This time im going for a graphics card..

Winters

Ok, I have decided to buy a new graphics card insted of my other plan [save and buy a laptop and install wifi network in my house]. Gonna buy a laptop sometime next year.

Now im going to get a new graphics card but am stuck as to which one to get. I have always had good support for the nvidia chips but the FX hasent been as good as many had hoped. Never bought a Radeion card before. I have set my price range at about €200 so am looking for a good card that will last me at least a year or two [spent the last 18months on a Geforce4 MX440 so REALLY need an upgrade]

Here are some hopefuls:
- Asus v9560 - GeforceFX 560 128mb (€186)
- Asus V9560 GeForce FX 5600 256MB (€182)
- Creative 3DBlas. GeForce FX 5600 ULTRA 128mb (€203)
- Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 256M DDR (€202)
- MSI GeForce FX 5600 128MB DDR (€174)
Remember for komplett links you will have to open them twice

I do like the first one it does have the TV-In advantage but i doubt ill use that much, or at all. All i need is a good powerful graphics card for about €200. Any advise or reccomendations?

Bubba

yea im thinkin of gettin a graphics card for christmas. around €200 aswell. i think i'll keep an eye on this thread.

CivilServant

If its around Christmas time your buying then I recommend FX 5700, which is technically the best in that price range. Since it's not out yet, when it does arrive it might end up costing a little bit more than €200.

If it's right now ur after u do a lot worse than buy a 9600XT. When the new catalyst drivers come out (3.9) overdrive will be officially supported for 9600XT range. This means that ATI endorses overclocking ur card to get the best out of it. I know the 9800XT has thermal monitoring but can't remember if the 9600XT has too. You might want to check that out before investing in one. Good Luck.

whosurpaddy

i have the 1st one on the list, like u i opted for that one because of the tv-in. ive had mine a couple of months now & havent been able to get the tv-in working yet. the software they included was ****, and so far their support havent responded to email queries.beware. but i have to say as for the gfx element of the card i cant really fault it.

Giblet

9600 XT

Creamy Goodness

winters i'd get an 9600XT cos they are the best out of the ranged u posted

me myself will be waiting til after christmas so i'll have money then buy an 9800XT.

the good thing about the new XT cards are that if you buy the cheapest one atm which is powercolor it's the same card as a hercules because sapphire make all the XT cards except for ASUS'S offering

another bonus with the XT you get half life 2 when it comes out saying you 40-50 euros

Winters

Ok, if anyone has any recommendations besides the cards on the list that would be most helpful. I am very tempted to go with the Radeion die to the fact that it does also perform better then nvidia cards on the HL2 front. But also the fact that it does have better DX9 support then nvidiaFX cards [doest it?]

Would i be better waiting a few months tell christmas before getting one???

Also, whats the view on this card: Sapphire Radeon 9800SE Atlantis 128M DDR (€211). It is backordered 11 days though

Deadwing

If youre gonna go for a 9800, you might as well just save up the few extra quid and buy a 9800 pro. Im sure you already know this, but the pro is the top performing card in its range (i.e 9600 pro outperforms all other 9600's, etc etc) And in some cases, a 9800 pro, even tho its a 128mb card, can outperform some 256mb cards, basically cause it all comes down to clock speeds, not Mb size. But yeah you prolly knew that anyay. But the 9800 pro works fine for me, friggin sweet card, one of the best you can get, and if you splash out on it you prolly wont need another card for a year or so (maybe).

CivilServant

Originally posted by Deadwing
i.e 9600 pro outperforms all other 9600's

Well not true hactually, 9600XT is clocked faster than the pro. I've seen FX 5700 is beating the 9600XT on a lot of benchmarks but I forgot about it's crappy dx9 performance. Best to go with the 9600XT now.

9800SE is a severly crippled 9800. The SE has 4 pixel pipelines versus 8 of the 9800 non pro and has a 128bit memory bus which is really slow compared to 256bit bus of the 9800, even the old 9500 pro has a 256mbit bus. The 9800SE is probably slightly better than 9600XT, but I'm not completely sure on that point. 9600XT is the king of midrange cards atm.

