Graphics card advice please :)

Right; take a look at the following spec:

XP1700 (191x11 for ~XP2600 spd)
512mb PC2100
KR7A-R
GF3 Ti200

I'm fairly convinced that it's my graphics card which is holding me back on Halo in particular at the mo, so I'm looking for an upgrade (if you think it's NOT the gfx card then please shout!).

I'm not too bothered about a Radeon or Geforce but I want decent driver support and price. I'm also confused...

Looking particularly at the Radeons, there's £75 increase from a 128mb 9800 to a 128mb 9800 Pro - why and is it worth it? Furthermore there's a £73 increase again for a 256mb 9800 Pro - is the extra memory worth it??

Budget is around the £350 mark (but I don't want to spend that much unless there's good reason to). What should I go for?? :)

Why not just get a 9600 Pro or 256MB? since your system has potential bottle necks whats the point....

Quote:

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Originally posted by David
since your system has potential bottle necks whats the point....

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Such as?

Well memory bandwidth for one; also I believe your board will also be connected to this.

Yeh, the memory plugs into the motherboard David. It's connected by DRAM slots.

So what am I looking at for an improvement there? If I go for a 128mb 9800 Pro can I squeeze in new RAM? What should I go for?

:)

I would buy an NF2 board and a 9600 Pro personally.

What core is the XP1700+ Shad? If it is the jiuhb dlt3c core then I would also suggest getting a NF2 board, some 2700 memory and either a 9500Pro or a 9600Pro if you can stretch to that with the extra memory.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Shad
Yeh, the memory plugs into the motherboard David. It's connected by DRAM slots.

:)

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The funniest bit of sarcasm I have heard for a while! LOL! You got told David! :p

The 9800Pro is one of the bestest cards around.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Shad
Yeh, the memory plugs into the motherboard David. It's connected by DRAM slots.

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nice Shad m8e... very nice. ;)

personally i'd go with an NF2 board and a 9600.. i think you'd see a whole better increase than just blowing your wad on a 9800pro... and maybe some better RAM if funds allow...
Prices
Abit NF7-S V2.0 £85
9600 Pro £130
512 Corsair PC3200 £110

a little under your budget less what you'd get back selling your current stuff...

just my £0.02 worth...

Unless he wants to OC way over 200FSB then there is no point going with the Corsair RAM IMHO. TwinMOS would be more than enough.

get a 9800np then just flash it to a 9800pro, can save a wad of cash that way, just a bit risky !

Quote:

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Originally posted by garath
get a 9800np then just flash it to a 9800pro, can save a wad of cash that way, just a bit risky !

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Great suggestion, after reading the other replies i would have blatently suggested that too.

Im amazed you managed 191FSB on a KR7A, as the board only has a 1/4 devidor and no PCI lock that would mean you running close to 50MHz PCI clock. I wouls decond a decent motherboard/memory combo first and then the radeon if you can afford it, however if you were to just put in the radeon now it wouldnt be too shabby infact it would still run pretty good, just not up to its full potential.

I've just bought one of the Radeon 9600 Pros after a long debate on another forum. At first I was gunna go for the 256mb version but then decided against it cause nothing would be able to take full advantage of the card at this point. Possibly in the future, Doom III (when its released) would be able to use it fully

Radeon 9800 Pro with 128mb for less than £300 from Crucial....

then you can play your arse off :)

Also it is the most likely thing for you to NOT want to upgrade next time around.

Mine is unreal....it absolutely owns the 9600Pro I had before...both were 128mb versions.

Then, in 8 months time I BET you will still be able to play everything on it.

It is, in my opinion, the only really future proof card for the next 8 months.

£0.02 from me :)

Thanks for your replies guys.

Clearly the feeling is that my mobo and ram are also outdated. I wasn't intending to do an all-out-performance-upgrade, but it seems as though the time might be right.

I think I'll still have to do this in stage; can't just throw a monkey on mobo ram and graphics card all at once.

Would you all agree that my best first step would be on a 128mb 9800 Pro?

Then following on from that I'll buy an NF7-S 2 and some decent ram. My XP1700 has a DLT3C core which is why it's not even being pushed at the moment. I water cool though so I need the 4 mounting holes around the socket - does the NF7 have these?

Cheers :)

Yes the new version of the NF7-S do have the 4 mounting holes

V1.2 and up-wards iirc...?

personally id say get the ram+mobo first... which should cost about £160

then get the 9800pro (it will drop in price more than the other two and it will be so heavily limited by your current setup you wont notice huge gains either)

I agree with Axion, get the motherboard and the ram first, and then get the card. It should drop at or around September 30 (the expected release date of Half Life 2). Just my 2 cents

whoa.

if you've got £350, I'd be tempted to advice this:

get an nf7-s - your current board isn't a huge bottleneck, but, well, it will be as soon as you want to move up to ddr400 (or higher, if you're planning to REALLY push that dlt3c)...

I'd then advise you grab a 9800 (pro or non-pro, your choice...personally I'd say the nonpro could probably be pushed close to pro performance, and £70 is a lot of money :D)

Presumably you've got a decentish 350W+ PSU ? If you haven't you might want to invest in one of these as well, 9800s are bliddy power hungry beasts.

From there...well, this is kind of the point, you can upgrade the memory, the processor, you can overclock them to buggery, etc. I wouldn't worry too much about rushing to get quicker memory just yet - your main bottleneck is your gfx card, and ddr is really pricey at the moment :(

I'd say gfx prices will more likely rise on the arrival of HL2, surely? Unless both ati AND nvidia are planning to release their next card somewhere around that date?

I've heard that ATI is planning on releasing it's new flagship at the release of HL2. This should drop the price of the rest of there line up.

Do people really think hes going to see the same performance increase in Halo by upgrading his Mainboard and ram as by just sticking a radeon 9800 pro in his machine!

"yea before i was getting 30FPS, now Ive upgraded my Mboard and ram Im getting 35FPS!!! WOW"

or

"hey before I was getting 30FPS now Ive upgraded my GF3ti200 to a radeon 9800 Im getting 90FPS"

I suggest buying the 9800 non pro overclocking it to pro speeds (not that much of a risk, core anyway) saving the £150 and putting it towards an nforce2 and some RAM later when you can afford 1 gig of DDR 400 or waiting for the Athlon64/FX.

In short you will see a big games performace boost by upgrading your graphics card, or a small performance boost by upgrading your subsystem, or a great performance boost by upgrading both.

Don't upgrade both and get a 9600pro to save money, very short sighted, you will end up wishing you had bought the 9800 and waited to upgrade the rest.

Yeh that's why I intended to get the graphics card first; might decide I didn't need the rest.

However, new car is looking at costing slightly more than anticipated so I'll have to put this on hold for a few weeks :(

get a 9800np and clock it mannnnnnnnnn thats worth the money, only a few frames less then 9800pro...

and you save some money for future upgrades