Radeon 9600pro or 9800SE + new pc.

[behatch]

Hi;

I want to know which graphics card would be best for new games and daoc,a radeon 9800SE or a 9600pro?

And,i want to run 2 accounts smooth in rvr and pve etc (maybe even 2 toa acc's)

I'm looking at;

Motherboard :- ASROCK k7S8Xe+
CPU :- AMD athlon xp 2600(not barton)
Memory :- 2x 512 mb DDR 400 RAM
HDD :- 160gb IDE DISK DRIVE -7200 8mb cache
Video card :- Radeon 9600pro or 9800SE

I have a budget off approx 500 pounds.

If you have any other systems you'd like to advise at me,feel free.

I would like this system too run NF well aswell if its possible.

Thanks!

 

[Talsar]

Hi;

I want to know which graphics card would be best for new games and daoc,a radeon 9800SE or a 9600pro?

And,i want to run 2 accounts smooth in rvr and pve etc (maybe even 2 toa acc's)

I'm looking at;

Motherboard :- ASROCK k7S8Xe+
CPU :- AMD athlon xp 2600(not barton)
Memory :- 2x 512 mb DDR 400 RAM
HDD :- 160gb IDE DISK DRIVE -7200 8mb cache
Video card :- Radeon 9600pro or 9800SE

I have a budget off approx 500 pounds.

If you have any other systems you'd like to advise at me,feel free.

I would like this system too run NF well aswell if its possible.

Thanks!

Imo;

Motherboard - decent one with AGP x8
Pentium 4 - 2.4 gig processor
1 Gig of DDR 333 Ram
160 HD (7200 rpm)
Radeon 9800

 

[Derfel]

hmm

don't think either of those cards will be that good for new games, if you want a budget card that will last a bit longer go for the 9600XT cost me about £100 6 months ago maybe cheaper now, rocks DAOC and should handle the newer games ok (farcry runs smooth on high settings). You get a HL2 free with XT cards too

 

[georgie]

OMG, Talsar the avatar thief!!!!

 

[behatch]

Actually im settling for;

Radeon 9800pro
ASROCK motherboard
2600 amd athlon CPU which i will be upgrading too 3000 in 3-4 weeks
1024 mb DDR ram400

etc

 

[cHodAX]

Imo;

Pentium 4 - 2.4 gig processor
1 Gig of DDR 333 Ram

Rofl

 

[Tinyheals]

Rofl

whats funny?

im on amd 2600@2203MHz, 1024 DDR ram, i dont regret it a second i got 1024.

 

[Daedalus]

whats funny?

im on amd 2600@2203MHz, 1024 DDR ram, i dont regret it a second i got 1024.

Agreed. DAoC SI/ToA & Windows use over 700 MB of memory together, I rather have it using all the physical memory than a swapfile.

 

[Talsar]

OMG, Talsar the avatar thief!!!!

Oi my avatar, bad Georgie

 

[Talsar]

Rofl

Erm? what is funny?

whats funny?

im on amd 2600@2203MHz, 1024 DDR ram, i dont regret it a second i got 1024.

Yup i agree, i too have 1 gig of ram, and wil never look back now. Tbh i am considering 1.5 gig.

 

[harebear]

1gig forthewin =)

 

[Iceforge]

Erm? what is funny?



Yup i agree, i too have 1 gig of ram, and wil never look back now. Tbh i am considering 1.5 gig.

I'll go on for the "ROFL" guy!

ROFL @ 333 MHZ Ram....

Going soon for a
AMD 2400+ 64 bit
1024 MB DDR 400 MHZ Ram
128mb Radeon Excalibur 9800Pro

Roxor....

 

[Moriath]

erm why 400mhz ram when its only gonna run at 333 as thats what the fsb will be set at

 

[Danya]

Most 2600s will run at 400 mhz.

 

[Cyfr]

I don't see why everyone puts cards like 9600pro down, it works bloody great on any games ive played with it. Obviously theres less lag in big zergs when I use my 9800pro, but I know people who have been gaming with GF2's for years

However, shove as much ram in as you can, i've never looked back from 1gig

 

[Kalid]

Buy 9800SE and upgrade it to PRO imo

 

[Talsar]

I'll go on for the "ROFL" guy!

ROFL @ 333 MHZ Ram....

Going soon for a
AMD 2400+ 64 bit
1024 MB DDR 400 MHZ Ram
128mb Radeon Excalibur 9800Pro

Roxor....

Yes if you can afford 400 mhz ram then go for it.

but tbh i would not waste my time with AMD 2400

Better with Pentium 4 - 2.4, has much better performance... as reviewed in 3 computer magazines.

