Why are the 9800 Pro's getting *so* cheap?

[Bill L]

Until they are out of stock...

New ATI cards coming out soon... the 9800Performance cards are
becoming the LOW end...


--
Remember when real men used Real computers!?
When 512K of video RAM was a lot!

Death to Palladium & WPA!!

What's the gap, performance wise, between a 9700 np (my current card) and a
9800Pro running on a AMD XP1700 clocked to 2.2 GHz? Worth the upgrade?

BillL

 

[Skid]

What's the gap, performance wise, between a 9700 np (my current card) and a
9800Pro running on a AMD XP1700 clocked to 2.2 GHz? Worth the upgrade?

Why not overclock it to a 9700 Pro for free? At that point the performance
gap to a 9800 Pro is very small, and you could save your money for the
next-gen cards due out later this year. Visit the tweaking forum at
www.rage3d.com to see what's possible with your existing hardware. You might
be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Chip]

and

Why not overclock it to a 9700 Pro for free? At that point the performance
gap to a 9800 Pro is very small, and you could save your money for the
next-gen cards due out later this year. Visit the tweaking forum at
www.rage3d.com to see what's possible with your existing hardware. You might
be pleasantly surprised.

Possibly. But it not like buying an Athlon XP where they are all basically
the same chips and they can all run at more or less the same speeds: the
9800 Pro is a different core to the 9700 Pro and it runs faster too. You
will always be able to run a 9800 Pro faster than a 9700 Pro faster than a
9700.

Yes you can probably overclock a 9700 np to 325core / 310 memory. But then
again you can probably overclock a new 9800 Pro (especially a Sapphire one)
to maybe 430 core / 370 memory. So in that case the performance difference
between a 9700 np and a 9800 Pro is *large*!

Chip

 

[Skid]

Possibly. But it not like buying an Athlon XP where they are all basically
the same chips and they can all run at more or less the same speeds: the
9800 Pro is a different core to the 9700 Pro and it runs faster too. You
will always be able to run a 9800 Pro faster than a 9700 Pro faster than a
9700.

Yes you can probably overclock a 9700 np to 325core / 310 memory. But then
again you can probably overclock a new 9800 Pro (especially a Sapphire one)
to maybe 430 core / 370 memory. So in that case the performance difference
between a 9700 np and a 9800 Pro is *large*!

I won't disagree with those facts. But tweaking what he's got makes more
sense to me than dropping a wad of cash on a card that A.) doesn't give him
that much more at stock settings than his current card can do overclocked;
and B.) will soon be superceded by next-gen cards that will leave them both
in the dust.

As a card-carrying cheap bastard myself, I'm getting great results on all
current games with a Sapphire Radeon 9500 non-pro bought more than two years
ago for $159. Hard-modded to 9700 and clocked to pro, I get benchmarks and
framerates higher than some of the stock 9800 pro users report in this
newsgroup.

In my situation, and that of the OP, I still say it doesn't make sense to
spend a couple hundred bucks on an incremental increase now when a whole new
level of performance is just around the corner. Buy the time there are games
out that truly gag a 9700 pro, there will be more attractive cards to run
them.

 

[Andrew Marks]

I have decided not to bother and wait for the new range.

Thanks for the offer though, I am sure someone will take you up on it.

 

[Darthy]

What's the gap, performance wise, between a 9700 np (my current card) and a

no.

When ya upgrade your CPU/Mobo to AMD64 - then do your video card.

 

[Bill L]

a

no.

When ya upgrade your CPU/Mobo to AMD64 - then do your video card.


--
Remember when real men used Real computers!?
When 512K of video RAM was a lot!

Death to Palladium & WPA!!

Good advice from all. I'll hang on until I'm ready to go the AMD64 route
(btw can't get to more than 300 MHz [memory] without artefacts ( Though I
can run the core @ 325 MHz

BillL