Radeon 9700 Pro - does this even hold a candle anymore?

[kaotao]

9700pro to an X850XT= HUGE upgrade.

 

[Anoobis]

If you can find a used AGP X850XT for around $120 then it's a good upgrade, but it sounds a little too good to be true. Prices I'm seeing used on eBay are around $175ish. An alternative would be a 6800GT or Ultra. More the former as it's more common and for less money. While not as powerful as the X850XT, it's still not a bad upgrade over the 9700Pro and will probably run you less than $100 used from eBay.

Granted the noise level could be a factor for you and this isn't a major upgrade, but it should hold you over nicely until you buy that PCI-E motherboard in 2008.

 

[whoaru99]

Hmmm....

Problem is, I like to upgrade and it's been a long time - as you can see by my card. The rest of my system is an old Asus CUSL2 running a PIII 1GHz mildly OC'ed to 1.2GHz.

I wanted to do some sort of a budget upgrade to one of the Core 2 Duo capable mobos with an AGP slot, going with an OC'ed Pentium 805D, and some decent memory. My thought was that I could get by for another year or two until the better CPU come down in price then I'd still have a mobo and RAM that would work with the newer processors.

Since I'm not a big gamer (think I own two) the graphics are not a huge issue for me. But, I'd like an increase in general processing power for photo work, music compression, video compression, etc. - more so than gaming concerns. Although, at the same time, I don't want to forego gaming possibilities altogether.

My point was if I can get as good or better performance than the 9700 Pro without adding too much cost to the computer, I'd maybe just let the card stay with the PIII computer.

Am I crazy to try to integrate that 9700 into a new system knowing now the above information?

 

[Anoobis]

Believe it or not, a G965 like the GA-965GM-S2 with onboard GMAX3000 graphics might be a good option for you. Paired with a Pentium D820 and 1GB of DDR2, it would cost around $300.00. The GMAX3000 isn't fantastic but it just might suit your graphical needs and you still have the option of upgrading to a PCI-E card later on down the road.

 

[whoaru99]

I'm not familiar with the GMAX3000 onboard graphics.

Would it be possible to mention a PCI-E card that is roughly equivalent GMAX3000? If this level of performance is not too costly, I'd probably prefer to buy it as an inexpensive card for now to forgo onboard graphics - as I understand they can be a hindrance to OC at some point.

 

[amnotanoobie]

I'm not familiar with the GMAX3000 onboard graphics.

Would it be possible to mention a PCI-E card that is roughly equivalent GMAX3000? If this level of performance is not too costly, I'd probably prefer to buy it as an inexpensive card for now to forgo onboard graphics - as I understand they can be a hindrance to OC at some point.

The GMAX3000 IS an onboard video card, with some DX10 capability. I wouldn't expect it to compete with cards such as the x850 or 7600gt for that matter, though in pure DX10 situations, compatibility might only be its strong point.

If you're going for Core 2, then forget the AGP slot as bnew AGP cards cost more than their PCI-E counter parts, plus you'd have more options with a PCI-E slot. If you can wait then get a board with a PCI-E slot now and use the onboard temporarily.

 

[whoaru99]

Well, I hope I didn't screw up too badly, but remember I'm not a x-gamer.

Went with a Gigabyte 7300GT 256MB (128 bit version with factory OC) that I found as an open box with full return/warranty for just a couple tics over $50...

If this is at least a sideways move, or even a small increase, it should fit my needs.

 

[Flying-Q]

Well it holds my candle at the moment. I built my most recent machine over 2 years ago (Ohmygodisitreallythatlong!) and it has a 9700pro with just 128mb of mem and 1GB of main ram under a northwood c at 3.0GHz on a 875 asus board. The most recent game I played was HL2 and there was no slowdown at 1024/768 settings. Granted I had to reduce shadows to minimum but that was fine for me.

As far as upgrading is concerned I shall be remaining with this setup for at least another year so my next purchase will be the X1650 or the newer X1950 agp variant.

