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"Ati Radeon Fans"

What are the differences between ati radeon and geforce 4 ti 128 mb graphics cards? and what is a PRO card all about? does it work faster?
CHEERS!!!!

gamezfreak wrote:
> Thanks Safedisc!
>
> That was most interesting! I've decided to go for a 9800 Non pro :)

Good idea.. got that :)

I doubt he knows too much.

Oh hallowed safedisc

9600 Pro or FX 5600 Ultra? Both 256 Mb. And similar price.

Safedisc knows too much..

Thanks Safedisc!

That was most interesting! I've decided to go for a 9800 Non pro :)

Uncle Albert wrote:
> If only I knew what a dissertation project was!
>
> On a different matter - can someone make my mind up for me on the
> subject of video cards. I currently have an FX5600 256mb, which I'm
> slightly disappointed with and is definately the weak link in my
> system. So, my mate has offered me £50 for it, which would
> allow me to get a 9800 for £130. Do I go for it? Just how
> futureproof is this card? Will I be running Doom 3 at max settings
> with this card? The rest of my system is as follows:

Yeah the FX's aren't all that are they. Dunno what happened to nVidia this time around. Sure they’ll get it together for the NV40. Hey ho.

Anyway, the 9800 is a good card. I have a 9800Pro and the only difference between the two is the core and memory clock speed as both have a 256-bit bus, 8 pipelines etc etc…

Non Pro = 325mhz core and 290mhz memory
Pro = 380mhz core and 340mhz memory

Also remember that the Radeon cards are good overclockers. My 9800 Pro is running and 420 mhz core and 359 mhz memory. Which boosts bandwidth and FPS quite a bit. My 3DMARK2003 score (for what they are worth these days!) went from about 5800 to 6300 with that small OC – and that’s on stock cooling.

If you get a 9800 non pro you should be able to overclock the card to near Pro speeds, not quite, be close. And also you can flash the bios of the card (called soft modding) and get it running and full 9800 Pro speeds, although this is a rather extreme bit of modding.

Is it future proof? Hmm, well yes I guess to a point it is. Bottom line is that it’s as future proof as any video card can ever be.

It’s fully DX9 compliant, and has shown to have good performance with specific DX9 code functions like PS 2.0 and high dynamic range in the demos of HL2 and TR: AoD.

You’ll also have no problem running any game released this Christmas. I generally run 1024 X 768 resolution (which I know is low, but my 17” monitor is getting old now and that resolution is the only one which can give me 85Mhz refresh rate) with X16 AS and X4 AA – you may have to knock to AS down to X8 on a non Pro but that still gives excellent IQ and good frame rates – and by good frames rates I mean + 60 FPS in pretty much everything – or everything that requires that kind of speed. So not Age of Mythologies then :-)

Including…
Call of Duty Demo
Elite Force 2
Serious Sam 2
DF: Black Hawk Down
Unreal Tournament 2003 (2 maps do cause the frame rate to drop to about 40FPS but they are very texture heavy)


However, saying will this card play Doom 3 and HL2 at max settings is something of a stab in the dark. Personally I THINK (I don’t know as neither of these games are out yet) the 9800 NP will play HL2 and Doom at 1024 X 768 with everything on max at an acceptable frame rate – however, I don’t think you will be able to use much AA or AS, maybe a little bit, but not as much as I would like – non of the current cards are gonna’ be up to this job. Not even the FX 5950 or the Radeon 9800XT – which represent as far as this generation of video cards will go.

You’re only other option is to wait until the NV40 or R4xx based cards come out – when this will be isn’t set in stone. Might be as soon as Q1 next year – I read somewhere that the NV40 had taped out a month or so ago, which is a good sign but that means it’s still a long way off.

What I would do? Wait for a couple of weeks, the new 9800XT should be available in the UK by then and while this card will be stupidly expensive (it’s around $500 US) it will mean that the 9800Pro and 9800 NP will drop in price. When this happens, shop around and bag yourself a 9800Pro.

Hmmm, sorry for the length of this post - I do tend to go on a bit!

Nice.

gamezfreak wrote:
> I ordered a 9600 pro a few weeks ago and eBuyer fecked it up so I
> won't get it now.

eBuyer are spawn of the devil - all I have ever heard about them are bad things.

eBay. I saw one going for £120 a few weeks back.

I ordered a 9600 pro a few weeks ago and eBuyer fecked it up so I won't get it now.

I was thinking - Does anyone know where I can get a REALLY cheap 9800 from?

Was it Unreal Tournament (or one of the series ealrier titles?) that was basically released with the highest settings now working with a decient frame rate on any of the then-available cards? In any case - there are articles floating around on how early builds of HL2 and Doom are working with the respective cards. Someone linked to one one here last week, was an interesting read. On realease updated drivers will probably be released to deal with any specific issues, but I would GUESS I THINK MAYBE that with the 9800 Pro you should be okay for the next year or so.

Icarus wrote:
> Ok fair enough. Though it's worth noting that some games are slow at
> times no matter what spec you have, for example Sim City 4 when you
> have a metropolis with volcanoes erupting all over the place.
> Sometimes it's to do with the way it's coded, sometimes it's the
> hardware (and not necessarily the GFX card).

Sim City 4 can be bad at times, even with 1024mb RAM, XP2800 Barton and a 9800 Pro.