GeForce FX5700 / Radeon 9800SE / Radeon 9600PRO

  • Two Factor Authentication is now available on BeyondUnreal Forums. To configure it, visit your Profile and look for the "Two Step Verification" option on the left side. We can send codes via email (may be slower) or you can set up any TOTP Authenticator app on your phone (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) to deliver codes. It is highly recommended that you configure this to keep your account safe.

What graphics card would you advise DDRRE to buy?


  • Total voters
    23

DDRRE

Flesh is a design flaw.
Feb 13, 2004
283
0
0
Israel
Damn it, I've been waiting to get a better card since I bought this rig @ October 2001,
I currently have an ASUS V7100 GeForce 2 MX with 32MBs of SDRAM, and it gets me annoyed!! ;[
Do you have any idea what does wait mean to ME? :{
 

rhirud

Fast learning novice
Feb 20, 2004
706
0
0
Take another look at those slides. The all have the NVIDIA logo on them.

This is just a propoganda battle between ATI x800 and the Nvidia 6800.

As both become mainstream, which is faster will soon become apparent.
 

BoboThePenguin

Bird. Bird. Bird. Bird is the word.
Feb 9, 2004
1,128
0
0
35
www.digitallifestylecenter.com
Scumgrief said:
Hold off on that purchase. Like duder said above, once the next-gen cards come out (X800 and whateverever card) the high end stuff (FX5900's, 9800PRO's) should hit the sub-$200 range. Seriously... live with what you have a little while longer, and you'll get a better card in the end for the same price. Won't be long.
Do you think this will happen before the end of July(my birthday ;)) perhaps?
 

neilthecellist

Renegade.
May 24, 2004
2,306
0
0
San Diego, California
www. .
nice avatar BoboThePenguin. I'm have always read the Garfield books and been a big fan!

Back to the subject: Can anyone find a Radeon 9800 for less than 200 dollars and tell me where that store is, or where I can find the cheapest 5700?
 

m0nk

New Member
May 3, 2004
25
0
0
neilthecellist said:
Back to the subject: Can anyone find a Radeon 9800 for less than 200 dollars and tell me where that store is, or where I can find the cheapest 5700?


www.pricewatch.com

Find a decent price and be sure to crosscheck their reputation on this next site before purchasing

www.resellerratings.com

Anything that scores above 80% is decent. 90% is outstanding. Anything with a score of less, take care with.
 
Last edited:

Scatman Crothers

man about town
Mar 25, 2004
140
0
0
BoboThePenguin said:
Do you think this will happen before the end of July(my birthday ;)) perhaps?

holy hell penguin, im in the same position! im fixing to get a new copmuter too come my birthday, which is July 28th!
 

BoboThePenguin

Bird. Bird. Bird. Bird is the word.
Feb 9, 2004
1,128
0
0
35
www.digitallifestylecenter.com
nice avatar BoboThePenguin. I'm have always read the Garfield books and been a big fan!
Hehe, that isn't actually garfield, it's puss in boots from Shrek 2. He's near the end of this trailer ;)

holy hell penguin, im in the same position! im fixing to get a new copmuter too come my birthday, which is July 28th!
Cool! My birthday is July 30th :D
 

Niaad

hello internet
May 7, 2004
22
0
0
39
Oswego, IL
www.smrcenter.com
DDRRE said:
Damn it, I've been waiting to get a better card since I bought this rig @ October 2001,
I currently have an ASUS V7100 GeForce 2 MX with 32MBs of SDRAM, and it gets me annoyed!! ;[
Do you have any idea what does wait mean to ME? :{
Chances are if you don't wait and get a card lower than the 9800 Pros / 5900's you'll be in the exact same situation you are now 6-12 months down the road.

If you absolutely must buy a card now, I'd say find the cheapest 9600 Pro you can. It wasn't too long ago that card was regarded as having the best price:performance ratio; I'm not sure if that is still true, however (I'd guess it's the 9800 Pro right now). Still though, I got one this past christmas and its definitely starting to show its age. It does handle today's games, but certainly not to the point where I can jack all the settings up. Tomorrow's games I'm sure will be a challenge.
 
Last edited:

Stigmata

Codepunk
Jan 31, 2004
1,024
0
36
The Sprawl
DDRRE said:
Can't I overclock with an external program?
the Omega drivers for ATI have lots of cool built-in stuff, including an overclocking benchmark app that tests the card to see how much it can safely overclocked! ATI has also given the Omega drivers it's stamp of approval! (<- well, more like an honorable mention, but hey...)
 

mrpirate

WTFLOL
Jan 21, 2004
225
0
0
38
Ontario, Canada
I have a Radeon 9600 Pro. It's overclocked to 520 Mhz core/700 MHz memory.
Overclocking does plenty for this video card, as I'm able to run UT2004 @ 1024x768 with maximum detail settings, while mantaining 85 FPS in deathmatches.

