A Tale Of Two 9800 Pros

E

ElementK

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 23, 2004
Messages
176
Hello HardForum members!
My TI 4200 (I hated it) just recently died, and I want to buy a new card so I can again play PC games. I love the 9800 Pro. However, I've only narrowed it down to two.
The MSI R360 9800 Pro and the Sapphire 9800 Pro.
I'm leaning more towards the MSI, with it's massive HeatSink and guaranteed R360 core. But there is also the threat of bad capacitors. The Sapphire, from what I understand, isn't always an R360, and that is too big of a chance for such a large amount of money. What should I do?

ElementK
 
Just get the Sapphire, use some AS5 or Shin-Etsu in core and overclock to XT speed :D

OldMX
 
But hold up--instead, should I go with the 6800 Vanilla? I'm not playing Doom 3, but maybe HL 2.
 
The 6800 will be 15-30% faster stock than a 9800 PRO stock, and you can overclock. Plus it supports SM3.0 and HDR - if you can afford it, the 6800 is a great choice.
 
/\ /\ That was a little late. So you're saying that the 6800 an keep me playing games at least at medium-low settings for 1 and 1/2 to 2 years?
 
/\ Thanks. If I put a 6800 NU/NGT in my system:

p4 2.66 ghz
Asus p4pe-X
512mb DDR PC2700
Integrated sound

How much of a performance increase would i see over my TI 4200?

AA and AF are off when i play games, and I dont play at any resolution over 1024. I know that's weird and stupid, but I want frame rate over picutre quality most of the time. (Thinks of serious Sam TSE)

To give you an idea, I love playing Battlefield 1942. I, with my TI, ran everything at 40 FPS with my TI on the lowest of low settings. I want to have medium settings at 60 FPS. Can I achieve it with the 6800?
 
I'd say yes. My friend has a radeon 9800 and plays Desert Combat (BF mod) on high detail at 1024x768 with AA at 4x and AF at 8x and he gets good framerates. He has an Athlon XP 2500+ with 1 gig of DDR333. After seeing the benchmarks for the new generation of cards 60fps at medium detail and no AA or AF should be a snap. I also recommend getting another 512 meg of ram. This helps loading times signifantly and gets rid of that annoying jerkiness when a level first loads.
 
Is there something particularly wrong with the MSI card's capacitors? I'm also considering getting it over a Sapphire or PowerColor, especially since it is around the same price at Newegg, but has an R360 core, big heatsink, and big bundle.
 
Seven said:
Is there something particularly wrong with the MSI card's capacitors? I'm also considering getting it over a Sapphire or PowerColor, especially since it is around the same price at Newegg, but has an R360 core, big heatsink, and big bundle.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere, it might have been here, that the MSI uses really cheapy capacitors and that it might be indicative of the card having had corners cut. I don't know if it's true or not. Just what someone else said.
All of the Sapphires shipping from Newegg have R360 as of late. They must be about out of the old core ?
 
You don't want to buy any 9800Pro with a 128 bit mem bus.

Have you considered the HighTech 9800Pro 128/256? The Artic Cooling VGA Silencer heatsink is the bomb. easily overclocks to XT 412/365. newegg.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top