9800 non pro or 5900 non ultra - Bargins?

[TiG]

I've been thinking of buying a new Gfx card for a while and while i've currently got nothing that i specifically want it for i'm definitely tempted, and although i've got enough money to buy a 9800 pro i feel that there price isn't justified, so i'm been considuring the 5900 non ultra and the 9800 non pro.

A lot cheaper than the pro and ultra versions and can quite frankly be overclocked to pro speeds without issue imo.

So for £200 in effect i could get a 9800 pro card, check the attached link for figures i've found for relative perf.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...900-r9800.html

Now considuring how much faster then the 9600/5600 these cards are i'd say that the extra money is worth it over the mid range cards but then again not breaking the bank with the £300+ for the pro versions...

Anyone got any views?

TiG

[Korky]

Your not buying a 9800pro because you can overclock it to pro speeds, albeit u have a better card but ur card overclocked to 9800pro speeds wont keep up with the pro due to other factors e.g mem bandwidth. Id say go for the 9700pro ;-)

[Platty]

yeam 9700pro's are a good bargin atm. IF you can afford the 9800pro then that'll be a very nice card indeed.

[BUFF]

Originally posted by Korky
Your not buying a 9800pro because you can overclock it to pro speeds, albeit u have a better card but ur card overclocked to 9800pro speeds wont keep up with the pro due to other factors e.g mem bandwidth. Id say go for the 9700pro ;-)

The only diff between a 9800 non Pro & a Pro is the core/mem speeds - so if you can overclock to Pro speeds then there is no performance difference at those speeds (same for 9700nP & P).
Of course, the Pro might overclock higher as presumably the parts are speed binned.

A 9800 non Pro will outperform an 9700 Pro - it has exactly the same core/mem speeds but the updated GPU.

[Korky]

excuse me:

-----------------------9800PRO------------------9800NP
Pixel Fillrate------3.04 Gpixels/sec---------2.6 Gpixels/sec
Geometery Rate-380 Mtriangles/sec------325 Mtriangles/sec

i didnt just say it for a laugh

[TiG]

and how exactly do you think you calculate fill rate korky?. If its not based on Memory and Core Frequencies?

IF you read the article that i linked to the overclocking page will quite happily fill the gap in your knowledge

Thanks
TiG

[Korky]

no i refuse to be beaten, i had this argument with someone, even though they are used to calculate the fill specs it doesnt add up in the end, thus they do benchmark slightly lower. Guess im just upset when ppl talk about their non pros acting like pros when i spent the full whack (well i didnt really ;-)), oh also they tend to have slower memory than pro's 2.8 or 3.0ns.

[Trickle]

I cant say I was overly convinced by the Xbit article. It concentrates on somewhat different benchmarks than those being stired up by other sites. Imho, not enough games/benches were used for it to come to any useful conclusion... other than what was already blindingly obvious - that the 9800 non pro and 5900 non ultra are better value cards than their elder brethren.

Why do sites still waste space with Q3 benchmarks? I dont really care how repeatable the results for it are or how well it scales or even how many other game engine derivatives it spawned. Who on earth is buying these cards to play it?

[Trickle]

Korky, whilst you have bought the top whack card you can still be at least assured that now is a better time to be spending £300 on a gfx card than it has been at certain other times in the past.

Only since this time last year with the 9700 pro has it even been remotely worth buying top whack since perhaps dual V2. Whilst there havent been any games for the 9700 to stretch its legs on until now, its at least been at the top of the pile for longer than any had expected. Who would have predicted quite how sloathful this year has been? Remeber the threads from this time last year - those who had recently spent £300 on a 4600, those buying a 9700 and a large many claiming it was best to wait for Nvidia's super card coming after Christmas?

[BUFF]

Originally posted by Korky
oh also they tend to have slower memory than pro's 2.8 or 3.0ns.

My built by ATI 9700 non Pro has Samsung 2.8ns memory & does Pro speeds with ease (currently sitting at 350/325 for everyday use - will go higher)

[SilentDeath]

id say one of these: (currently available)

9600pro (fast enuf, clocks well)
9500np (grandmars softmod guaranteed from the bloke at ebay for £130)
9800np (plenty fast enuf, core will clock to exactly the same as the pro, mem depends on manuf but usually will clock a lot less than the core, mem clock will make most per difference on all 9500+ cards - apart from production cost theres no reson why a manuf cant stick 2ns chips on one... though obviosly they aint gonna without it costing loads...)

i dont recoomend 9800pro, with that money u could buy a 9800nonpro and still afford to give me a 9500np softmodable!

i didnt bother to read the link posted above as the cards are only benched with dx8 stuff, HOW FKN STUPID IS THAT!!! id be more than happy playing any dx8 game with a gf4 ti4200 (nvidias best card - or only decent card). the reson for this is that dx8 performance of a card is not related to dx9 performace atall, and a 9600pro will beat any card on the GF FX arcitecture even overclocked in dx9 stuff.

dx9 is where u start to need a better card, considerng the fx series is about 5x slower at dx9 clock for clock (at a guess, its about 3x with the high end R vs FX and the fx is clocked lot higher to make up some perf) id say theres no reson to even consider an fx based card.

btw i have a 9700np which clocks past 400 on core (gets hot, not gone further) and 313.5 on mem. stock was 276/270. watercooling and voltmods will happen soon i expect 460-500mhz on core and 350 on mem.

[BUFF]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
id be more than happy playing any dx8 game with a gf4 ti4200

Very true unless you want to use FSAA etc. in which case a 9500 Pro will just breeze past it - nothing like the performance drop compared to a Ti.

[SilentDeath]

im not to bothered about fsaa aslong as its decent quality, and atleast 2x... AF makes much nicer difference to games though and unless it made the ti4200 perform less than 30fps id have it on full