New Graphics Card

Stormfox1020

Upgrading a the graphics card on a PC of mine, its currently running on a Geforce Mx440 64MB. Ive came across this graphic card here. I was wondering if this will run all of todays high demanding games such as Far Cry, BFV, Doom 3 and HL2 when it comes out? If not could you suggest another card for around the same price as the one mentioned? All help appreciated.

Storm.

Jammer

yeah, it will.

Personally, i'd buy this one, and put an arctic cooler on it. It would work out cheaper, and would be better imo. Its exactly the same card, just without a big cooler....

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&AvdID=&sku=122901&cks=WOF&CatID=&GrpID=

Stormfox1020

Barewith me hear, as I am not much of a technical man myself, but
1.How would it be better?
and
2. How would i go about putting an artic cooler on it? and how much would they go for?

RuggieBear

Stormfox1020 wrote:

Barewith me hear, as I am not much of a technical man myself, but
1.How would it be better?
and
2. How would i go about putting an artic cooler on it? and how much would they go for?

1) do you really want all the ****ty games....and pay a premium of 50 euro for them.....?
2) I got one from PC world for 15euro. Very easy to put on...Trust me, come with simple instructions.

Creamy Goodness

Stormfox1020 wrote:

Barewith me hear, as I am not much of a technical man myself, but
1.How would it be better?
and
2. How would i go about putting an artic cooler on it? and how much would they go for?

arctic cooler will cool the card better as it's got a fan.
whereas the ultimate edition has a huge fecker of a heatsink (i know, i have one) but is fanless (recommend you use a fan on it though, depending on your case air flow.)

it would probably work out cheaper to buy the card from jes and the cooler than buying from komplett

Stormfox1020

Looking on Jes.de for the Radeon 9800 and Argh! Theres so much different brands, sapphire, powercolour, excalibur. Is there any difference between each brand? If there is im guessing it is just a slight difference in the Core speed or something along the lines of that? Anyone recommend any of the cards they have to offer? I should probably look for an Artic cooler too. Thanks for all the help so far

Col_Loki

What spec is the rest of your machine ?

The difference between the brands of 9800pro's is minimal. Sapphire are one of the biggest but there all very simular. Dont let that sway your decision .
The artic cooler is a good choice for overclocking, if your not going to then you dont really need one.

Wheather the newer games like doom3 etc will play on high settings depends on the rest of your system, the 9800pro is a great card and will help.

BTW the artic cooler is easy to install (10-15mins being carefull) .

Stormfox1020

I have a P4 2.8ghz and 512MB corsair pc400 DDRam with an 120GB samsung harddrive. I'll be getting another 1GB ram off of Jes.de when i order the Radeon 9800 (i hope the Ram is no hassle to install).

naitkris

for 6 Euro more than the Sapphire Radeon 9800 Atlantis PRO 128MB Ultimate Edition from komplett.ie, i'd go for the 256MB TerraTec Mystify Radeon 9800 XT from jes.de (http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=17626)

it has a faster chipset - 9800XT v 9800Pro + twice the memory - 256MB v 128MB + better cooler - fan v heatsink

Jammer

the cores they are using in the Pro's are the same as the XT's now, the R360, just clocked lower. I've been reading (on guru3d.com / rage3d.com) that the extra 128mb of RAM is used only ir ur running games at very high resolutions.

RuggieBear

Jammer wrote:

the cores they are using in the Pro's are the same as the XT's now, the R360, just clocked lower. I've been reading (on guru3d.com / rage3d.com) that the extra 128mb of RAM is used only ir ur running games at very high resolutions.

But wouldn't Doom3 be one of those types of games that would really benefit drom the extra 128mb ....

Otherwise i'd normally agree about just flashung the 9800pro

p

Stormfox1020

The 256MB card will fit inside my budget, but is it really worth paying 40Euro more for it?

bla

Jammer wrote:

the cores they are using in the Pro's are the same as the XT's now, the R360, just clocked lower. I've been reading (on guru3d.com / rage3d.com) that the extra 128mb of RAM is used only ir ur running games at very high resolutions.

doom3 for example will use up to 512 of ram on the g-card if it detects a system with a 512 card on top settings

Sir Random

Stormfox1020 wrote:

The 256MB card will fit inside my budget, but is it really worth paying 40Euro more for it?

