about anything you could try (except Aquanox). In all the game and synthetic benchmarks I've seen posted online, the 9500 Pro is only about 10-15% on average slower than the 9700 Pro on top of the line systems (range from 0-30% slower, depending on the test). On older systems like yours, however, Aquanox is the only game that shows any difference whatsoever - in everything else, there is absolutely no difference.

I've no doubt that newer games will stress the difference between a 9700 Pro and the 9500 Pro. However, you are not likely to see that at all on your current system. What you need to decide is how much future games are worth to you today, and when you plan to upgrade the rest of your system.

Where does good judgement come from? Experience. Where does experience come from? Bad judgement.

 

[dhlucke]

There are no Nvidia cards on the market that are a better choice.

Back to the 9700/9800...keep in mind that the performance is dependent on whether or not the game is CPU dependent, GPU dependent, or both.

A game like NWN is GPU dependent while a game like BF1942 is CPU dependent. Any game with AI is basically CPU dependent.

<font color=red>GOD</font color=red> <font color=blue>BLESS</font color=blue> <font color=red>AMERICA</font color=red>

 

[ianmills]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030120/vgacharts-04.html

This authors of this article are so IDIOTIC!!!
I really wish they stop publishing such stupid crap like this. The test is only done at 1024x768.
The videocard is NOT the limiting factor at this resolution. It does not test videocard performance at all. It tests processor speed/memory. If this test was done at 1600x1200 the FPS difference between the athlon 1000 and the athlon 2700+ would be MINIMAL. Maybe only differing by 10 or so fps.
The 2700+ framerate would drop off MUCH faster than the 1000 as the resolution increases.

In conclusion. This test has nothing to do with reality and SHOULDN'T be used to determine your videocard choice.