When this all finally gets replaced then it will be a whole new gaming machine and this one will become my business machine and the old business machine will be donated to one of the children to rip to pieces.

Overall this 9700pro has done well and I have been a happy bunny.

Q

 

[cleeve]

But, I'd like an increase in general processing power for photo work, music compression, video compression, etc. - more so than gaming concerns. Although, at the same time, I don't want to forego gaming possibilities altogether.

My point was if I can get as good or better performance than the 9700 Pro without adding too much cost to the computer, I'd maybe just let the card stay with the PIII computer.

Am I crazy to try to integrate that 9700 into a new system knowing now the above information?

If gaming isn't your primary concern, a 9700 PRO will do an excellent job. It will even do moderate gaming.

If you want to put more of a stress on gaming, and you want better than a 9700 PRO, you're probably going to have to spend at least $120 on something else.

 

[Slava]

Whether it is a budget upgrade or not, $50.00 is not going to make or brake you, friend.

Go here and grab this fabulous Radeon X850 PRO for $149.00

Brand new;
In a BOX

I would strongly discourage you from buying hardware on e-Bay. You never really know what you are getting.

EDIT: Okay, the brand new one is gone. Only one used remains. But it looks like it is in a good shape + Amazon has a great return policy.

 

[whoaru99]

I'd really like to pimp out the graphics at this time, but I had to stay within budget for now.

The mobo and RAM I have will support upgraditis for the next couple years as more Core 2 Duo and quad core CPUs become available/fall in price.

If I get more into gaming, then perhaps I'll have to find a more serious graphics card than the one I choose, but for a tick over $50, it seemed like an OK budget buy.

 

[Anoobis]

Are you upgrading the rest of your system too? Because that sounds suspiciously like a PCI-E deal and not one for an AGP card.

EDIT: n/m

 

[Bloated]

I read very little of the thread so I don't know your system specs but I'll throw in my exp with both of the cards in question along with some knowledge gained in using the older 9xxx series cards in todays modern games.

going from a 9700pro vs a 7600 gt will yield a huge benefit without a doubt.

that said you have to understand that most of the problems with the older generation of cards is relegated to struggling with real time lighting from multiple sources.

if you want to see a 200% framerate increase out of a 9600 or 9700 pro for that matter disable real time shadows and lighting.

I did this with F.E.A.R., Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War and Dark Crusade while using a 9600pro running stock speeds and to be honest Dawn of War I thought looked better being it's an RTS I wanted the additional viewing area and it was easier to play.

literally the frames jumped from minimum frames hovering around 5 fps to minimums hovering around 25 fps by disabling 1 feature... it goese without question that AA is out of the question but it's not that significant anyway..... I got these results by running fraps in game and while I don't profess the experience was the best to be had I do grant you that the card was playable at the settings mentioned.

would I reccomend anyone go to a 7600 GT or would I reccomend they go higher it depends on the budget the 7600 GT is a very nice card as was the 6600 GT for the money, that said ATI took forever but finally released X1900 GT's and X1950 GT's on the market for really good prices albeit higher but with better performance.

additionally while Nvidia releases a stellar product on time with excellent drivers Nvidia generally tends to abandone that stellar product a month after the next stellar product is released while ATI has a history of continuing updates via drivers over a much longer span.

understand you will always be able to grab a running driver for almost any Nvidia card but performance increase efforts stop prior to a new architecture's impending release..... this wouldn't matter save that Nvidia likes to re-invent the wheel far more often than ATI who generally releases an architecture then tweaks and optimises it far longer.

IE: Nvidia, Geforce 4 then 5xxx then 6xxx and 7xxx which were similiar but driver updates have shown 6xxx as falling drastically behind and now the 8xxx series is out which is a total changeover which if anyone has noted Nvidia is struggling with drivers and has no interest in the 7xxx series anymore at all.