Why not get a 6800? It's much faster than the 9800XT, and has PS3.0 for future compatability. You'd be mad to pay the same price for a 256Mb Pro.

naitkris

just back from a friend's house who was running DOOM3 on a 128MB 9800Pro at high quality on 640x480 and although it ran well for most of the time, when the action thickened, it became quite choppy. also loading new areas of maps took a while which would occur to me that the 128MB graphics RAM is not enough to fully load an entire DOOM3 level to the GPU and so it must cache it to system RAM first, slowing down the game considerably. 256MB would definitly help for games like DOOM3, not to mention 768MB or 1GB or system RAM as well.

as for the 9800Pro having a 9800XT core, that may be true for the core, but not the memory which has just as much an effect on the 9800XT's better performance. plus, the default cooler with the 9800XT is better than the default 9800Pro cooler, so overclocking the 9800Pro to a 9800XT would require some more Euro anyway to buy a new cooler in order to keep the GPU cool enough without damaging it while running at 9800XT levels.

naitkris

Sir Random wrote:

Why not get a 6800? It's much faster than the 9800XT, and has PS3.0 for future compatability. You'd be mad to pay the same price for a 256Mb Pro.

where can you get a 256MB 6800 for 260 Euro?

really, really interested to know if this is possible...

Mutant_Fruit

just back from a friend's house who was running DOOM3 on a 128MB 9800Pro at high quality on 640x480 and although it ran well for most of the time, when the action thickened, it became quite choppy

Erm, my 9600 pro can take 640x480 better than what you're describing. There is something screwy with your friends system. He should be easily able to play 1024x768, or at the very least 800x600 without experiencing major slowdowns.

unkel

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Naked but for a loose assemblage of anti-static bags held together with IDE cables, and daubed from head to foot with thermal paste, he surveys the hideous homunculi stumbling aimlessly around beneath him

OMFG - that is brilliant

Can't find it on the komplett.ie site but sure enough your man likes Eco

Stormfox1020

If i decide to go with the 256mb Radeon 9800 XT, will i need to add any sort of cooler to help its overall performance? Most coolers ive come across arnt 9800XT compatible anywho.

Ciaran500

Unless your overclocking the card there will be no reason to add a new cooler to the card.

Sir Random

naitkris wrote:

where can you get a 256MB 6800 for 260 Euro?

really, really interested to know if this is possible...

Do they even make a 256Mb 6800? I was referring to the vanilla 128Mb 6800.
Although the 9800 256Mb has more ram, the 6800 will still be comfortably faster.

Stormfox1020

Still, isnt the Geforce 6800 128mb around 360 eurons?

ozt9vdujny3srf

335 for the MSI one.

Sir Random

The Galaxy 6800 (with VGA Arctic cooler) is £184 from OcUK (€322 incl VAT).

Definitely worth the extra (should be no need to upgrade until getting a PCI-E system)

As for video ram & Doom 3
The 9800XT 256Mb is less than 4fps faster than 9800Pro 128Mb, while the 6800 128Mb is 33fps faster than XT 256Mb.




btw, what are your system specs? It makes a big difference in what card to choose.

Stormfox1020

Im probably gona hold out until X-mas, will be building a whole new Rig then anyway. Ill probably go for the Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB.

naitkris

Sir Random wrote:

As for video ram & Doom 3
The 9800XT 256Mb is less than 4fps faster than 9800Pro 128Mb, while the 6800 128Mb is 33fps faster than XT 256Mb.

you are neglecting the fact that the test compares the cards on a medium resolution on top of compressed specular and defuse maps indicating the cards won't need so much memory to store textures in anyway. increasing the resolution and not having uncompressed textures will put more of a load on the graphics card RAM. i doubt the 128MB 9800Pro would even run DOOM3 at 1600x1200 with uncompressed textures on high graphics detail - anyone tried doing this?

i read a review of the 256MB 9800Pro v the 128MB 9800Pro and it showed the 128MB 9800Pro wouldn't even run a number of games at higher resolutions (although with AA on as well i must admit) because of a lack of memory, and these were less demanding games than DOOM3, like Tomb Raider for example.

RuggieBear

naitkris wrote:

i doubt the 128MB 9800Pro would even run DOOM3 at 1600x1200 with uncompressed textures on high graphics detail - anyone tried doing this?

I have! I set everything to highest quality on the card and then tried to run the game at it's highest quality settings........the nicest way to put it is that it struggles!!!!

popey21

when do you reckon this will come out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040813_123902.html

"the 6600GT is capable of running Doom 3 in 42 frames a second at a 1600 x 1200 x 32 setting. "

I've been looking to upgrade my geforce4 Ti 64mb for something the in 200-250 Euro Range, I was going to go for the Radeon 9800 pro. but if this Geforce 6600 is out in the next few months it could be worth waiting for. any thoughts.

Sir Random

popey21 wrote:

when do you reckon this will come out.

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040813_123902.html

"the 6600GT is capable of running Doom 3 in 42 frames a second at a 1600 x 1200 x 32 setting. "

I've been looking to upgrade my geforce4 Ti 64mb for something the in 200-250 Euro Range, I was going to go for the Radeon 9800 pro. but if this Geforce 6600 is out in the next few months it could be worth waiting for. any thoughts.

The 6600 is originally being released as a PCI-E part, so you'd need a new mobo. The AGP version will come even later (November?)


Edit:\
Good preview here:
http://www.nvnews.net/previews/geforce_6600_series/