 

[Danya]

64-bit AMDs are not quite the same as the 32-bit versions. An A64 2400+ is faster than a p4 2.4.

 

[plomien]

http://atitool.ocfaq.com/


very handy tool of crank up you ATI cards core and memory read the instructions though and let it auto balance.

another is this one,
http://softmod.ocfaq.com/index.php

it will let you get the most out of your card (9800SE will turn it to a pro by opening the 8 pipes instead of the 4)

just make sure you have a copy of the orginal drivers to hand incase it doesn't work so you can re-install them.

 

[starr]

If you were going to softmod a 9800SE - don't buy a new one, the boards that this work on went out of production months ago now so not worth the hassle of risking whether you're gonna get old stock or new.

Buy a guaranteed softmoddable off ebay, or go new with at least a 9600xt as recommended earlier - no there's nothing wrong with the 9600pro but he wants to run 2 clients on 1 machine as I understand it so higher clock speed of the xt would be better imo. I got one with 256mb of ram 6 months ago for £129 so should be a bargain to be had now. Since you're looking at a 9800pro now anyway, have a scout around for the cut down version of the x800 - should be same sort of price and even this lite version blows away a vanilla 9800pro.

As for getting a 2600 and upgrading it in a month anyway, why not get a 2400 and clock it to 2000 to save yourself a bit of cash or wait that extra month and save even more. My 2400 is running at 2040 or summat quite happily.

1gig for teh win btw - you'll notice those who had rarely complained about lag
(until the latest patch where they "optimised the way textures and objects were loaded" - now most people get inc lag)

As for the old intel vs amd argument just go for whoever's ahead of the game at the time you buy. - intel are still in the dressing room putting their boots on at the moment.

 

[behatch]

Hey,i settled for a

amd 3000

radeon9800pro

1024 ddr333 ram

getting it tomorrow,hope its ok

 

[Invisibul]

TBH neither of them cards, no point going budget on gfx cards, perfermance on cheap cards is well, dier.

Get Radeon 9800XT or Radeon AX800/TD Pro 256mb DDR3 u know it makes sense.

me atm,

Athlon 3200+ Barton
1 gig 400 DDR
Asus Radeon 9800XT AGP 8x

runs 2 accs easy, and 2 accs only uses 750mb physical ram on mine, i can have I.E running, or listen to mp3's etc, spending a bit of cash pays off, and makes sense.


There is no budget when it comes to building custom PC's, u get what u pay for, crap, or quality.

 

[behatch]

Hey,i settled for a

amd 3000

radeon9800pro

1024 ddr333 ram

getting it tomorrow,hope its ok

well ive been useing 2 accounts on my new system,but i get crash's too desktop a lot and a microsft error and it says send or dont send

 

[starr]

You running them in windowed mode?

 

[behatch]

yes

 

[Danya]

9800XT isn't much faster than a 9800 pro. If you have a huge heap of cash to burn then an X800 is nice though.

 

[starr]

Could be good old driver problems try playing with various ones, board manufacturers own, older cats - I'm using 3.8 still and it's nice and stable, or omega drivers.

Find the one that works best then uninstall it, run driver cleaner and reinstall.

Not sure what mobo you decided on but if it's a via chipset it's worth getting the latest hyperion 4in1s.

Oh and some mobo/8xagp radeon combinations don't work well with write combining so worth disabling or as a very last resort switching to 4x agp (Not ideal but performance loss really isn't as much as you'd think)

 

[behatch]

Could be good old driver problems try playing with various ones, board manufacturers own, older cats - I'm using 3.8 still and it's nice and stable, or omega drivers.

Find the one that works best then uninstall it, run driver cleaner and reinstall.

Not sure what mobo you decided on but if it's a via chipset it's worth getting the latest hyperion 4in1s.

Oh and some mobo/8xagp radeon combinations don't work well with write combining so worth disabling or as a very last resort switching to 4x agp (Not ideal but performance loss really isn't as much as you'd think)

Ive installed new drivers from ati website and i also changed the ram into different slts and i have crached to desktop (yet)

But i still crash,screen goes black moniter turns itself too "off" (the what should be yellow to signify its on goes orange to says its off) then i have to restart..

 

[harebear]

You got newest drivers atm mate? i just got new ATI drivers (probally shoulda got em ages ago) and some times when i run 2 accs in window the monitor will go do a random test thing, then after 2 mins comp sorta switches to safe mode w/o restarting oO (might be the way i installed drivers, think your ment to totally take old ones off 1st :x)

 

[behatch]

yes and they never made any difference >.< rang the shop and he said it sound like faulty ram and to take it down tomorrow :/