So exactly how bad did I screw myself?

[olliejk]

I'm running an ASRock 939 Dual Sata II Mobo. I had been using an AGP
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP card. The fan was a tad questionable. I
went to Tiger Direct to get a new fan, none were in stock and the
appeared to cost ~30 bucks if they had them. That seemed alot for a fan
so I looked around at the prices for PCIe. With rebate, they had a ATI
Radeon X550 256MB card for $65. Usually when I go to a place like this
I do my homework. Since I was originally planning on buying a fan I did
not. I tried to ask around and was given the impression I was getting a
slightly better (certainly no worse). My biggest graphics user is City
of Heroes and, so far, it runs far worse on this new card. I'm still
playing with the settings (game, graphics card, and bios) but I just
have a bad feeling. How bad did I screw myself? I cannot find a good
side-by-side comparison that with benchmarks between these two cards
since there are few MoBos that can do both PCIe and AGP. I might be
putting the AGP card back in (fan wasn't that bad after all I think the
problem was most likely peripheral card placement was made it prone to
large wads of dust building up in it very quickly) plus I have a
coworker who says he can get me a $10 fan.


--- Olliejk

 

[First of One]

I'm running an ASRock 939 Dual Sata II Mobo. I had been using an AGP
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP card. The fan was a tad questionable. I
went to Tiger Direct to get a new fan, none were in stock and the
appeared to cost ~30 bucks if they had them.

$30 is about right for a well-designed heat sink/fan unit, like the VGA
Silencer.

If you want to go the cheap route, unscrew the existing fan, leaving just
the heat sink, then zip-tie an 80 mm case fan to it.

so I looked around at the prices for PCIe. With rebate, they had a ATI
Radeon X550 256MB card for $65. Usually when I go to a place like this
I do my homework. Since I was originally planning on buying a fan I did
not. I tried to ask around and was given the impression I was getting a
slightly better (certainly no worse).

So... instead of spending $30 on replacement heat sink/fan, you spent $65 on
a video card that's no better... The X550 is substantially slower (think ~
Radeon 9600).

 

[olliejk]

That's what I was afraid of. I figured I was spending ~30 bucks more to
get a PCIe card with twice the memory. I hadn't done my homework ahead
so I tried to compare the two "on the fly" at the store (this was my
1st PCIe card so I hadn't 't been looking at them ahead). Usually I do
my own homework first. I have seen some things after the fact (X550 has
1/2 the pipes of the 9800pro for instance) For my mistake in buying
this, I am still somewhat disappointed in Tiger Direct over this. I
specifically cited my 9800 pro, and was told the X550 card was all
around "faster" since it was PCIe. My bad in trusting anyone about
anything (always a bad move) but I'm still going to complain to Tiger
Direct about being misleading.

olliejk

 

[DDC]

I'm running an ASRock 939 Dual Sata II Mobo. I had been using an AGP
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP card. The fan was a tad questionable. I
went to Tiger Direct to get a new fan, none were in stock and the
appeared to cost ~30 bucks if they had them. That seemed alot for a fan
so I looked around at the prices for PCIe. With rebate, they had a ATI
Radeon X550 256MB card for $65. Usually when I go to a place like this
I do my homework. Since I was originally planning on buying a fan I did
not. I tried to ask around and was given the impression I was getting a
slightly better (certainly no worse). My biggest graphics user is City
of Heroes and, so far, it runs far worse on this new card. I'm still
playing with the settings (game, graphics card, and bios) but I just
have a bad feeling. How bad did I screw myself? I cannot find a good
side-by-side comparison that with benchmarks between these two cards
since there are few MoBos that can do both PCIe and AGP. I might be
putting the AGP card back in (fan wasn't that bad after all I think the
problem was most likely peripheral card placement was made it prone to
large wads of dust building up in it very quickly) plus I have a
coworker who says he can get me a $10 fan.


--- Olliejk

One thing you should do before getting al sort of videocrap you
should see at the web site www.futuremark.com the result of the
desired card and see if it surpass the one you got with the 3dmark05
bench tool.

And i would say that game need a card that will get a score around
5000 points to get a descend FPS At 1024x764x32.

The 9800pro score around 2500. and a x550 score around 1700 point
So it make sens that it wont give you better performance.

get the cheapest x800 256mb that you can get and you will be
satisfied.

 

[Ian]

That's what I was afraid of. I figured I was spending ~30 bucks more to
get a PCIe card with twice the memory. I hadn't done my homework ahead
so I tried to compare the two "on the fly" at the store (this was my
1st PCIe card so I hadn't 't been looking at them ahead). Usually I do
my own homework first. I have seen some things after the fact (X550 has
1/2 the pipes of the 9800pro for instance) For my mistake in buying
this, I am still somewhat disappointed in Tiger Direct over this. I
specifically cited my 9800 pro, and was told the X550 card was all
around "faster" since it was PCIe. My bad in trusting anyone about
anything (always a bad move) but I'm still going to complain to Tiger
Direct about being misleading.

olliejk

It confuses me that your can fit a choice of AGP or PCIe to your board.
I'd almost have thought you had bought a regular PCI card.... ?

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[olliejk]

It is rare. It's a card made by ASRock. It is it the 939Dual-SATA2. It
has a ULI chipset. I bought it becasuse it was a 939 Mobo, I wanted to
keep my AGP card (only a year old) and it rated ~95% the speed of
NVidia NForce4 chipset boards. It's a board with a little bit of
everything (http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm