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Alexdude777

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 17, 2004
Messages
148
Athlon XP 2000+
768 MB RAM - 512MB is 333mhz, 256MB s 266mhz
Radeon 8500LE

My crappy system :(

Bought this 3 years ago for about 600 bucks(this was at the time when having a Ti4600 was the equivelant of your guyses 500 dollar video cards(don't even know what they are called anymore)). I want to game, and it is time to upgrade. I don't need to have everything perfect, I just get annoyed as hell with stuttering.

To give you an idea of what this does right now:
UT2K4 runs fine if resolution is at 2nd lowest setting and stuff is turned down.
Doom 3 runs great but I have to turn everything down and get an occasional stutter.
The other games I play like wc3 and starcraft aren't that intensive.

I mainly want a computer that will be able to run Doom 3 better, Half-Life 2, and other games coming up. I don't have a strict budget, but none of that $500 video card bullshit.

I was thinking a Radeon 9800 (found one for ~140), or a 6600GT(~200). I am also considering a Radeon 9600. That is about my price range. Under $200, which even then is a bit high. One difficulty I have though is telling these cards a part. Could someone put this in perspective: Radeon 9800 / Radeon 9800 pro. What is the performance difference? 6600 / 6600GT. What is the performance difference? And also, the 9600. Their is the SE, XT, Pro. I'm also confused here.

I realize that my CPU bottlenecks the video card, but I'll just have to deal with that. My radeon 8500le was bought 3 years ago and has helf up fine until today. I didn't have a problem turning stuff down to save money. So I need another card that will last me a few years, even if I have to turn some stuff down quite a bit in a year or two.

And finally, please explain to me this PCIe stuff. How much better is it then AGP? How big of a performance increase? I notice for instance 6600GT is PCIe, whereas another card at that price is a 9800pro that is AGP. What is the performance difference? Obviously, pcie isn't available to me at this point, because an A64 and a A64 mobo that is decent will cost me over $300.

I heard that the 6600 and X600s are going to have AGP counterparts? If this is true, how much better will the PCIe cards be?
 
i think with that cpu, a 9800pro would be just fine..maybe a little bottlenecked..but oh well...and may i also suggest you get a 2500+ mobile...there like 80$....WELL worth the money...they OC like a mofo...

and pcie at this moment in time does jack crap....i think theres only like a 3% performance increase...if that....thatll change later on when the cores can use pcie's full duplex....but you got awhiel..so dont worry....
 
Thanks.

I've heard that you can buy a certain 9800 and "self-mod" it to a radeon 9800 Pro..is this true? That's what my friend told me. If that is true, that would save me $50.
 
i wouldnt run a softmod i would just buy a sapphire 9800pro with ati silencer thats what i have right now, its pumpin 465mhz on the core and 380 on the memory
 
Make sure you don't get a 9800 Pro "EZ," which has a 128 bit memory bus instead of 256 bit. It hampers performance a lot. Full 9800 Pros are about $200 new, and they give you great performance for the price. You could also get a 9600XT (the fastest of the 9600 family) for under $150. In order, it goes 9600SE, 9600, 9600Pro, and 9600XT. The XT is a good bet - it runs at 500 MHz core and 600 MHz RAM. The Pro is supposed to be 400/600, but a lot of them are 400/400. I got burned buying a 400/400 one that was mistakenly advertised as 400/600.

Oh yeah, and 9600s overclock pretty well. I got mine to 450 MHz core without any modifications.
 
I read a website about the 9600XT sucking. Basically, it was just a little bit better then the 9600Pro, making the extra money not worth it. And it also couldn't touch the 9800.

When you say overclocking, is there anything special I have to do? I wanna overclock my 8500 but wouldn't that just cause it to overheat and shit?

Do these 9600s come with heatsinks and fans that will allow me to overclock them? If I have to buy separate ones, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point?

My friend offered me a "256MB Sapphire Radeon 9600 128bit" with a $20 heatsink included. Apparently, the heatsink "covers the whole card" unlike the stock heatsink. I'm not using quotations to make this sound risky, he's a good friend. He's selling it for $75. Does that sound like a good deal?

I would like a 9800pro but seriously, I can't see myself spending $200 on a video card. :/
This wouldn't be as bottlenecked as the 9800pro and would allow me to put more money towards a new cpu/mobo later on.

You say 9600s have good overclocking ability. With this even better heatsink, would I be able to overclock it safely a good amount? How much performance could I gain? Would it be a risk?
 
no it does not cause the card to overheat, causing the card to overheat would be something like overclocking with no Fan on the heatsink as long as you dont clock it to like 600mhz on stock cooling it should be fine, but investing some 20-30 dollars on cooling can get u better overclocking results.

on stock cooling my radeon 9800pro did 435/375 and when i put my new ati silencer in i hit around 465/380, you could overclock your 8xxx but wouldnt really be worth it since your buying a new card, but if u really wanna squeeze some fps yea u can, to overclock u can use a program called ATi Tool, or Powerstrip, increase the bars 5mhz at a time then test it using games, if there are no artifacts or lock ups your good
 
Thanks.

Any word if the 256MB 128-bit Radeon 9600 with a better heatsink is worth $75? It's sounding good. My friend said he overclocked it quite a bit.
 
not really those 9600's non pro arent that strong a 9600pro would be worth it
 
Noted. So I guess that is out.

Is there much of a performance difference between the 128MB and 256MB versions of the Radeon 9600 Pro and XT?

ty for help Zoio
 
not really man maybe like 3-5 fps in high resolutions and just in general
 
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