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Thread: 9800 pro - disappointing

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    9800 pro - disappointing

    I recently upgraded my 3-year-old Ti4600 to a Sapphire 9800 pro. I've been very disappointed with the 9800's performance compared to the Ti4600 - very little improvement when playing games really - its a bit better with Chronicles of Riddick and Vampire Masquerade but no better at all with HL2. This is the first ATI card I've used and could be the last. I wish I'd saved up a few more pounds and gone for a 6600GT.

    Oh well, you live and learn. If anyone is thinking of getting a 9800 pro (as they now seem to be dropping substantially in price) then they may want to think again.
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    Prize winning member. rajagra's Avatar
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    To be fair, your CPU (the XP2500+?) is probably a major bottleneck.
    I know my XP2400+ lets down my 6800Ultra very badly!
    3DMark05 link.
    Have you run any benchmarks?
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    21st century digital boy noah's Avatar
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    did you use driver cleaner to get rid of the nvidia drivers before installing the 9800pro, i noticed a massive diffeence from my 9600 to my 6800 and i only have a xp2600. some people find thay even have to go as far as reformatting when changing card brands, most dont im sure, but occasionally you do.

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    Hmm, yes I guess the XP2500+ could be a bottleneck, though it is running at more than XP3200+ speed. Not really much upgrade possibility there until I go AMD 64 which is such a major and expensive upgrade it'll not happen for a LONG time.

    No I didn't use driver cleaner to get rid of the nvidia drivers, I just uninstalled them in the 'usual' way. Thanks for the tips - looks like there is room for improvement.

    Benchmark with 3DMark03 was about 5970. Looking at the GPU comparison graphs at Tomshardware this seems about 'normal' for a stock 9800 pro, though I admit I haven't spent much time checking other comparisons.
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    If your 5555... Swafe's Avatar
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    If its running at XP3200 speeds, I wouldnt say it was a real bottleneck
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    Almost in control. autopilot's Avatar
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    I did a Ti4600 to a Sapphire 9800 pro upgrade and found a very good speed increase in all apps. You either have a driver issue (grx or motherboard or both) and/or a bottle neck in your system. As stated above, it's most likely your CPU.

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    21st century digital boy noah's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Swafeman
    If its running at XP3200 speeds, I wouldnt say it was a real bottleneck
    i gotta agree, that chip aint no slouch at that speed. i dont think a 9800pro is fast enough for bottlenecking to be a 'huge' problem.

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    If your 5555... Swafe's Avatar
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    Sure its a pro ? Could be a 9800Se or something, which isnt gonna be a great deal better than a Ti4600

    If your certain its a 9800 pro, get some new drivers, maybe a fresh install ?
    Quote Originally Posted by Knoxville
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    Well, it's got 'pro' on the box! How can I check it is genuine?

    Yup, when I get home (away on business at the mo') I'll try messing with the drivers, and a fresh install is certainly on the cards.

    Thanks for all the advice.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ceefer
    I recently upgraded my 3-year-old Ti4600 to a Sapphire 9800 pro. I've been very disappointed with the 9800's performance compared to the Ti4600 - very little improvement when playing games really - its a bit better with Chronicles of Riddick and Vampire Masquerade but no better at all with HL2. This is the first ATI card I've used and could be the last. I wish I'd saved up a few more pounds and gone for a 6600GT.

    Oh well, you live and learn. If anyone is thinking of getting a 9800 pro (as they now seem to be dropping substantially in price) then they may want to think again.

    The fact your getting 5970 in 03 makes me think its about normal.. no issues..
    With my old 9700np at 451.80/311.40 I was getting 5909 in 03, and that was a LOT faster than any gf4 ti4400..

    Your saying its the last ati card your going to buy? Remember the 9800p is almost exactly the same as the 9700 gpu (about 99.9%) which was the first dx9 card out... (about 2 years old). Only differences are changes to the pcb and addition of thermal sensor to the core...

    As for getting an old card, I would recommend a 9500np 128mb from retek for 30 quid. When overclocked, without softmod they get about 4.5k in 3dm2k3 and game like vampire maskquerade are playable.. with softmod that would be ~6k like you are getting...

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    the 9800 pro should make a big diference i agree, maybe time to reinstall or put on the latest drivers ... have you tried putting all the settings up in hl2 .. that will show you the diference? how much ram do you have .. if it's not 1gb upgrade this as this will be the bottleneck.

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    The thing is you have to remeber that the ti4600 was technically very quick for it's time, there's a couple of reviews i've dug up that show this to some extent:

    http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...800pro&page=12
    http://translate.google.com/translat...lr%3D%26sa%3DN
    http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=55000273

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    With my Ti4600 I was running HL2 with everything except anti-aliasing (none) on the highest settings and it was super-smooth. When I installed the 9800 pro I kept all the same settings but added some anti-aliasing and it was quite choppy in places.

    I'm running 1gb ram so system memory is not an issue, I think. I will definitely play around with drivers when I get time.
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    Right Click Desktop, left click properties

    Left Click the Settings tab, top right

    Left Click Advanced box

    Now, in the Tab that says "3d", choose Direct3d or Open GL according to your game, and move a slider

    Try playing an older game, or one you run on a 15"TFT at 1024x768, and whack on some Anti Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering.

    Then replay that game.

    What I'm most suprised that you've not mentioned is colours or sharpness....I've used 4200 and 4600 cards, and text and colours were dire in comparison....

    in FACT I'd say live with the 9800 for one week, and then go BACK to the 4600....and then see

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    Id agree with Zak33 - I've got a sprinkling of cards, and most ATI cards seem sharper and better than nVidia stuff...but you can get a decent picture with a bit of messing.

    My 9800 Pro was a fair deal quicker than a GF4 Ti4200 I upgraded from, but that was massacred by my new X800 Pro...which is about twice as fast!

    Problem is, my Athlon XP is now a bottleneck, there are definate slowdowns in some games, like IL2 now. Looks like Athlon 64 is the way 2 go!
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    Zakk, I am finding the same thing with my current setup, just moved shuttle down here and I have 3 identicle screens (19" TFT) the difference of quality on the shuttle's on board GF4MX chipset to my main rig with a 9600 XT is unreal, it looks fuzzy on the shuttle in comparison, you would never notice if you didnt have them next to each other though or as you said if you went back to it after a week.
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