£40-£50 upgrade

[technophreak]

Hi,

I've got a Radeon 9200 Atlantis in my pc at the moment and was wondering what was the best upgrade I could get for between 40 and 50 quid. Scan are doing an X300 for £30. Would it be a worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks

[kalniel]

In short, no - it wouldn't even work in your computer due to it being the wrong kind of slot.

Look at what you can get on ebay for that price - infact I'm looking to sell the asus geforce fx5700 (full speed on, not LE cut down ) that I just upgraded from. It's not a superfast card, but it's pretty good. But any card like that or better would be good.

So a reminder you need an AGP card, not PCI-E.

[technophreak]

My motherboard is an Asrock DualSata2. Has AGP and PCI-E slot . It's why I chose that motherboard when upgrading motherboard/cpu at xmas.

I dont really like using ebay anymore. I've been messed around by them a couple of times in the last couple of months with buyers sending me money from stolen cards and a seller just not sending an item.

[NightshadowUK]

Could go for a 256-bit 9800 SE from Retek... There's also the possibility you could soft-mod to a 9800 Pro... not bad for £35.

EDIT: For instructions on softmodding see here and here.

[technophreak]

Would that be better than an X300 PCI-E?

[Smokey21]

Where's that link for a 9700Pro for 45quid?

[NightshadowUK]

Would that be better than an X300 PCI-E?

The Radeon 9600 series is comparable to ATi's X300, so I'd say the 9800 owns it. I know is Pro is comparable to a nVidia 6600GT so the SE would be a bit below that.

[technophreak]

The Radeon 9600 series is comparable to ATi's X300, so I'd say the 9800 owns it. I know is Pro is comparable to a nVidia 6600GT so the SE would be a bit below that.

I didnt know that. Looks like I'll have to go for the SE and try to softmod it. Just need the money now

[KowShak]

Some 9800 SEs can be soft modded to enable the disabled pipes, making them into 9800s but a lot of people who've done the soft mod suffer from artifacting, i.e. chips that had faulty pipelines had the faultly pipes disabled so they could still be sold. Not all 9800 SEs have the full width memory bus and it won't have the fast memory that a 9800 Pro or Xt will have either. If it can be soft modded, it'll be a fast car but if not you'll be looking at something that is SLOWER than a 9600 Pro or XT, so you need to do the research before you buy.

There are newer cards that may be better, for example ebuyer has a GeForce 6500 for £39+VAT and delivery, they also have a Radeon X550 256MB for similar money, they might be worth considering.

[NightshadowUK]

Yeah it's by no means a certainty, only go for it if you're willing to settle for a 9800 SE...

[KowShak]

I've got a 9800 Pro right now and I need a faster card, I don't think a £50 graphics card will run current games the way they should be played, they can't handle all the options turned on at decent resolutions.

I'm looking at spending £150 to get something decent, that would get me a nice PCIe (6800 GS) card but I'm stuck with AGP so my options are limited.

[NightshadowUK]

Have a look here, it's worth a try.

[technophreak]

Would a 9800 Pro for £50 inc p&p be a good upgrade for me?

[Syd]

I've got a 9800 Pro right now and I need a faster card, I don't think a £50 graphics card will run current games the way they should be played, they can't handle all the options turned on at decent resolutions.

I'm looking at spending £150 to get something decent, that would get me a nice PCIe (6800 GS) card but I'm stuck with AGP so my options are limited.

You are stuck with the same problem I was 3 months ago, I bought a 6800GT to run in an AGP motherboard, Great card and available for about 150 where you can find it, then my mobo failed a month later, so I was left in a bit of a quandry, but fortunatley those nice guys at asrock make the socket 939 dual sata 2 MB which has AGP and PCIE for 39 quid!!!!
What processor/RAM do run ATM?