Ati Radeon 9800 pro 128mb vs. Ati Radeon x1600 pro 512mb???

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Steve1096

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Jan 3, 2007
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I have an agp Ati Radeon 9800 pro 128 mb card that I paid like $250 for in April 2004 and I am looking to upgrade. I was looking around and found the Ati Radeon x1600 pro 512mb card on sale at Circuit City for $170 that seems awfully tempting. My current system is a p4 2.8 with 1gig ram.

However, I can not seem to find my Radeon 9800 Pro listed in the charts for comparison. If anyone could please tell me if this should be a substantial upgrade in game performance....or only a minor increase, or even no increase, the advice would be greatly appreciated. The main game I play now is Aces High II. I currently run it in the 512 graphics, but would like to switch it to the 1024 high rez graphics.

Thank you for your time,

Steve
 
Newegg.com : x1900xt for 200. Just upgrade your mobo too, you're going to have to move to pci-e some day. And really it will blow you away. Seriously tho, what rig do you have?
 
I have a P4 2.8 running 1 gig of ram....sorry, forgot to put that in the first post, just added it.

I am looking for a decent to minor performance increase in the basically only game I play now... Aces High II. I currently run the game in its 512mb graphics mode at 1280x1024 mode of my viewsonic vp930b flat screen monitor. I would like to run the game in its high rez 1024 mb graphics mode, but when I switch to it, I get some pretty bad lag. In the 512, I am getting around 60fps which is just fine.

I was thinking about building a new system.....but i would rather pay 170 bucks on a new vid card, than about 1300 or so on a new rig :wink:

Thanks again,

Steve
 
In 3Dmark 2003, a 6800Ultra gets 11873 and a 9800Pro gets 5966.

(http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2004/10/04/vga_charts_iv/page5.html#3dmark_2003)

In 3Dmark 2006, a 6800Ultra gets 1418 and an X1600Pro gets 802

(http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html?modelx=33&model1=536&model2=558&chart=224)

Performance Delta between 6800Ultra and 9800Pro = 11873:5966 (roughly 2:1)

Performance Delta between 6800Ultra and X1600Pro = 1418:802 (roughly 1.8:1)

From this we can assume that an X1600Pro is approximately 10-20% faster than a 9800Pro.

The increased video RAM and the much better architecture make it a better card, but not $170 worth of better card!!!

Save your money. Wait till you can afford about $500. Then upgrade everything all on one go. There's *no* point buying a new AGP graphics card now...
 
This is the best card for you. After rebate it's $199 and will definitely kill a x1600. Expect more than double the performance of an x1600 thanks to a 256bit (vs 128bit) memory interface, GDDR3 (vs GDDR2) memory, 16 pixel pipelines (vs 12), faster clock and more modern architecture.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143046

Heres a benchmark (look for the blue bars):

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html?modelx=33&model1=543&model2=572&chart=199

Noticing you only have 2 posts and mentioned purchasing a video card at Circut City 8O , I would assume it's safe to say your not an ubergeek when it comes to computer technology. So in that case, I just wanted to let you know Newegg is the place to buy anything PC related from. Great prices and service that can't be beat locally. I would venture to say that 99% of the people on this site purchase from Newegg.

Edit- Steve, just in case you're wondering about the 512mb of memory the x1600 has vs the 256mb of the Nvidia that I pointed out it's not going to really make much of a difference as the x1600 is such an old design. Difference in video card memory size for games only comes into effect for comparisons when the cards are roughly the same generation and/or perform similarly. With graphics cards it's all about how new the card is just as it is with CPU's.
 
Sticking with AGP, eh?

For a temporary fix, get a used X800 XL on ebay under $100. Much better than an X1600 PRO.

If you need to buy new, get a 7600 GS or X1650 PRO, should be about $130 on newegg... both much better than the X1600 PRO/
 
I used to be somewhat of an ubergeek...but, I have not really done any serious upgrades....or research for that matter, in about 2 years. I normally had bought all my stuff from Tiger Direct. I have a custom built system and had been going to Tom's Hardware Guide for years.... but just a bit out of practice.

