Graphics Card Upgrade?

wokeye

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I am thinking of upgrading my graphics card and after reading up the Radeon 9800 pro seems the best value as I don't want to spend a complete fortune. After talking to a friend though he reckons that the drivers are crap and there are a lot of issues running certain games. He reckons Nvidia drivers are a lot better and that there is no compatibilty problems whatsoever. Is there any truth in this? Also my motherboard is just AGPx4 is it worth upgrading this too? Or does this not make such a big difference? My processor is an XP2100+ so I could also upgrade this but the motherboard only supports 266MHZ FSB so I guess this would limit me to an XP2400+ or is there higher? Would this setup be up to running the next generation of games at a decent frame rate? Any ideas please? Would rather not spend a fortune so I guess the mobo could be upgraded later, my memory is 512MB of PC2700.
 
Ati did have problems with past drivers but we are talking about 2-3 years ago. These days Nvidia are rock bottom compared to Ati, hardware and software.
Go for the upgrade and show your mates who's the king ;)
and yes you should upgrade you're mobo too, to take full advantage of the card. Although you can use you're existing one.

**my Radeon 9000pro 128mb still performs better than my new GforceFX 5600 256mb - ill let you figure it out**
 
Yes, go for the 9800 pro - i ordered one myself this very day. A couple of mates got their's last week, and with the latest drivers (4.3's) have had no problems with any games they've tried. I used to be concerned myself about compatibilty, and have until now, always had an nvidia card, but the price/performance ratio of this ati card just cant be ignored.

Dean.
 
Hi, wokeye :hiya:

From what I've seen in recent weeks, many people appear to be observing an appreciable performance gain by increasing their system's RAM to a full gig. I've seen postings (on a few forums) where one member is puzzled at the system's low frame rate, when compared to others that, at first glance, appear comparable. Of course, there may be other factors; but the additional RAM appears to make a difference. This relates to recent 'first person shooters', by the way and please note that I have no personal experience in this. Yet! My final bundle of components should arrive tomorrow - but I'm sticking with my Radeon 9000 Pro for now :eek: Until next week, no doubt :laugh:

Wow, from a P2-350 to an Athlon XP 2500+... :eek:

Oops, sorry. Got a little distracted!

Oh yeah, the graphics card.

Since buying the (second-hand) Radeon, last year, I've encountered no serious issues. Those that have appeared (such as non-working anti-aliasing in the rather old Grand Prix Legends) have either been fixed, used workarounds or been resolved by 'dropping back' to an older driver revision. After all, there isn't necessarily a need to update, if the current setup works for you...

In terms of 'which is better?', I don't really think there's an awful lot of air between nVidia and Ati options within a given price range. The advantage of Ati cards appears to be that the anti-aliasing/texture-filtering 'icing' may not have as great a performance hit as when activated on the nVidia equivalent. Having said that, it doesn't mean that you'd notice it!

Although I intend to take the ATi option once more, I wouldn't push someone away from nVidia. If you find a great-value package, I'm sure you'll be happy - regardless of the designer/manufacturer.

Oh, I almost forgot the AGP thing. Don't worry about it!

The end.

Good luck!
 
you should get a Radeon 9800 and soft mod it to a pro you will save yourself a few extra quid
 
Originally posted by nelly_200x
you should get a Radeon 9800 and soft mod it to a pro you will save yourself a few extra quid

If it were as easy as that, we'd all be buying them;)
 

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