NEED ADVICE: Got a 9600XT, thinking about 9800 Pro

[BeingAnonymousMakesMeObnoxious]

I got a new 128mb 9600XT All-In-Wonder for $250 canadian. This is replacing
an original 8500 64MB from three years ago.

The performance improvement in my main games was appreciable. I notice I get
better results by leaving the resolution as is or only moving it up a notch,
while using anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing to really improve the
image quality. I think my system should be able to run these games at 1600 x
1200 and be perfectly smooth:
America's Army, Battlefield 1942, Unreal Tournament 2004, Aliens vs Predator
2. I want to play these games at max resolution. I'd also like to have a
decent game of Doom3 and most importantly Half Life 2.

I do somewhat enjoy the TV function but I don't know I haven't had a TV in
years and don't really miss it.

The system in question is a P4 1.8 on ASUS P4T, with 512MB PC800 *RD*RAM on
Windows 98se. I don't plan to upgrade my computer until spring.

I'm thinking about exchaning the new 9600XT for either of these two cards:

Leadtek Winfast A360TD LE 256MB GeForce $200
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&dept=18&WLB
S=fsweb23&sku_id=0665000FS10045995&catid=10524&newdeptid=18
but doesn't "LE" often mean "handicapped?"

or

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB $300 (link says $350 but I swear it was $300 in
store so let's go on the premise it's the lower price)
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&dept=18&WLB
S=fsweb17&sku_id=0665000FS10029487&catid=10524&newdeptid=18

Would the 9800 Pro give me a significantly better gaming experience, or just
allow me to turn up the resolution a bit? 256 bit pipeline sounds
interesting. Should I save $50 by exchanging for the Leadtek card? That
256MB of ram is tempting. Is my system bottlenecked already? I get the
feeling that if I had a 3 ghz PC with 1GB of RAM and the 9600XT I could
probably run the shit any way I wanted.

What would you guys do?

 

[Cindy M.]

Yes the "LE" usually means the card is handicapped. But if I were you,
I wouldn't bother getting a 9800 pro with only 128mb ram, as it's
already bottlenecked by the amount of ram. This isn't a true 9800 pro,
as all of them are 256mb cards. Don't be fooled by the fake 9800 pro's.
And don't waste your money on an "LE" card of any kind. Same goes
for any "SE" card. You could probably do yourself a favor by first
upgrading your cpu and mobo, before you bother with upgrading your video.

 

[J. Clarke]

Yes the "LE" usually means the card is handicapped. But if I were you,
I wouldn't bother getting a 9800 pro with only 128mb ram, as it's
already bottlenecked by the amount of ram. This isn't a true 9800 pro,
as all of them are 256mb cards. Don't be fooled by the fake 9800 pro's.

You might want to contact the webmaster at shop.ati.com and inform him of
the error on page <http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2336416> then, as
ATI seems to be laboring under the misconception that they are selling 128
MB Radeon 9800 Pros directly to the public.

As to being "bottlenecked", numbers please.

And don't waste your money on an "LE" card of any kind. Same goes
for any "SE" card. You could probably do yourself a favor by first
upgrading your cpu and mobo, before you bother with upgrading your video.

The Leadtek is a downgraded 5700--it's going to give you little if any
improvement over your 9600XT.

Personally I'd stick with the 9600 until I ran into something that it
wouldn't do satisfactorily. The 9800 wouldn't gain you much if anything on
your existing hardware--it's going to be bottlenecked by the slow CPU and
RAM.

 

[Shawk]

Yes the "LE" usually means the card is handicapped. But if I were you, I
wouldn't bother getting a 9800 pro with only 128mb ram, as it's already
bottlenecked by the amount of ram. This isn't a true 9800 pro, as all of
them are 256mb cards. Don't be fooled by the fake 9800 pro's. And don't
waste your money on an "LE" card of any kind. Same goes for any "SE"
card. You could probably do yourself a favor by first upgrading your cpu
and mobo, before you bother with upgrading your video.

This is not true but its a common misconception. 128MB cards are genuine
9800Pro's and they are fine on all current games on fairly high settings.
What Cindy M is referring to is 128 'bit' cards as opposed to 256 'bit'
cards. You shouldnt go for a 128bit card. Most 128MB 9800Pro's are 256bit
and after the outcry earlier this year the 128bit ones have largely been
called by another name or are advertised as 128bit. I went from a 9600Pro
to a 128MB 256bit 9800Pro and I'm happy with the jump in performance in
games like Far Cry, D3 and UT2004 - I'm expecting to play HL2 on high
settings at an acceptable frame rate. I'm dont know about the 9600XT
though. It's a pretty good card last-gen to start with and I'm not sure
you'll get a very large performance increase unless you go to new-gen
(expensive) cards. Have you looked at Toms Hardware to see whether there is
a comparison? Shaun

 

[MinMin]

The system in question is a P4 1.8 on ASUS P4T, with 512MB PC800 *RD*RAM on
Windows 98se. I don't plan to upgrade my computer until spring.

Your cpu is the problem, it's holding your card back. I have a P4 2.4,
and I've found I can improve my 3dMark score by overclocking either my
CPU or my 9600XT, so they are the perfect match. In your case,
overclocking the card would do virtually nothing, overclocking your CPU
would improve your score - try it if you have 3dMark.

Upgrade your CPU first and see if the performance increase suits your
needs.

 

[Augustus]

Yes the "LE" usually means the card is handicapped. But if I were you, I
wouldn't bother getting a 9800 pro with only 128mb ram, as it's already
bottlenecked by the amount of ram. This isn't a true 9800 pro, as all of
them are 256mb cards. Don't be fooled by the fake 9800 pro's. And don't
waste your money on an "LE" card of any kind. Same goes for any "SE"
card. You could probably do yourself a favor by first upgrading your cpu
and mobo, before you bother with upgrading your video.

There are no "fake" 9800 Pro's. The 128Mb and 256Mb version are both 256 bit
cards with identical core speeds. Some 256Mb 9800 Pro cards have the memory
speed up 10Mhz from 340Mhz to 350Mhz. Some don't. The bandwidth is
virtually identical. There's no bottleneck whatsoever by having "only" 128Mb
of memory. The 9800 Atlantis is a 128bit version of the 9800 Pro, and
performs about on par with a 9600XT. Very early on, Sapphire sold these in a
9800 Pro box with a 128bit sticker on the box. This was a while back. No
128bit version anywhere is called a 9800 Pro.

 

[BeingAnonymousMakesMeObnoxious]

Well guys, I remembered this morning that the 8500 I had replaced was
actually still under warranty at Future Shop. I returned the 8500 and the
9600XT and took home a 9800Pro! I'm about to fire up my first game... please
see my other thread abou Far Cry vs Doom 3 and let me know what you think.