New system, going from Ti4200 to 9800 Pro

[Paul]

Always have had NVidia cards in my systems, shortly will be putting
together a new system intended for gaming mostly, with an ABit IC7-G
Max3 motherboard, a Northwood P-4 3.2ghz CPU, an Audigy 2 sound card,
and a Radeon 9800 Pro video card. Anything to take into consideration
when using the Radeon card? What are the newest drivers? Are there any
programs to use to help take advantage of the Radeon card. I don't
really get into overclocking much, more into stability. From what I've
read, the 9800 Pro seems to be the best bang for the buck, even compared
to NVidia's 9600XT.

 

[John Hall]

If you're building a new system with a fresh Windows XP install, there is
nothing much to it. Let XP install it's stock driver for the Radeon cards
and then install the latest ATI driver right over top of it by double
clicking the executable. The latest driver can be found at the ATI site and
if you're going for stability and you are not really into overclocking or
fiddling that much, then go with the standard driver. Make sure that you
use a dedicated power connector for your video card, not one that is shared
with a hard drive or other piece of equipement. It's not that it requires a
whole lot of power or is unstable, it's just that some power supplies are
rather anemic and can cause problems.

Enjoy.

JK

 

[hawk]

Well, I hope you enjoy tweaking your video card settings and getting
help from the video card vendor more than you do actually playing your
games. Beware of paper specs.

hawk

 

[Pluvious]

||Well, I hope you enjoy tweaking your video card settings and getting
||help from the video card vendor more than you do actually playing your
||games. Beware of paper specs.
||
||hawk
||

Don't listen to this fool.

Pluvious


||Paul wrote:
||> Always have had NVidia cards in my systems, shortly will be putting
||> together a new system intended for gaming mostly, with an ABit IC7-G
||> Max3 motherboard, a Northwood P-4 3.2ghz CPU, an Audigy 2 sound card,
||> and a Radeon 9800 Pro video card. Anything to take into consideration
||> when using the Radeon card? What are the newest drivers? Are there any
||> programs to use to help take advantage of the Radeon card. I don't
||> really get into overclocking much, more into stability. From what I've
||> read, the 9800 Pro seems to be the best bang for the buck, even compared
||> to NVidia's 9600XT.
||>

 

[Paul]

Don't worry, I won't. I used to be an avid NVidia devotee, much like I'm
sure he is. Christ, I'm still a diehard Intel fan, and plan to go with a
3.2 Northwood, when I know the AMD 64 3400 is a better chip, but $120
more! I realize when it's time to say that, for the money, and at this
time, you can't buy a better video card that the 9800 Pro, and go with
ATI instead of NVidia. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future the winds
will change. Problem is, I'm going to be putting my system together NOW!

 

[John Hall]

You are on the right track. Over the years I've been with ATI, 3DFX, and
Nvidia. Now I'm back with ATI. Like you say, maybe sometime in the future
it will be another maker. It depends on who has the best technology. Give
AMD a try as well. A great bang for the buck when it comes to CPU's.

JK