Amazing value : 9800pro

[Morgan]

Hello

May not be nothing new to the group, in terms of the pricing, but I have
just bought an ATI 9800pro for 137 UK Pounds and it must be one of the best
value for money cards on the market at this moment in time.
NVidia have got nothing close to it in terms of pricing and performance.
Whilst there are new models from both ATI and NVidia available soon I can't
imagine the 9800pro getting much cheaper than it is, without the possibility
of it not being available at all, and so felt that the time was right to buy
one. In fact the 30 cards that my dealer had in that morning only lasted in
stock until the next day. ATI made cards are not normally available in the
UK. Powercolor / Sapphire being their usual supplier AFAIK.
Now that one of my three machines has an ATI card, the other two have an
NVidia card, I can imagine that it will not be the last.
Using Driver Cleaner and the 4.4 drivers installation was simple and the
performance is phenomenal.

--
Regards


Morgan

Hard Drive noise a problem....?

www.flyinglizard.freeserve.co.uk

 

[Wayne Youngman]

Hello

May not be nothing new to the group, in terms of the pricing, but I have
just bought an ATI 9800pro for 137 UK Pounds and it must be one of the best
value for money cards on the market at this moment in time.

Hi,

who did you buy your card from?. Last time I looked Komplett were selling
theirs for £140-00.

 

[Morgan]

Hi,

who did you buy your card from?. Last time I looked Komplett were selling
theirs for £140-00.

I bought the card from Microdirect

www.microdirect.co.uk

They had 30 cards in on Thursday and now they have none but expect more in
on Monday or Tuesday. They have them priced (for now) at 119+VAT. I paid
117+VAT as I have a trade account.
The cards are OEM but come with a multitude of cables and adaptors but no
drivers.

--
Regards


Morgan

Hard Drive noise a problem....?

www.flyinglizard.freeserve.co.uk

 

[Sham B]

the komplett cards are retail packages, not OEM, this may be why they cost a little more. Well,
actually, they are 'retail lite' which means that you get a boxed card with the driver disk and
cables, but no freebie games.

S

 

[Slug]

the komplett cards are retail packages, not OEM, this may be why they cost a little more. Well,
actually, they are 'retail lite' which means that you get a boxed card with the driver disk and
cables, but no freebie games.

ATI didn't package any games with the retail 9800pro.

 

[Sham B]

What, not even that halflife 2 vaporware ??


S

ATI didn't package any games with the retail 9800pro.

 

[broncosfan]

Using Driver Cleaner and the 4.4 drivers installation was simple and the
performance is phenomenal.

Morgan, could you please post your experiences in going from an NVidia
card to an ATI? I assume "Driver Cleaner" is what you used to get rid
of the NVidia stuff?

Did you reinstall DirectX and/or your games?

I am working on this little project today (going from NVidia to ATI on
one of my machines and would greatly appreciate your opinions on this
matter as to what worked for you).

Thanks!!

 

[Morgan]

Morgan, could you please post your experiences in going from an NVidia

card to an ATI? I assume "Driver Cleaner" is what you used to get rid
of the NVidia stuff?

Did you reinstall DirectX and/or your games?

I am working on this little project today (going from NVidia to ATI on
one of my machines and would greatly appreciate your opinions on this
matter as to what worked for you).

Thanks!!

From my Ti4200 card I did as follows...

1. Remove the NVidia display drivers and allowed the machine to reboot.
2. Prevent the "wizard" from installing new drivers when it "finds" the
Ti4200 card. I just cancelled it.
3. Run the previously installed Driver Cleaner and assign the search to
NVidia.
4. Allow the Driver Cleaner to remove the entries that it finds regardless
of Windows XP's warning message that popped up.
5. Switch the machine off.
6. Removed the Ti4200 card and installed the 9800pro inc. the seperate power
lead to the card.
7. Boot up and when the "wizard" started to run indicating the new 9800pro
was found I cancelled it.
8. Installed the previously downloaded 4.4 Cat drivers.
9. Reboot.
10.Installed the inf file for my Mitsubishi monitor.

That was it as far as I remember no reinstalling of any game needed nor
Direct X 9.x

I have now set 4x AA and 8x AF to be on for every game and all is fine.

Good luck...!

 

[broncosfan]

Good luck...!

Very kind of you for such excellent and detailed instructions. Thanks!
BTW, I am going from a Ti4200 as well. Have you noticed a significant
performance increase? What is your CPU/RAM?

I'm running a Northwood 2.35GHz (actually an overclocked 1.6GHz CPU) and
512MB PC2700 RAM. Reason I am upgrading is I am running too slow in
newer games.

 

[Morgan]

Very kind of you for such excellent and detailed instructions. Thanks!

BTW, I am going from a Ti4200 as well. Have you noticed a significant
performance increase? What is your CPU/RAM?

I'm running a Northwood 2.35GHz (actually an overclocked 1.6GHz CPU) and
512MB PC2700 RAM. Reason I am upgrading is I am running too slow in
newer games.

My machine spec is...

Athlon XP 1800 running at 11.5x200 - 2300mhz
512mb Corsair XMS Ram

My reasoning to upgrade was the Ti200 in our second PC really wasn't up to
any recent game and so it now has my Ti4200 installed.
Secondary was the differences that the 9800pro would bring, it really did
come down to the fact that it had become so cheap and affordable that it was
bought.
With the previously installed Gainward Ti4200 running at 300 / 600 I could
get over 15,000 points with 3DMark 2001 and whilst it did not have the
hardware support for the "eye candy" features of Direct X 9.x it was still
very able to play the games that I have.
The difference that I have noted is that Farcry now plays really good on the
High settings and will play on Very High (only tried that for around half a
level) without any of the issues that I had with the Ti4200.
The game that I am playing currently is Spellforce and that will play with
4x AA and 8X AF at 1280x1024 with no slow downs at all. With my Ti4200
slowdowns were noticed without AA or AF filtering on at the same resolution.
The AA and AF filtering, for me, has made a "real" noticeable difference.
With the rest of my hardware, and yours too I guess, the 9800pro is not
being utilised at its full potential but still must represent good value for
money. But for me the value only became affordable due to ability to make
good use of the Ti4200.

 

[Slug]

What, not even that halflife 2 vaporware ??


S

Nope, that was the 9800XT. I got a much better game package with my
retail Audigy2 - Hitman2 and SOF2.

 

[Barry Watzman]

For those in the USA, Circuit City has the ATI "built By" 9800 pro on
sale this week for $199 after two rebates.

 

[broncosfan]

With the rest of my hardware, and yours too I guess, the 9800pro is not
being utilised at its full potential but still must represent good value for
money. But for me the value only became affordable due to ability to make
good use of the Ti4200.

Sounds like we are in nearly identical situations. My MSI Ti4200 is
going in my son's computer (he has a Gainward GF3 that is near the end
as well). Thus, the upgrade makes good sense.

Hopefully the 9800 Pro and my current CPU and RAM will last me until PCI
Express is out for 6 months and I can get a full system upgrade.

Cheers for all your help and info!