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"What's the difference in these cards - minus the cost?"

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Tue 30/03/04 at 08:24
Regular
Posts: 14,437
[URL]http://uk.special.reserve.co.uk/q_GG4525_sapphire_ati_radeo.html[/URL] and [URL]http://uk.special.reserve.co.uk/q_GG8922_connect3d_ati_rade.html[/URL]

Apart from the large price difference, why should I choose one over the other? At first glance, the specs look the same...

I'm only in 'browsing' mode at the moment and won't be committing to a card just yet. I know I can get cheaper cards elsewhere but that sapphire one looks good for the price.

Opinions?

Ta.
Wed 07/04/04 at 23:14
Regular
"Jim Jam Jim"
Posts: 5,626
ßulle†† wrote:
> So should I upgrade now then?
>
> I have a GeForce 4 Ti4600, 128mb RAM. I can't run games like Far Cry,
> Splinter Cell 2 (demo) and CounterStrike Condition Zero. It must be
> my card that is causing the problem - everything else is brand new
> and set up sweetly.

If you have the £150-60 for a 9800 Pro then yes. Ti4600 is still pretty decent and you should be able to run Far Cry. On Halflife 2 the benchmark tests that have been floating about look rather good for the Ti4600 so it could be ok to keep it, but for £150-60 a 9800 Pro is a good buy, especially as 10 months ago I got it for £330 :(
Wed 07/04/04 at 23:12
Regular
"Jim Jam Jim"
Posts: 5,626
cookie monster wrote:
> Safedisc_V2 wrote:
> Oh and cookie monster, I guess you mean PCI Express? If you do, then
> why would you advice someone to wait for this?
>
> If he already had a pretty decent card then waiting until pci
> express
;) would be the next logical step on the upgrade path,
> theres no point in getting a card that will be quite quickly made
> redundant. If you see what i mean.

Yeah I agree. Unless you have money to burn the sensible thing would be wait until PCI Express is out and get a new CPU, motherboard etc and upgrade it all.

I built a XP2800, 9800 Pro, 1024mb RAM etc in the summer, and will probably wait until PCI Express is out before getting a new motherboard and upgrading. I will also wait until the next next gen cards come out, skip the R420 which is the next ATI isnt it and the NV40 which is the new Nvidia I think and get the ones after. Before my XP2800 I had a 1.2Ghz Athlon, 512mb RAM and a 64mb Geforce 2 MX200. But actually I will be finishing Uni this year so I should have more money to spend on upgrading so depending on what the new cards do then I may get one :D
Wed 07/04/04 at 19:08
Regular
"No Chance!?!?!?!?!?"
Posts: 75
My pc is sh*t! But I dont have the money 2 update it! I mean 300£ for a graphics card! I'm sure it's amazin but s**till! 300£???? I got 1 for 35£! and i works jus**t fine!
Tue 30/03/04 at 18:12
Regular
Posts: 14,437
Notorious Biggles wrote:
> The answer to that lies in when you want to upgrade the rest of your
> system. Have you got a fairly new CPU and RAM? If so, then you
> wouldn't be looking at upgrading them for another year, maybe two. In
> which case I would say just spend £160 or so and get a 9800 Pro
> now.
>


You're probably right. My comp is brand new (well, since Xmas anyway) so I might as well bring the graphics up to date too.

Thanks for the advice everyone!
Tue 30/03/04 at 17:47
Regular
"+34 Intellect"
Posts: 21,334
Safedisc_V2 wrote:
> Oh and cookie monster, I guess you mean PCI Express? If you do, then
> why would you advice someone to wait for this?

If he already had a pretty decent card then waiting until pci express ;) would be the next logical step on the upgrade path, theres no point in getting a card that will be quite quickly made redundant. If you see what i mean.
Tue 30/03/04 at 17:46
"I love yo... lamp."
Posts: 19,577
The answer to that lies in when you want to upgrade the rest of your system. Have you got a fairly new CPU and RAM? If so, then you wouldn't be looking at upgrading them for another year, maybe two. In which case I would say just spend £160 or so and get a 9800 Pro now.

If on the other hand the whole system is a bit on the old side then you might want to consider waiting a few months then upgrading to take advantage of a whole bunch of new things, like AMDs Socket 939, which is the future for 64 bit, S-ATA etc, things which on a system more than a year or so old you wouldn't have.
Tue 30/03/04 at 17:42
Regular
Posts: 14,437
So should I upgrade now then?

I have a GeForce 4 Ti4600, 128mb RAM. I can't run games like Far Cry, Splinter Cell 2 (demo) and CounterStrike Condition Zero. It must be my card that is causing the problem - everything else is brand new and set up sweetly.
Tue 30/03/04 at 17:14
Regular
"uncopyable"
Posts: 146
Yeah Sapphire cards are excellent - I have a 9800 Pro, which is currently running nicely at XT speeds on both the core and RAM, on stock cooling.

Connect 3D also make some good cards – my mate has a 9600 and has had no problems with it – plus it OC’s well.

And in terms of overclocking – Sapphire cards all ship with a program called ‘Red Line’ which is a utility that enables you to easily overclock the card – even for a total noob. Although even if you don’t go with Sapphire, getting yourself a good prog to overclock the sucker will be easy – rTool springs to mind, as does Radclocker. The latter being a part of the rather good Omega driver set. Which, for the record, I am using currently.

Oh and cookie monster, I guess you mean PCI Express? If you do, then why would you advice someone to wait for this?

From what I have read the first wave of PCI Express cards are just gonna’ be the current generation of nVidia and ATI cards but re-jigged to run on the PCI –Express bus.

I would say that if you don’t pick-up a high end (i.e. Radeon 9800Pro/XT or FX 5950) pretty soon, then you might as well try and hold out for the next generation of cards – although these may not hit retail until late Q2 early Q3 of this year.

These new cards will all have native PIC Express support.

To be honest I just don’t see the switch to PCI Express being a real factor, in terms of graphics throughput on a video card level, until at least the next gen (ATI R420), although more than likely it’ll be the generation after that. Only at this stage will we start to see anything like the advantages of the PCI Express bus.

The current generation of video cards (9800XT & FX 5950) don’t use anything like the bandwidth offered by AGP X8, let alone what PCI-Express has to offer. So even if you say the next gen is going to use up all of an AGP X8 bus, it’s still someway short of PCI Express.

I think the change to PCI Express at this stage is more or a case of getting the consumer ready for the move from AGP at a retail level. Some people will be fooled into buying a PCI Express version of the 9800XT, just as some were fooled into buying the first GeForce cards that had an X8 AGP connection. All who quickly found out that they got no performance improvement at all!

At this stage, that’s all it really is, making some easy cash out of the more gullible people looking to buy new video cards, while at the same time brining in this new interface early. This way, component vendors (motherboard, video card etc) are all on the same spec sheet when the need for PCI Express in terms of bandwidth hits the industry.
Tue 30/03/04 at 16:54
"I love yo... lamp."
Posts: 19,577
PCI Express I think he means.
Tue 30/03/04 at 16:53
Regular
"uncopyable"
Posts: 146
cookie monster wrote:
> ßulle†† wrote:
> Thanks. Is overclocking easy though? I've never had the
> knowledge/bottle to do it.
>
> Its about the easiest piece of overclocking you can do. What graphics
> card are you running at the moment? If it is already quite close to
> the 9800 pro specs then i would probably wait until PCX.

PCX?

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