need help with new gfx card.

[Skaramush]

Hey guys atm i own a Ati Radeon 9800 pro but with recent games ive been having a decrease in performance so im looking for a relatively cheap upgrade to another agp card which would boost my performance without having to upgrade my cpu ram and new mobo
so far i found
Connect3d X850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 DVI VIVO AGP on ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=101494

it looks good and has good reviews i was wondering if you could tell me if its a good card to get to upgrade from 9800 pro and whether there are better cards i could get elsewhere at similar price.

P.S i was looking at tom's hardware performance charts the x850 xt seems to do very very good but this one is pro and with ati changing names so much its hard to tell so any advice will be appreciated since i fail to understand the distinction between the different versions of it.

[dave87]

I went and bought a 6800 non pro/le/xt or all the other rubbish - and then unlocked the pipes and overclocked it up to GT levels (untill I get around to fitting a new cooler) That gave me a nice boost from the 9600xt I had before. Really depends on the spec of the rest of the machine though, but it will be a big improvement over your 9800. No point going for the new 7800, its a card thats crippled by having an agp-pci-e bridge chip in it. (the 6800 is natively AGP)

Dave

[Skaramush]

i prefer not to overclock or do anything that would affect my warranty the rest of my spec is :
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2800+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.1GHz
Memory: 1024MB RAM
Chip type: RADEON 9800 PRO AGP 128mb
Sound Card:Sound Blaster Audigy

WInXP home sp 2

P.S also oblivion is coming out on the 24 th so im anxious it not running poopy on my pc but i dont want to throw away lot of money on full pc upgrade see what i mean.

[dave87]

I know you said you'd prefer not to overclock, but is your 2800+ a 333 fsb one? if so a bit of an increase in fsb should do you no harm. Otherwise get yourself a 6800gs, thats the replacement to what I've got - increases in clock & mem speed, but essentially the same chip (i.e. the same as overclocking).

If you get a BFG (i think) then your warrenty is unaffected by overclocking, but I may be wrong..

Dave

[Skaramush]

um and the difference between the 6800gs and the x850 pro i found would be what? i dont really understand the clock and mem speed destinctions in cards well.

i ve had a look i think there are 6800Gt for the same price as GS isnt gt different or ? i dont quite understand the difference.

[licmik]

I think your CPU might hold back the new graphics card. A motherboard + CPU upgrade should cost less than a videocard upgrade (motherboard £30 + Sempron 64 2800 £50). Overclock the Sempron to its limit (probably about 2.2 or 2.4GHz). You can re-use your ram if it is PC3200 (or overclock if slightly slower ram).

[Skaramush]

ah but that would envolve rewiring everything and paying extra in addition to gfx card thats exactly what i dont want to do at this point.

[dave87]

Its really not worth upgrading the likes of the motherboard & processor atm, 939 will drop once AM2 arrives - so that'll be the bargain, rather than 754.

Buying a 6800 & overclocking the CPU up to say 3200+ levels (200x11) would probably be your best bet - as that gives me decent performance in todays games.

Dave

[Skaramush]

heh 6800? GT GX GS XT LE ? they are so bloody confusing like 10 cards with same number.

[Skaramush]

found Point of View 6800GS AGP for similar price as the x850 one on ebuyer is what you meant?
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=103056

[dave87]

LE- dont - crippled card effectively
GT - 2nd Highest in the range (old range - before rebranding)
XT/GS no idea, but those two are the new ones
Ultra - Highest in the old range (top dog of the 6800s)

BTW - it confuses us all.

once your looking at only 6800s, start comparing no of Pixel Pipelines, Core Frequency (mhz) and Memory Frequency (mhz) - and of course price.

That way you can look at which card gives you the most bang for your buck. Good Luck - you'll need it

The best idea is to narrow it down to a couple of cards, then post links to them in here, then people will give you their opinions on them and will suggest better cards from that.

Hope this helps a bit

Dave

[dave87]

Yea, might be worth checking Scan aswell - they can be pretty competitive, and if anything should go wrong, really good blokes to deal with (unlike other companies who shall remain nameless)

Dave

[Skaramush]

oh i dunno scan looks pretty expensive same card as the one above on ebuyer costs like 20+ more pounds with vat.

[dave87]

Remember - you knock a tenner off on postage when you get free delivery - see one of the Scan guys sigs.

[dave87]

How about this one

[Skaramush]

oh yeah that looks lot better say the one i picked initially its worse why? cause it has much lower mem freq? everyone says that nvidia is better than ati but how exactly?