9800 PRO!

[RyanCC]

I am purchasing a 9800 PRO very shortly and have done a fair amount of research regarding it. My question is whether or not its worth the extra 60$ to goto a Hercules over something like a Sapphire OEM card? Or even maybe wait till the next series of ATI's come out? Any info will be greatly appreciated!

Ryan

 

[Vapor]

Depends, what AGP spec is your motherboard?? If it is only 4x, 9800XT will most likely be as high as you can go performance-wise (or at least until there is a considerable drop off relative to 8x and PCI-EX).

There is always the chance that R42X and NV40 will not perform to our VERY lofty expectations...then again there is always the chance that they will perform so amazingly well that we orgasm upon use.

As for your initial question, no, it is not worth it to get the $60 more card (Sapphire does make good cards).

RDRAM = (ENEMY)^2

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Not really.
It might overclock a couple of extra Mhz... or not.
Usually the only differences are the software pack included.

You could wait for the next gen... but i dont think it will be fantastically different.

A R9800pro with 128mb ram is a decent price and will give you fantastic performance right now and for quite some time to come.

I have one. I love it.

<b>I am not a AMD fanboy.
I am not a Via fanboy.
I am not a ATI fanboy.
I AM a performance fanboy.
And a low price fanboy.
Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>

 

[tombance]

You do realise that the difference between AGP 4x and 8x is minimal to say the least? And that in no way will his AGP 4x motherboard be limiting him to AGP 4x cards.

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

 

[Vapor]

Maybe I wasn't clear, but the discrepancy between 4x and 8x is already starting to have an effect on the upper echelon of cards. If the R42X and NV40 are as good as promised, there is no way they will run as fast as they should on a 4x board. Therefore, there is little reason to wait for the next-gen cards since there will be little (especially for the money and wait) added performance (I, too, have 4x AGP and want to upgrade to a 9800XT, which is about as fast as a card that I will ever get to run as well as it should in the slot). Also, the PCI-EX cards will include an adapter to AGP initially, but no company has said whether or not that adapter will work on a 4x slot. Chances are that anybody who will be buying a R42X will already have a kickass/very modern computer, which will include an 8x slot--meaning that there will be little reason for ATi and nVidia to make their adapters compatible with 4x.

RDRAM = (ENEMY)^2