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"9800 Question"

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Mon 21/06/04 at 17:11
Regular
"Which one's pink?"
Posts: 12,152
I desperately require a new gfx card. When I mutter that I have a Geforce MX 400, I'm sure you'll agree.
God knows why I haven't done so any quicker.

I've been tempted to save up for ages and get the funky new X9828837273, but I heard something about your motherboard needing a certain port or something like that. Yes, I've no clue.

Anyway, I'm looking at a 9800 (XT possibly, or Pro) and was wondering if it would work with this. What I'm asking might be rubbish, as it may be that it'd work with anything. But blurgh.

1.4GHz (AMD Athlon)
256Mb or RAM

So, erm, yes. Will it be fine?
And I'm also looking at more RAM, because I'm desperately needing some of that - I'll probably shift up to 512.

So cheers. And also, I'm not sure about the dodgyness of my PSU, and erm, that's another matter really. (After reading the PSU question).
Tue 22/06/04 at 17:54
Regular
"Which one's pink?"
Posts: 12,152
In reply to Alastair and Miserableman - yes, this I suspected, hence the ending of the thread.
Ta.
Tue 22/06/04 at 10:30
Regular
"bing bang bong"
Posts: 3,040
Pretty much what Alastair said. High-spec games need fast systems, not just fast graphics cards, and a 9800 variant is not going to get the service it requires from a 1.4Ghz processor. This is not necessarily a problem, you can always beef up the motherboard/processor at a later stage, but it does mean you're paying more for a graphics card than you can actually use.

Also, budget for a new PSU, you'll very likely need one.
Tue 22/06/04 at 08:28
Regular
Posts: 10,489
There would be no point though; you would be buying Gold to play with Copper. You are going to get a 9800 XT, the best graphics card to date up until the last few weeks and you are going to lob it with a 1.4GHZ CPU. Granted you are going to get more RAM, wouldn't go any less than 1GB the way things are going, however your CPU isn't fast enough. They recommend at least 2GHZ for a 9800 XT as generally people who buy top end cards will want to play their games with top end settings and as such your CPU will be a bottle neck. Games like Command and Conquer Generals are major CPU hogs and Far Cry (with the AI difficulty cranked up) also pulls a lot of CPU resources.

This is the situation I am in, I have a 9800 XT which I am selling to get an X800 XT Platinum, however even with my Athlon 2600 XP+ and 1GB RAM I still have trouble running Far Cry with Very High settings, especially with Ansiotropic Filtering enabled which drops the frame rate by about 20%. I personally would look for a CPU upgrade, nothing major, maybe a 2800 for around £100 and then look at a 9800 XT. Also if you have a gander around a 300 Watt Power Unit is the bare minimum for the card and many people have problems keeping it stable at this surge, if you have a gander at some other forums you will see quite a few complaining about it.

Also you have to consider the Air Flow in you case, the 9800 XT is a right barstuard for generating serious amounts of heat, especially on graphical dependant games which push the card to its limits, Far Cry can be used here again as another example. I have 10 fans in my case and cooling neon lights to help keep the temperatures down, every now and again though on high spec games my PC will just shut down due to the sheer levels of heat created.

A few things there you may want to consider.
Tue 22/06/04 at 08:15
Regular
"Which one's pink?"
Posts: 12,152
Aha, thanks.
Mon 21/06/04 at 17:35
"I love yo... lamp."
Posts: 19,577
I take it the port thing you were thinking of is PCI-Express. No worries, it isn't out yet.

You just want a standard AGP slot on your motherboard and you'll be fine. Minimum 4x AGP, 8x is better.

Other than that, as long as your power supply is 300W, or on the safe side, 350W, you should probably be able to run it.
Mon 21/06/04 at 17:11
Regular
"Which one's pink?"
Posts: 12,152
I desperately require a new gfx card. When I mutter that I have a Geforce MX 400, I'm sure you'll agree.
God knows why I haven't done so any quicker.

I've been tempted to save up for ages and get the funky new X9828837273, but I heard something about your motherboard needing a certain port or something like that. Yes, I've no clue.

Anyway, I'm looking at a 9800 (XT possibly, or Pro) and was wondering if it would work with this. What I'm asking might be rubbish, as it may be that it'd work with anything. But blurgh.

1.4GHz (AMD Athlon)
256Mb or RAM

So, erm, yes. Will it be fine?
And I'm also looking at more RAM, because I'm desperately needing some of that - I'll probably shift up to 512.

So cheers. And also, I'm not sure about the dodgyness of my PSU, and erm, that's another matter really. (After reading the PSU question).

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