Radeon 9800 Pro Vs. XFX 7600 GT

[Stir_Crazy]

I currently Have a
Dell XPS Gen 2 System w/
3.2GHz P4 Processor
2GB of RAM
ATI Tadeon 9800 Pro 128MB (AGP)

I've been looking into getting a new video card and I came across the XFX 7600 GT for a fair price.
When I looked into the spec something made me pause.

Radeon 9800 PRO XFX Geforce 7600 GT
Frame Buffer 128MB DDR 256MB DDR3
Memory Interface/BUS 256-bit 128-bit
Rendering Pipelines 8 N/A
Pixel Fillrate (Gpixels/sec) 3.04 6.7
Engine Clock (MHz) 380 560
Memory Clock (MHz) 680 1.4GHz
Output Connections VGA + TV + DVI DVI x 2 + HDTV Out

It was the BUS rate that bothered me... Being that is the backbone. Does anyone have any input on whether or not the upgrade is worth it?

 

[bob360]

the 7600 gt should be about twice as fast if not more

 

[mactronix]

Dont know how familiar with the older series of graphics cards but put plainly yes its worth it.
If you are familiar with them then the 7600gt will be like trading up to a x800xl + with the added bonus of hddr lighting and shader 3.
Mactronix

 

[Stir_Crazy]

With the comparison I saw that everything was about doubled except for the Engine Clock & of course the BUS which was 1/2 the speed

What would you say would be the TOP AGP cards available.
Being AGP, I know I have a limited amount of options w/ PCIe quickly becoming/became the standard!

 

[mactronix]

I beleive the 1950xt is the fastest thing currantly available on an agp socket.
Mactronix

 

[Ananan]

Bud speed is an important thing to watch but in the case of the 9800 pro vs. 7600 GT the cards are just too many generations apart to be directly comparable.

Just remember if you're going for a 1950xt you'll probably need a new PSU and since you have a Dell you might not be able to upgrade yours.

 

[cristip60]

Well the 7600gt will just go all violent on an 9800pro. The bus speed is important but the 7600gt it's clocked so high that it offsets it.

 

[Iam_a_pc]

wtf a 850xt beats a 7600gt in most benchies.

 

[Stir_Crazy]

Get w/ the program iam_a_pc... we are not talking about the 850xt!

 

[tj_the_first]

X1950XT >> 7600GT >> 9800 Pro

Probably same performance differences roughly.

 

[randomizer]

wtf a 850xt beats a 7600gt in most benchies.

Good to know, back on topic

 

[jt001]

The bus is narrower by a factor of 2, but the clock frequency on the memory is almost double so it still has a little more memory bandwidth, so it's not like it's gonna be slower, and the core should be quite a bit faster.