Chowley

Sorry if this is a little off topic.

What is the Powercolor 9800 Pro like?
From what I have read in reviews its a great card until you want to overclock supposedly the ram isnt up to it.That seems to be the general opinion of it, it also seemed to get better benchmarks than the hercules, in one review I have read.
Has anyone used a powercolor card?

Winters

I may then order the 9600XT then this weekend. Though still not too sure if its worth upgrading at the moment.

Very tempted to wait for the christmas offerings, they should be good.

netman

i used to be a big fan of nvidia cards and always laughed at ati for their poor drivers and generally sub-par performance.

well, after using nothing but nvidia cards for the last 3 years i finally got to the point where i just didn't want to keep downloading leaked drivers every 2 days and deal with mysterious corrupted screens, and after reading about the FX cards lack of support for DX9, poor antialiasing etc, i finally decided to go with ati.

i tell you, i made the right choice.. ati today is what nvidia used to be a few years ago. top peforming cards, with all the latest features, great display quality, and stable drivers.

the 9600xt is the best performing card out of the 9600 range, and reasonably priced. the GPU is clocked 25% higher than 9600 pro. and you can overclock it already with a host of freeware utilities, or with omega drivers, so there's no need to wait for the new catalyst drivers.

the 9800 is somewhat close to performance to 9700 pro (with just a bit slower memory), and faster than 9600xt. if the price difference between the two is so minimal, i'd definitely go with the 9800.

here's a good comparison if you want to read more into it:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1904
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031015/index.html

you can google for more

Winters

I've decided to probably go for the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 256M DDR (€202). The 9600XT out performs the GeforceFX9600 at pretty much everything. It is tempting to wait for benchmarks for the FX9700 to come out but they arnt expected to beat the 9600XT, just [possibly] match it.

The 9600XT also comes with HL2 free once its released, which makes for a deciding vote too The Sapphire card above also features 256mb of memory wish is always a bonus. Ill order it soon, once i can find out stock levels.

Anyone object or support me?

El_MUERkO

Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 256M DDR (€202) is by far the best from that bunch, its way ahead of the 5600 in benchmarks.

However the new 5700 is due out soon and its supposed to give the 9600XT a run for its money bettering it on several benchmarks.

Winters

The FX5700 isint suppose to be out for another two weeks or so. Seeing as though the 9600XT isint in stock for a while I may wait. But I dont think it will beat the 9600XT overall.

netman

well here's a really good review covering fx5700, 9600xt, 9600pro, 9700pro and 9800xt, along with fx5600 and ti4200.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1910

by the looks of it fx5700 is a bit faster in some games, bit slower in others, compared to 9600xt, but once you turn on anti-aliasing fx falls well behind. it's also much better performing in opengl games, where ati leads the bunch in directx games.

why don't you read the review first, and then figure out if it's worth the wait

Winters

Great, now im confused again.

The 9600XT does still outperform the FX5700 with AA switched on, which is nice. But the FX5700 is now on a par with the 9600XT. The 9600XT has a lot going for it though then the FX5700, one thing is free HL2 when it ships. But also the nVidia DX9 support isint as good as the ATI.

I may wait a couple of weeks and wait for the prices to possibly come down and funs to go up. I would be tempted to get a 9700pro but you cant find them anywhere at the moment. Also if ihad enough i may splash out on a 9800pro, but im not too sure if i do want to spend €400 or so on a graphics card at the moment. I ont have that much disposible income.

CivilServant

If ur a dedicated nvidia fan the 5700 is a good thing. Like u said winters it beats the 9600XT on most games without AA turned on. With that said, nvidia are famously known for optimising the most important benchmarks to artificially get the best out of their card when it comes to dx 9 games. We won't really know how the 5700 will actually do until the joe soaps of this world get their sweaty palms on it.