Just now, am I starting to feel the urge for a bit of an upgrade. And would a 200 buck upgrade to new vid card make that much more of a difference, or would i be better off waiting say another year or so until my system is completely outdated and build an entire new rig.

Thanks again.
 
Tigerdirect? Are you in Canada? That would affect pricing alot.

If you're in the US though, you can get an amazing card for $200 that will most definitely boost you worlds past your 9800 PRO.

In Canada, it'll be a little tougher. You might be forced to go ebay, but the good news is you should be able to buy something that makes a huge difference for about $100.
 
That wouldn't be much of an upgrade. The extra memory on that card isn't really going to help. The difference between the 256MB and 512MB versions of that card amount to maybe a couple of FPS. I'd go with what Cleeve suggested, and try to find something like a used X800XL on ebay.
 
Skip the x800 XL, no end of problems with it. If you want to stick with ATi, go x850. I've got an X800 I would not give to my worst enemy. Long story short the card causes the computer to power itself off, I upgraded to a card with a much higher power requirement and the problem has gone away. The 7900 GS is a nice card
 
I think it's more likely that you ended up with a bad card. Every manufacturer makes them once in a while. Or maybe there's an incompatibility somewhere.

I've been on this board a long time, and yours is the first X800 XL problem I've heard of. hell, it's basically the same card as an X850 XT, just clocked lower...
 
Go for the ATI Radeon X850PRO or X850XT, PRO is around $130-$150 and XT is around $160-170

You can also try to find the X1950PRO in eBay since you might find a good deal. There are also 7800GS from NVIDIA but I dont know if you would like to change.
 
alright well considering he said circuit city, we could assume he lives in the states, which means NEWEGG. i say you check that place out for the cards that were recommended above. gl
 
I was in the situation as you. I had a agp saphire 9800 128mb. I had purchased the x1600 pro agp and the 9800 actually ran better.

If you seriously want to stay with what system you have for now (like a another year or two) get the Nvidia 7800 GS or the ATI X1900 when it comes out for AGP. Anything less won't give you much of a performance upgrade. The 9800 was a pretty darn good card.

Finding a balanced video card is really hard right now. If you want to upgrade you have to consider is it worth hanging on to AGP? If you upgrade your whole system, then you have to consider the DX10 cards coming out and how those are going to affect pricing on current cards or even if you want to have a DX10 capable card for future tech. It's a tough time right now.

My recommendation is wait another month or two and wait until AMD/ATI has their new cards out. Then you might see price reductions in existing cards. That's want I'm most likely going to do (Since I'm upgrading my system now).
 
Hes right.

The X850s are dolls.
I have one in a machine with a 2 gighertz A64, 1 Gig DDR RAM, Abit NV8. This computer, my friends, is not a beast in contemperary times.

BF2142: FPS averages 43 frams/second.
CSS: FPS Maxed. Doesn't go over 60 because of Vsync.
Quake4: FPS hovers around 50, depending on environment. Lowest I've gone is 28.
Dark Messiah (a real killer): FPS hovers 30.

Long live the X850!

Had to get that off my chest.
-cm
 
Thanks for everyones quick and helpful responses. It sounds like I would be better off with what I got...or upgrading to an entire new system. And just to get a little more graphic detail in one game...slightly aint worth paying 1200-1400 bucks on a new system. I think I will stick with what I got.

Thanks again for everyone's opinions. Much appreciated.
 
If you seriously want to stay with what system you have for now (like a another year or two) get the Nvidia 7800 GS or the ATI X1900 when it comes out for AGP. Anything less won't give you much of a performance upgrade.
Click to expand...

The AGP 7600 GT is actually as fast, if not faster, than the 7800 GS at stock speeds... and it's cheaper.
 
Dude, well, im just going to leave it at this; you dont need 512MB of ram if its slow memory, try findong a video card with a 256bit memory bus and 256mb of memory, that will do fine, even an x800 - 850 will do the trick for you (those cost around 100)...
 
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