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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 :(

adrian wrote:
> What 9800 Pro have you got Turbonutter? And what extra cooling did you
> get?

For a tenner i would guess an arctic cooling vga silencer.

Silent Scope wrote:
> Silent Scope wrote:
> Stranger the Non pro is better than the SE because of this
> Radeon 9800 ATI R350 DX 9 325 580 256-bit 8x1
> Radeon 9800 SE ATI R350 DX 9 380 675 128-bit 4x1
>
> It has 8x1 pipelines and a 256bit bus it is more future proof then
> most other medium range cards.
>
> Cookie read this.. he has a 9800 non pro not SE.

I thought he said he had an SE?

Blah.

Stranger In Paradise wrote:
> 9800 Pro for 130? Where? Can you hint?
>
> Visited SR Notts today and what a wonderful selection they had...one
> PCI Card model, a 9200SE and some old Geforce thing. Way to go...


Sorry bout this SR...

www.overclockers.co.uk

www.dabs.com/uk/


I use overclockers personally but both are good companies with decent ranges.

Asus, Connect3D, and PowerColo(u)r are good makes (I know the asus cards are good from experiance, and I've heard good things about the other 2).

9800 Pro for 130? Where? Can you hint?

Visited SR Notts today and what a wonderful selection they had...one PCI Card model, a 9200SE and some old Geforce thing. Way to go...

What 9800 Pro have you got Turbonutter? And what extra cooling did you get? I have a Hercules 9800 Pro with cooper cooling and have been wondering whether to overclock it to make it as fast as an XT. Got 2 side fans which will blow air onto the card as well so I dont think I need any more graphics card cooling especially as the card already has a copper fan and copper heatsinks on the memory chips.

I picked up a 128mb Radeon 9800 Pro for £130 and fitted extra cooling for a tenner. Then I overclocked it to just over XT frequencies. This leaves me with a 256bit 8 pipelined card that will beat most graphics cards sold on the market. All but the 256mb XT, in fact. For £140.

Stranger In Paradise wrote:
> I've done some more research on the Geforce 5900XT and apparently it
> also has 8 of these pipeline things and is 256 bit as well.

The wierd thing is the 5900xt sounds all cool and xt-ish but its actually slower than a normal non ultra 5900, and on dabs the xt was selling for more than the 5900, both can be overclocked or bios flashed to emulate an FX5950 though...

Silent Scope wrote:
> Stranger the Non pro is better than the SE because of this
> Radeon 9800 ATI R350 DX 9 325 580 256-bit 8x1
> Radeon 9800 SE ATI R350 DX 9 380 675 128-bit 4x1
>
> It has 8x1 pipelines and a 256bit bus it is more future proof then
> most other medium range cards.

Cookie read this.. he has a 9800 non pro not SE.

Slightly off topic, but I know someone with a GeForce Ti4200 and can play Far Cry on high settings without a problem.

Stranger In Paradise wrote:
> *looks at Silent Scope's "Tom's Hardware" link*
>
> *sees 5900XT rated below his current card*
>
> Aiiiieeee....
>
> Ah.... I'm at a total loss, I think I'll just keep this card a while
> longer.

I think you may have been looking at the wrong table, the 5900XT is a lot better than the 9800SE, especially if you bios flash to a 5950U.