9600, 9700, or 9800?

[mgc6288]

I am looking for the 'best bang for the buck' card for gaming and the price I am looking for is ~$200 unless a more expensive one is a MUST... I have researched the 9600 (Pro), 9700 (Pro), and 9800 to see where the clock speeds play and which is worth having... Any suggestions?

 

[scottchen]

I personally got the 9700pro, because the 9600pro just doesn't have enough pipelines, and 9800pro's too expensive, the 9700pro could be ezily overclocked to 9800pro's frequencies so might as well do that.

I hate Computers! I could only overclock my Barton 2500+ to 2580mhz(vcore 1.65). My Radeon 9700pro core/mem speed won't go above 410/720. I really hate computers!

 

[Willamette_sucks]

Thats not the only difference between the 9800 and 9700.


For $200, get a 9700 non-pro.

"Every Day is the Right Day." -Pink Floyd

 

[uber_m0j0]

I agree with Willamette, the 9700non-pro is a great deal.
I picked up an FIC 9700np from Newegg for about $220 a month ago. Im very happy with it. Overclocks pretty good too. I run it at 305/305 up from 275/277

~m0j0

 

[mgc6288]

Well something I didn't think about mentioning is that the video card I get will be going in my 'customized' Compaq...I got a hold of an EVO-510 mobo which has a PIV 1.7 and 512M DDR2100... I figured this is better than my AMD Thunderbird 1GHz which I am currently using for gaming with a G4Ti 4400. I figured I'd get a new video card (only have a spare 8M) for my 'new' mobo...

 

[tombance]

Lol, I reckon your Thunderbird would be faster since that P4 is a Willamette after all (read the name of someone who has already posted in this thread ). Willy sucks and you could easily overclock your Thunderbird to about 1.4 prolly with a modern day heatsink. At 1.4 that would own the p4

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6752830" target="_new">Yay, I Finally broke the 12k barrier!!</A>

 

[mgc6288]

Ok, so lets say I overclock my AMD 1GHz to a 1.4...I got a double orb...what heatsink would you recommend me to get? It also still runs PC133 where my 1.7 runs DDR2100. So if I already got a G4Ti 4400 and a Radeon...which do you recommend I put on which and which CPU for XP Pro gaming and which for being a Linux server?

Ok, I just ran Sandra on my AMD and PIV and came across with the PIV beating the AMD in the RAM and CPU benchmarks by over half... I also noticed that both my AMD and PIV boards have a 4x max AGP...so now which card?

 

[rower30]

I'll bet the 9800 non-pro is your best bet all things considered. And you can pick one up for $270.00 or so and still get all the improved GPU functions in the better core.

A stock 9800nonpro is the same core/mem settings as the 9700pro was, with a better GPU core.

See my post on 9800 non pro overclocking and let me know what you think.

Regards,
rower30@earthlink.net

 

[Howard]

If you plan on getting the 9700 non-pro, I have heard to avoid power color. I have not heard any prolbems on sapphire and ATI. The powercolor costs around the same or slightly less than sapphire, but I have heard people having difficulty getting the car working, also using cheep "slow" memory compared to the other two brands.

 

[mgc6288]

Good post...do you recommend Sapphire and ATI over the Powercolor still for the 9800? Is the difference well worth the extra $50 as the ATI 9800np is pulling in $270 and the ATI 9700np is pulling in $225... What heatsink additions would you recommend?

 

[rower30]

You mean $325.00 for the ATI? If you can get it for $225.00 go for it! I bought the Powercolor 9800np for $290.00 from GameVe.com. Why? It has a better game package and I've yet to see nay real big differences in the cards. I've had 'em all. So, I won't really argue with evryone about their girls / guys favorite hair color. Some like 'em all, some don't. No good reasons either way. The benchmarks slice hairs as far as I'm conderned and are NOT valid from a statistical variation standpoint. Try running 6 or so of the SAME cards and average the results and the scores will pull together even more. And, based on sample variation you'll know which one to pick that comes closest to the average. But, we don't know that so how do you really complain based on one sample? You don't.

If your going to add all kinds of heat sinks to a 9800np, control yourself and ask the question, "would I have been better off just buying the pro after I spend $35.00 on heat sinks?" and "would I do the same spending on the pro model if I bought it?" If the answers is yes to the second question, you're a hopeless tinkerer and shouldn't worry about it if you can't spring for the pro right away. If the answer is no (first question), just get the pro right off. But, the 9800np pro will still run just fine. Look at the 9700pro numbers. Yep, you'll get those and a little more for a lot less.

Now what heat sinks to recommend? Well, the trick is to get the best thermal conductivity between the sink and the memory or GPU (if you're brave enough to pry the current one off). This is where you need to look around at the total package. Thermal epoxy isn't as good as ArticSilver III paste and kinda permanent. Paste makes it easier to remove the sinks later on and reuse them. So, I'd opt for paste sinks myself. Size isn't real important on the memory chips. They won't load up a huge sink. The smaller memory is like a spark landing on a car. Too little heat and too much heatsink.

I bought another copy of W98SE to play legacy games with the price difference between the two cards. And, I can use that more than 5FPS!

Regards,
rower30@earthlink.net