It is NOT possible to mod a 9600 to "9800 speeds," seeing as:
1) The 9600 is techinically clocked higher to begin with;
2) The 9800's R350 core is based on the R300 core the Radeon 9700 was built on, which includes 8 pixel pipelines and a 256-bit memory bus. Meanwhile, the 9600's RV350 core is really a revamped R200 core, or the same core the Radeon 8500 was built on. It has 4 pixel pipelines, and a 128-bit memory bus, and the RV350 has implemented DirectX 9.0 support.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can buy the Radeon 9800SE, and mod it to a regular Radeon 9800. I think the SE has a 128-bit memory bus, and 8 pixel pipelines still, but you should check the one you're buying, just to be safe.

Nvidia's little exposé is little more than a pathetic attempt to get back at ATI after the R420 has proven itself faster than the NV40. Talk about integrity.

P.S. Regardless of what ATI says, "SE" does, in fact, stand for "Slow Edition."
 

Slainchild

Gold Member
Apr 3, 2004
3,509
0
36
London, Ontario
www.slainchild.com
Ok, i have a Hercules 9800se AIW, which can be soft modded to a vanilla 9800. With it overclocked to 471/354 i get 4200 3dmarks in 3dmark 03 (approx). But, with it softmodded and overclocked i get 5800 marks (close to 9800pro). An added bonus is the TV card attached to it.

It was never the best card and still isnt, but its lasted till now. I vote for that - tho i havent read up much on the others.
 

Solid Squall

New Member
Feb 9, 2004
18
0
0
ATI is terrible. I have a 9600XT. The next card I am getting is the 6800 ultra. I want shaders 3.0 and ati dident put it in the X800 because they are lazy. ATI are really rubbish for drivers and the latest catalyst still dont stop farcry and halo from crashing, but it does run unreal 2004 like a dream thank god. My old 5200 never chrashed on any game and this is why I think the 6800 ultra will be better quallity then the X800.
 

FireSlash

Whats a FireSlash?
Feb 3, 2001
4,300
0
0
39
Central Ohio
www.unrealannihilation.com
Solid Squall said:
ATI is terrible. I have a 9600XT.
Mistake. The 9600XT isn't much faster than the 9600PRO, since the extra speed is choked by the limited memory bandwidth. Read up on the benchmarks next time.
I want shaders 3.0 and ati dident put it in the X800 because they are lazy.
I'm not sure I agree with that. They probably didn't have time. On the other hand, its going to be a while before you see Shaders 3.0 properly used in any game. You have a point though, except that I thought they put Shaders 3.0 in that card. I might be wrong.
ATI are really rubbish for drivers and the latest catalyst still dont stop farcry and halo from crashing
Are you sure this isn't just your system? I haven't had any issues with Halo on the stock drivers, or the latest cats.
My old 5200 never chrashed on any game and this is why I think the 6800 ultra will be better quallity then the X800.
Thats a fun assumption. "The last card I bought crashed on a game, and I can't even verify that it was the card that caused it, but since it didn't do it back when I had a 5200, the next nVidia card is going to be better than the next ATI card!" :rolleyes:
 

Solid Squall

New Member
Feb 9, 2004
18
0
0
You say halo dosent crash! I wish I could run it without chrashing. My system is quite new. Here is my spec
AMD atlon 2200
MSI motherboard
512 ram.
I know the XT is not that much faster then the pro but I couldent help myself at the time. I can run unreal 2, unreal 2004, painkiller, max payne 2 perfectly but halo and farcry insist on freezing but they never did on my 5200. I read that ATI are working hard on the catalyst drivers so I may give them a second chance.
 

ReLiK

Waiting to spawn....
Dec 21, 2003
180
0
0
you can get a proper sapphire 9800pro at really good prices if you hunt around eg UK folk can get one from e-buyers.

I'm sure you can find it cheaper in the states.

I own a 9600pro and it does a good job for a budget card. But if i was buying today I would go for the 9800pro not the 9600pro.

I would also take the advice to wait just a little longer. Wait for the new cards to get released and save some more money :) :D
 

mrpirate

WTFLOL
Jan 21, 2004
225
0
0
38
Ontario, Canada
It's Nvidia that has the dodgy drivers, although the whole Futuremark-cheating thing may--and hopefully is--in the past. If your computer was crashing, there's a very good chance it's your computer, as I've been running FarCry on my 9600 Pro like a dream. ATI also updates their drivers 12 times a year, which is a welcome change from what their driver situation USED to be. You can say ATI has bad drivers if you like, but you'd be wrong.

As for the implementation of SM 3.0: FarCry is apparently going to have a patch that enables this feature once Nvidia's got everything ready, however, it will be some time before SM 3.0 are used widely in games, so ATI's really made the smart move here. They're saving a lot of money by not putting pixel and vertex shaders 3.0 into their video cards; take a look at the number of transistors in the X800 XT vs. the 6800 Ultra.
 

Slainchild

Gold Member
Apr 3, 2004
3,509
0
36
London, Ontario
www.slainchild.com
By the way, if ure planning on getting a 9600pro, bear in mind that the pro-ez version is worse than normal pro. A list (in order of general goodness) :

--Good
9600xt
9600pro
9600pro-ez
9600
9600se
9600se-ez
--Bad