I know this has been the pft repeated question around here, but I find myself in themiddle of it anyway. I was able to pick up a Radeon 9800 Pro for $180 bucks at BestBuy. They were selling like hotcakes. Im on a tight budget PC wise and a friend told me that the $180 i was spending wasnt going to give me any kind of worthy upgrade from my GeForce 4 Ti 4400. At least no for the tune of $180 bucks. His suggestion was to wait a few months and then try for the new gen cards or a new mobo.CPU. As far as the vid card is concerned, any feedback that anyone could give would be helpful.
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- Thread starter digitcon
- Start date
Frozen8950
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- May 30, 2003
- Messages
- 351
I kind of agree with your friend, but also disagree.
I disagree in the fact that the 9800 wont give you a worthy upgrade from the Ti4400. I belive the 9800 Pro is a good upgrade. I currently own one and it can hold its own.
I do agree that if its possible for you to take it back and hold on to that 180 and maybe in 2-3 months when you can actually get one of those next gen cards hopefully you will have saved some more money and can get one of the cards.
BTW what kind of computer do you have? if you dont have somthing close to top of the line i think that your computer would be bottlenecked at the CPU and you wouldnt get the performance gain from a top of the line card.
I think you made a good choice with the 9800, but if you were willing to stay with the old card for a few more months then get a next gen, thats what i would do.
Sorry if i jumped all over the place.. its late lol
I disagree in the fact that the 9800 wont give you a worthy upgrade from the Ti4400. I belive the 9800 Pro is a good upgrade. I currently own one and it can hold its own.
I do agree that if its possible for you to take it back and hold on to that 180 and maybe in 2-3 months when you can actually get one of those next gen cards hopefully you will have saved some more money and can get one of the cards.
BTW what kind of computer do you have? if you dont have somthing close to top of the line i think that your computer would be bottlenecked at the CPU and you wouldnt get the performance gain from a top of the line card.
I think you made a good choice with the 9800, but if you were willing to stay with the old card for a few more months then get a next gen, thats what i would do.
Sorry if i jumped all over the place.. its late lol
tgillespie
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2003
- Messages
- 206
wait. Prices go down, technology goes up.Ludic said:
I just arranged a temp upgrade myself. Got a refurbed 9800Prom coming from Newegg for $167. If it works upon arrival (whether it is an R350 or R360 core doesn't matter) I will only be out of pocket $67.00. As a co-worker is giving me $100 for my 9700np. I figure this shall work well enough with Doom3 and will keep me happy until PCI-Express and Nforce3 (or nForce4) are available. Then I'll be switching to 939 A64 and a top of the line PCI-Express card. I've waited so long for 939, what's waiting a few more months for PCI-Express?
Although don't get me wrong and think that I enjoy this waiting game.
Although don't get me wrong and think that I enjoy this waiting game.
joemama said:
I just jumped from a Ti4400 to an X800 Pro, and you can't imagine the difference (OK, maybe you can). While the 9800 would be a nice upgrade I'd recommend that you save some more cash and hold out for either an X800 Pro or a 6800GT. You'll get sooo much more performance out of them. If money is too tight then go ahead and pick up a 9800.
First of all i want to thank everyone for commenting. This is my first thread on the forum and I couldnt be happier with the response. I am definitly taking the card back ASAP after hearing what you guys had to say. My PC is currently running a Athlon XP 2400+ but my mobo can only support the 266 FSB XP's. So what i was hoping to do was wait until the Socket 939s come down and then do a whole CPU/mobo/RAM upgrade, cause ill have to do all three at once. thats some ca-ching. If i hold off 3-4 months, are we thinking that the prices of the 6800s or X800s will be significatly lower? I know that my CPU is going to be a bottleneck in the near future, at least in the FSB area. SOrry for the rant, its early.
Thankss again for all the help.
J
.Thankss again for all the help.
J
Well, the 939 cpus are expected to drop some when Intel cuts prices on 8/22/04, but how much is unknown. More MOBOs for 939 will be available then to at different price ranges...as opposed to the three options presently available. As for the video card, that's up to you. I'm holding out for PCI-Express, since it is less than six months away (hopefully), at which time I'll purchase a new MOBO, Video card and CPU.
You'll have decent bottleneck at the cpu until you upgrade if you get an X800 or 6800 though. An upgrade to a 9800Pro would give you an average of 50% better performance depending upon the game you are playing. If you can sell your current card for a decent price, that would cut into the amount of a temporary upgrade. That was my logic, as my upgrade will only cost $67, as opposed to the $300 I would be out for a 6800GT ($400 - the $100 I'm selling my card for). I don't see the performance gain for a 6800GT being more than 4x the performance I'll get from a 9800pro for a quarter of the costs.
You'll have decent bottleneck at the cpu until you upgrade if you get an X800 or 6800 though. An upgrade to a 9800Pro would give you an average of 50% better performance depending upon the game you are playing. If you can sell your current card for a decent price, that would cut into the amount of a temporary upgrade. That was my logic, as my upgrade will only cost $67, as opposed to the $300 I would be out for a 6800GT ($400 - the $100 I'm selling my card for). I don't see the performance gain for a 6800GT being more than 4x the performance I'll get from a 9800pro for a quarter of the costs.