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"Once More Someone Asks..."

...does anyone have any suggestions for a suitable graphics card upgrade?

My system is;

2.6GHZ Intel P4 with HT
512MB RAMM @ 400mhz
Creative Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital
80GB HD
ATI RADEON 9800 AGP card
19" LCD Flat Panel

The system is less than a year old and at the time it only cost £80 to upgrade it to the Radeon 9800 instead of onboard...I did wonder at the time why the only retail version of the card had PRO on the end of them, but I figured it would be a similar card. Big mistake, but because until recently I've only played older games like Raven Shield and Delta Force Blackhawk Down I haven't had a problem. Then Battlefield Vietnam and UT2004,along with Far Cry ,coupled with the mention of the Radeon 9800SE card in PCFormat and PC Gamer, exposed the card for the steaming pile of excrement it is...

Yup, my Radeon 9800 is an SE, or more aptly, crap and, with a core speed of 324 and a memory clock speed of 290, little better than the sub £50 cards in the Special Reserve Catalogue.

So I'm in search of a new card because I figure that, with the above system, my card is really holiding me back, right? Bit more memory would be nice but right now I'd wager the only thing holding me back from the high settings on most modern and future games is this silly Radeon card.

I'm looking to spend a max of £150-£200

I'm tempted to go to Nvidia for the first time in years (every PC I have had or card I have bought has been ATI but after this, and the fact most new games seem to be built around this Nvidia "Way it's meant to be played" thing).

Any suggestions? I'm guessing the best deals are online but I really want a boxed retail card. The XFX GEFORCE FX 5900 XT in SR at 149.99 looks good....is it?

And before anyone suggests this, I've scanned through pages and pages of guides and read magazine reviews of cards but there are so many to choose from :(

Received my Arctic cooling VGA silencer today. Very nice, and not too hard to install. Overclocked it to the same as you Stranger, I think I might be able to push it further- I've had no artifacts whatsoever.

Games run smooth-as now. Much better.

I still dont have 3dmark03, maybe when i get broadband.

5346.

Much better than ~1000...

I had my setting nearer to quality, so I'll run it again later.

I scored 5277 after O/C my card to 345 Core, 310 Memory. I also took out the modem my DELL came with and moved my sound card down one space to increase the air flow.

Actually, set it all the way to performance as opposed to quality when you benchmark.

I have 37 processes running, including NAV. Also, I have set my Graphics Card to full- I'll go default it and try again.

You should have no anti-virus running, close as many background applications as you can, make sure the graphics card is set to default settings - that's all I have it set on when I test. In Far Cry the overclock has made a big difference. Battlefield Vietnam shows no difference though but it is obvious that the problem with that game is the code itself and not my machine.

I just ran 3dmark03 and got 1543 even though my specs are the same as yours, except I have a 2.8GHz P4 and 768Mb of DDR 400MHz..

Help.

Wan't any problem with how mine was setup, just plugged everything in and it worked, used to score 5036 on 3dMark2003 and now, with overclocked 9800, scores close to 6000.

Granted they're probably no good for certain things, but if someone wants to overclock their processor, upgrade case etc they'll probably self build anyway.

At the time I did look at other places but no one else had what I wanted (namely a semi decent graphics card and a decent priced large flat panel.

Dells are for corporate customers or first time buyers. They use adapted components so that upgrading is difficult. Overclocking the processor is a no no without a new motherboard. You sort of buy into the Dell way of doing things, bit like a Mac but without the cool stuff. You can buy better spec machines for less, and build your own for less still.

Plus they are rarely set up all that well.