Upgrade now or later?

[Lsv]

I've got the oppourtunity to buy a 9800xt for about 150$ CND, ATI model. a 6600gt is about 100$ more brand new though... it's not for the main rig, but for an older machine that would benefit from having something other than an fx5200, it could mean lanning bf2 and doom3 seriously heh, i think price to performance it's better then buying a 6600gt for an old machine i hardly use and mostly let people that come over use.

thoughts?

p.s. as far as i understand the xt has 1 less vertex pipe then the pro but is much faster right?

 

[qbackin]

The 6600GT is better than the Pro period. But if you can get a cheap 6800 vanilla that will be huge improvement over all mentioned

 

[Lsv]

that's the thing, it's a tad expensive, i've already spent alot of money on the main rig:/ and the 9800 does perform better in 3dmark at higher res, though doesn't support sm3.0 bah i dont know

 

[doox00]

9800xt's are great cards, its a better deal overal to get a 9800xt for 150 over a 6600gt for 250. you will have no trouble playing today's games on a 9800xt (obviously not maxed settings, but not low settings either) as long as the rest of your system is up to snuff.

 

[Lsv]

it'll be on an xp2500+@2.1ghz and half a gig of cheapo kingmax ram, it was my old machine before i went all out and bought myself an a64 and 6600gt (but pci-e)

that'll be ok right?, i've seen people run bf2/ut2l4 at nice fps's on slower machines

 

[doox00]

yep, but up the ram to a gig, 512mb will really hurt your performance considerably in alot of games. ram is pretty cheap, 40-50 usd for a 512mb pc3200. a 9800xt will fit in good with that cpu.