switching from radeon 9800 pro to x800 xt

[Maverick99]

i'm really thinking about upgrading from a radeon 9800 pro 128mb to an x800 xt 256mb,when it comes out. I was wondering how much of a difference it will be in performance and if its worth it to spend the money on it.
thx

 

[Mr5oh]

Yes there will be a performance gain, however, you already have a great card. Unless you really have some money burning a whole in your pocket, or game performance is lacking, it may be wise to wait a little longer.

You may want to look at the GeForce 6800 series, maybe a GT, can get that cheaper, and the 6800 have been killing ATI in recent gaming benchmarks.

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[malignant]

killing? XT PE and 6800 Ultra are nose to nose most of the time. Now the best value for your money would be 6800 GT. Its better than the x800 Pro and cheaper.

 

[malignant]

Oh and to answer your question. I'd say about 50 to 100% performance gain. I had a aiw 9700 and upgraded to the x800 XT PE and got huge gains + with higher AA+AF (quality) settings.

 

[Mr5oh]

killing?

Killing might have been a little strong of a word. Good catch Malignant, thats what I get for posting that early in the morning,

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[penus]

DON'T DO IT! Going from the 9800 Pro to the x800 is like going from UT2003 to UT2004. While the latters are most definitely great, they are only worth purchase for those who never had the former. In other words, the X800 (xt model or no) is not THAT much better than the 9800 for the $399 price tag that goes with it.

I have the 9800 XT. Then I bought the X800 and was not impressed by my ongoing lack of ability to play Doom 3 at 1600x1200 at what I expected to be a $399 frame rate.

So then I bought the NVidia 6800 GT. NVidia was all hyped about the framerates it gets with Doom 3. They were right, it kills ATI's X800... but excellent performance in Doom 3 is ALL they have to boast about. The X800 has the best 1600x1200 framerate for all Unreal Tournament games and all other mainframe 3D games (like the Jedi Knight series) with nearly NO jagged edges... and I mean nearly NONE. NV's card has more jagged edges in ALL games than my 9800XT. GO FOR ATI!

So I am taking back BOTH cards (yes, even the X800) and sticking with my 9800XT until next week when I rebuild a whole new PC with the newest PCI Express technology and ATI's PCIX version of the X800... provided the reviews are good, of course. You can bet I will be back to share the news on PCI Express.

PS - The X800 ROCKS! If you have earlier Radeon models and have and extra $399 to hand out to the man then get the X800, but don't make a mistake and think it is all that and the big, fat bag of chips that ATI said it was (ie, "almost doubles the performance of the 9800XT"). You will hardly notice a huge difference, although ATI's new Catalyst drivers released on 8/16/04 do slightly enhance its performance over the version previously released in July.

PPS - And yes, I did thoroughly test the X800 and 6800 GT by swapping them both in and out for every 3D driven game I own (and my library is HUGE).

Happy shopping.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Penus on 08/20/04 01:52 AM.</EM></FONT></P>