IE: ATI, 8500 then 9xxx then X8xx... then came the changeover to X1xxx and now R600 which is a more optimised version of X1xxx and likely this design will again be revamped....

atm ATI is still supporting officially the 9600 series cards and while the tweaks have pretty much run out for the entire R200 - R420 Nvidia has already dropped the 6xxx cards offering the use of no longer optimised newer driver revisions only.

would I reccomend you buy 7600 GT for today sure for the right price but mainly as a temporary upgrade, for tomorrow no not really while I wouldn't hesitate to reccomend an X1800 GT or higher so long as the price was right.... as a side note the X1650 XT's are apparently quite good as well again depending on the right price and I'd reccomend them mainly because of the history of support in future apps that is gained from a long lived architecture.

 

[whoaru99]

Yes, I am updating most of the remainder of the system too - mobo, CPU, RAM, SATA drive(s).

Reusing several items as well, Plextor DVD, Antec case and power supply, etc., plus, recycling some IDE drives into more or less a storage array.

 

[pottymonster]

well, i had a 9600 pro for my agp and then went to an x800xl and the improvement was pretty incredible. then that card broke, so the retailer gave me a 7800gs which was comparable, no big change.

 

[sweatlaserxp]

I went from 9600pro which is only slight slower than 9700 and it was a revelation.

The 9700 Pro is much more powerful than the 9600 Pro.

 

[whoaru99]

Well, I hope I didn't screw up too badly, but remember I'm not a x-gamer.

Went with a Gigabyte 7300GT 256MB (128 bit version with factory OC) that I found as an open box with full return/warranty for just a couple tics over $50...

If this is at least a sideways move, or even a small increase, it should fit my needs.

FWIW...

My old system (P3 @1.2GHz, 512MB RAM) with the 9700 PRO ran 4353 on 3DMark03.

The updated system (Celeron D @ 3.33GHz, 1GB dual channel RAM) with the Gigabyte 7300GT ran 8230 on 3DMark03.

I don't know much about the benchmarking process so, with such a difference in the computers themselves, does this test even mean anything with respect to comparing the two graphics boards?

 

[Slobogob]

Is that one of those Cedar Mill based Celerons? How do they perform in everyday use?

 

[whoaru99]

Yes, it is a Cedar Mills.

I just fired it up yesterday so I have not tested it out too much.

It has my stuff running a lot faster - the basic apps snap right open. Then again, my basis is a P3 - 1GHz OC'ed to 1.2GHz so the Celeron seems like a rocket at this point.

At stock speed, it's roughly 43 seconds from power-on to the desktop with Win XP Home (SP2).

Just for kicks, I turned it up to 3.75GHz and it seemed to run just fine, but I've since turned it back to stock. Gonna run it a while before I put the screws to it. I'm going to see if I can go 4GHz or more.

 

[Slobogob]

Sounds good! I´d be really interested in how far you push it, how stable it will be (at 4 Ghz) and how it performs at that clock speed. I´ve a Socket 775 Board around but no processor to get it running and i´m considering to get me a cedar mill celeron if it overclocks good and its performanc isn´t too bad.

 

[whoaru99]

Need to get to work soon so no stability testing right now, but it booted OK and it's running at 4GHz (160/640 FSB) as I write this. All I did was change the (clock?) setting from 133 to 160, didn't mess with anything else. This is with Gigabyte 965P-S3

So far, so good...

 

[Morton]

One of the greatest things about Radeon 9700 is that it works on 1x/2x/4x/8x AGP, while the new cards work only with 4x/8x AGP.

 

[Flying-Q]

I thought AGP x1 worked on a different voltage from x2,x4,x8?

Q

 

[ryanjohnsond]

Is there a chart that compares the Radeon 9700 to the Nvidia Ultra 6800?

 

[nforce4max]

Wow what a thread necro oh well. I used to own a 9800pro aiw that managed to run crysis on lowest settings. I later swapped it out for a 7800gs co. Now the system is all gone except for a few parts.