Upgrade my geforce ti4400?

[driv384]

Hi all,
I have recently been out of the graphics card market for a while so am having trouble placing where my ti4400 falls in todays card array. I know I'm having issues running newer games on my sys (Freedom fighters for one cant run any aa-- too choppy). I currently have a dell 2.26 ghz with 768 MB Ram and Visiontek ti4400. Will upgrading to say an ATI 9600 really have an effect on performance and will it keep up with all the newer games coming out within the next year? Other recommendations? I don't want to spend much over $200. Thanks for your time!

-Dan

 

[cleeve]

Don't bother upgrading to a 9600.

Don't upgrade to anything less than a Radeon 9700 non-pro. That will give you the AA performance you crave for a little over $200.

If you can afford it, go Radeon 9800 non-pro or 9800 PRO.

------------------
Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (O/C to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 3586

 

[driv384]

Cleeve,
thanks for the quick reply. Looking at pricewatch there is a NON-PRO 9800 128MB for $169, which is less than the non-pro 9700 ($218). Any reason not to go with the cheaper 9800? Also, am I wasting my money not getting a pro and making too small a leap from ti4400?

Thanks again.

-Dan

 

[Gigglesby]

The cheaper 9800 non-PRO's on PriceWatch are 9800 SE's, which are pretty butchered cards.

You gotta be careful when you shop around on PriceWatch. Lots of scam artists and mislabeled stuff.

 

[driv384]

Thanks for the replies! I think I might go with the 9700 pro all in wonder so I can use my machine as a tivo too. Are there any manufacturers I should look out for (ie on pricewatch) or should all of them be ok (there's one for $264 on pricewatch)?

Thanks!

 

[dhlucke]

Use resellerratings.com to find a good vendor. I prefer newegg.com. mwave.com and allstarshop.com are a couple other ones that people have had good luck with.

_________________________________________
<font color=red>12 bit... The way games are meant to be played!</font color=red>

 

[ufo_warviper]

And don't forget <A HREF="http://www.gameve.com" target="_new">http://www.gameve.com</A>

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[ufo_warviper]

You say you have a Dell 2.26 GHz, is that a Celeron or a Pentium 4?

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[driv384]

its a P4 2.26

 

[dhlucke]

I have a list of vendors that I follow on a regular basis. I basically have their resellerrating score, which I update, along with a + or - depending on how their score changed.

For gameVE.com I have:

8.07++++-+- GameVE.com

They weren't that great in the begining but have definitely improved a lot.

_________________________________________
<font color=red>12 bit... The way games are meant to be played!</font color=red>

 

[ufo_warviper]

In my view, your system is still pretty fast and an upgrade won't be neccessary. However, if you feel that you must, I would definitely go with one of the newer ATi cards for sure. I doubt you'll be able to find the 9700 Non-pro under $200. You can probably find it for $230 though. If I were you, I'd just stick with what you have for now and upgrade later, unless that Antialiasing is really important. Oh, & you know what's a dozen times more beautiful than FSAA? - Ansiotropic Filtering. Having AF on full makes the Image QUality crystal clear, even textures from very long distances away aren't fudged up like they would be with AF disabled.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[driv384]

thanks for the info UFO... I'll check out my setup and make sure AF is set up correctly.

 

[ufo_warviper]

Your welcome, You may find it worth it to turn off FSAA just so you can run AF. If I could only have one or the other, I'd definitely pick AF over FSAA any day! Be sure that the AF is enabled in your Graphics Card's control panel. Now turning on Ansiotropic Filtering will DECREASE performance, so you might find it worthwhile to turn off FSAA. Maybe its just me, but I can tolerate "jaggies" more than I can blurry textures.

My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[Vapor]

I also have a Ti4400, and I really don't see a need to upgrade...especially to something like a 9600, 9700np, 9800se. You won't notice too much of a difference from what you have now, except in DX9, where I would imagine our 4400s have lackluster quality due to the lack of support. Wait for a while until either a new ATI card that is <200, or until a decent 9800pro drops to about 230-250 (maybe not for a while, though). Or even until nVidia releases anything better than the 4800.



RDRAM = ENEMY