I bought a 9700 Pro second hand from a mate their recently, good price too Keep ur eyes peeled for peeps wanting to sell their card for a 9800 Pro or FX5900 Ultra. 9700 Pro can keep up with the best cards out there today.

9800 non pro is the best bang for buck in the 9800 range. It can easily be oced to Pro levels. Sapphire is prob best to go for cos it can handle the pro mem speeds. I have heard of people soft modding the 9800 SE, similar to the 9500 np debacle/miracle (depending on how u look at it). Thus enabled the closed pipelines. Not the best of luck with sapphire ones though, I don't recommend buying a sapphire 9800 SE to try it out.

Winters

It is tempting to get a 9800 but they are nearly another €100 more then the 9600XT [€120 if your looking for a pro]. The fact that all the XTs come with [once its released] Half-Life2 you will save you €50 -> €60, and thats nice to know.

I am very tempted to get the 9600XT. It would be a great improvement over my Geforce4 MX440 and will do pretty much what I need it to no bother. I may just wait till the end of the month though as its not expected to be in stock till later this month. By then hopefully the FX5700 will be out and tested.

netman

9800 non-pro is pretty much the same thing as 9700pro, with 20Mhz slower memory.

even if you're that worried about 1.5% performance difference between 9700pro and 9800 non-pro just pick up the latest drivers and raise the overclocking slider by a notch

i have a 9700pro and absolutely no intentions of upgrading... for a card that came out a year ago it's still a great performer.

and i have to say one more thing.. all the current cards spew out frames in millions. it's not the frame rate you need if you want to play the latest games.. a geforce4 titanium does the job more than adequately and will run any current game with good fps.

you'll probably want to crank up the anti aliasing, anisotropic filtering etc to get more eye candy in the games. and that's the main area where nvidia loses out.

in brute force alone, i don't think there's much difference between 50 fps and 350 fps. but that's only my opinion

netman

another thing you might want to consider is getting a 9800se and softmodding it to 9800 pro.

check out these sites:
http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/download.php
http://www.omegacorner.com/

Winters

Well, it looks like Komplett are slowly getting the FX5700's in in stock. I see two already. But they are that bit more expensive then the 9600XT at €240+

- Gainward GeForce FX 5700ULTRA 128MB DDR2 (€242)
- Gainward GeForce FX5700 256MB DDR 3,6ns (€243)

If all the FX5700's are at €240 and are only at a par with the 9600XT then id say its worth getting the 9600XT. You must remember Half Life 2 for free when its rleeased saves you at least €50

uberpixie

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/fx5700ultra-9600xt.html

have a look at the article makes for interesting reading.

Winters

I have decided to go with the Radeon 9600XT after reading many, many reviews on both the 9600XY and FX5700. It seems as though the FX5700 isint as powerful as the 9600XT when it comes to image quality but does beat it by a few fps on low quality [no AA] with a small res.

I will probably go for the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 256M DDR (€202) but today just noticed this, Asus Radeon 9600XT 128MB DDR, VIVO (€222). The Asus has a Video Out and Video in [Sapphire only has Video out. But then again the Asus only has 128mb of ram [compared to the Sapphire's 256mb and is €20 more expensive].

Im tempted to go for the Asus for the pure reason of video in, video out but i think I may stick with the 256mb Sapphire card... comments please!

Also, the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT isint released for another 6 days or so i think, its on preorder everywhere at the moment.

Update: Would I be better to go for the 128mb or 256mb version of the card? There is only €4 or so in the differance at the moment and I was going to go for the 256mb version, but is it worth havng double the memory of the 128mb version?

milltown

I read somewhere recently that the 9800se uses what are basically 9800pro reject chips (read yield rejects) which won't meet the standard with 8 pipelines enabled but perform reasonably with just the 4.
AFAIK the only proven new generation ATI soft mod is the Sapphire 9800np to 9800pro due to the Samsung memory they use being able to handle the nippier clocks (has to be Sapphire apparently).
Let the contradicting begin