Soon to be getting Radeon 9800 Pro through the door :) Some advice though.

[Skipai Otter]

I had to go and purchase online a Radeon 9800 Pro (Sapphire 128mb model) and
won't be getting it until Thursday at the latest. (Could be lucky and they
ship it out to me faster but doubt it.)

Anyways, I had to do this since I had heard bad things about the FX cards I
never really liked the TV output on the geforce but overall the GF4 Ti4200
had suited me well but I needed something with a bit more kick and for the
price of £150, the 9800 Pro was it. However, since the card is losing the
fan. Should hear it rattle now and again, it was time for a upgrade
anyways.

Now at the moment I have a Enermax 350watt PSU in this box but I do have a
new Enermax 480watt coming so I think I have the power issues sorted out for
this card.

What performance would there be against the Siluro GF4 Ti4200 card against
the 9800 Pro?

My system right at the moment is this:

GA7-DXR motherboard with AGP Pro slot. (Only 4x though)
1024mb of PC2100 dimms
XP2400+
SB Live 1024

I am hoping that the CPU is enough to run this as I had problems trying to
get the old GF4 to run on the old motherboard I had which was the GA5-AX and
K6/2 500mhz. The computer ran find for a while but then kinda stopped
working. Well, the network card did anyways. I think the cpu couldn't keep
up with the graphics card.

So basically, is this system enough to keep this card happy for the time
being since I cannot afford to upgrade anything else as a cpu upgrade will
mean new motherboard and new ram at the same time. I probably do that in
about 12 months down the line and go for the AMD64 route. Most probably
socket 939.

Moving on. I think I have this correct though.

1. Boot XP into safe mode and unistall the Detonator drivers from there.
2. Run either Nvidia's or another program (can't remember the name but have
downloaded it) to completely wipe out what add/remove didn't do.
3. Shut down pc, swap cards around and boot up into XP normally and wait
for it to find new hardware, then update drivers.

I don't know what ATI cards are like yet. I use whatever works for me and
hope that this will be a new good working relationship with the new graphics
card. I loved the voodoo3 2000 that I had. The Geforce 4 Ti4200 was okay
and suited my needs. I am hoping that the 9800 Pro will do the same for a
few years. Don't really want to be in the front of the line for hardware.
But I couldn't resist PC Pro's (UK Edition) recommendation for the card for
performance to pound sterling ratio.

Don't think I have anything to push the new card anyways. Only new games I
have is Judge Dredd, Elite Force 2 (I wonder what graphics are like in DX9
mode than DX8 mode, if any difference at all?) Only other ones I had is
RTCW, Serious Sam 1 and 2 which the GF4 could run perfectly anyways. But I
be glad to have some power to play newer games until the cpu I have becomes
a problem. But should still work for another 12 months at least

 

[mikere]

A few things:

Firstly, the Geforce cards have gotten a lot better at TV out than they were
previously. I know a lot of the folks at avsforum are talking them up
lately. Mike Parker said he prefers them, which is a pretty strong
endorsement. OTOH, I went with a 9800 Pro (MSI, which is identified by the
ATI drivers as an XT, whee!), and I've been quite happy with it other than
Linux support. As far as Linux is concerned, I won't be touching ATI again
until they get things worked out. For windows, it's an excellent card and
was for sure the best bang for my buck at the time I got it.

As to the Sapphire card, I hope you didn't get the 128-bit edition, as it's
more like a 9600XT than a 9800 pro. Either way, you'll find it's a pretty
big step up from the 4200, which probably operates more like a 9000 Pro or a
straight 9600.

 

[Conor]

I had to go and purchase online a Radeon 9800 Pro (Sapphire 128mb model) and
won't be getting it until Thursday at the latest. (Could be lucky and they
ship it out to me faster but doubt it.)

Anyways, I had to do this since I had heard bad things about the FX cards I
never really liked the TV output on the geforce but overall the GF4 Ti4200
had suited me well but I needed something with a bit more kick and for the
price of £150, the 9800 Pro was it. However, since the card is losing the
fan. Should hear it rattle now and again, it was time for a upgrade
anyways.

Now at the moment I have a Enermax 350watt PSU in this box but I do have a
new Enermax 480watt coming so I think I have the power issues sorted out for
this card.

I'm running mine on a 300W with a P4 2.8Ghz system.

What performance would there be against the Siluro GF4 Ti4200 card against
the 9800 Pro?

In 3DMark03, a Geforce 4Ti4200 gets about 1000. A Rad9800 Pro should be
around the 4800-5000 mark.

So basically, is this system enough to keep this card happy for the time
being since I cannot afford to upgrade anything else as a cpu upgrade will
mean new motherboard and new ram at the same time. I probably do that in
about 12 months down the line and go for the AMD64 route. Most probably
socket 939.

Yes it is. It'll run Half-Life 2 with no problem.

Moving on. I think I have this correct though.

1. Boot XP into safe mode and unistall the Detonator drivers from there.
2. Run either Nvidia's or another program (can't remember the name but have
downloaded it) to completely wipe out what add/remove didn't do.
3. Shut down pc, swap cards around and boot up into XP normally and wait
for it to find new hardware, then update drivers.

Don;t bother with step 1. Just uninstall the Detonator drivers through
Add/Remove programs.

 

[Skipai Otter]

A few things:

Firstly, the Geforce cards have gotten a lot better at TV out than they were
previously. I know a lot of the folks at avsforum are talking them up
lately. Mike Parker said he prefers them, which is a pretty strong
endorsement. OTOH, I went with a 9800 Pro (MSI, which is identified by the
ATI drivers as an XT, whee!), and I've been quite happy with it other than
Linux support. As far as Linux is concerned, I won't be touching ATI again
until they get things worked out. For windows, it's an excellent card and
was for sure the best bang for my buck at the time I got it.

Yeah but I mostly went with the bad reviews on the FX 5200-5500's which I
didn't like. That and thought I try something different for a change.

As to the Sapphire card, I hope you didn't get the 128-bit edition, as it's
more like a 9600XT than a 9800 pro. Either way, you'll find it's a pretty
big step up from the 4200, which probably operates more like a 9000 Pro or a
straight 9600.

Well, it's a er. Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB DDR 8x AGP DVi &
TV-Out. Core is 380mhz and the ram is at 680mhz. Doesn't say 128 or
256bit. x.x

It's the one at Ebuyer though. (UK edition)

 

[Skipai Otter]

I'm running mine on a 300W with a P4 2.8Ghz system.

Ah right. Already installed that new PSU anyways. Nice PSU really. Gold
coloured, exhaust fan and two fans at front and back. Just hope it can keep
the case cool with the two other case fans, front and back

In 3DMark03, a Geforce 4Ti4200 gets about 1000. A Rad9800 Pro should be
around the 4800-5000 mark.

I couldn't even get to 1000 on my Abit card. Never liked 3dmark03 one bit.
Was like watching a slide show x.x As for 01 results, the card came back to
about 8,000 or so mark.

Yes it is. It'll run Half-Life 2 with no problem.

I heard Radeon's have problems playing MS Train Simulator. (Don't laugh)
Have to see what games do and don't work since some have had problems.

Don;t bother with step 1. Just uninstall the Detonator drivers through
Add/Remove programs.

Okay. Thanks