Graphics knowledge request on gfx cards

Hi all,

I currently have a msi fx5600 card running in my PC - its a 2200+ soon to be a 2800+ AMD with 1gig of 2700 memory. not cutting edge i know, as i bought all the bits for it quite a while ago for a lan party round a friends house.

I'm now thinking of upgrading, but not a lot to go to another. I dont go crazy on my PC as i dont really play games that often, but want to get a little more out of farcry etc.

Have been out of touch of graphics cards for a while and have about £60 to spend on a new/second hand card. What would be a good upgrade with the PC as unchanged from the above?

I'm going to downgrade my MSI into my spare 1.7 athlon as it has VIVO that i use and suspect i wont get this with the new card.

Your thoughts would be helpfull before i go get the wrong one for the PC and the money!

 

more delving, what about a 9700pro? or a 9600xt

I guess noise and heat are considerations too

 

9700pro You should be able to find a second hand one in your price range.

 

as above and youll see the odd 9800 pro going for that price now especially now you can get new ones for £90

 

is there much of a difference between the 9800 pro and the 9700 pro?

I mean would the 9800 make much of an effect to games settings?

The last thing i want to do is start inching up the pay scale by going for slightly better and better cards.

 

i did that from £50 alll the way up to £150

well anyway...i would suggest going for a 9700pro or a second hand 9800pro just get hold of the extra £10 or so...

if your lucky you can get a second hand 9800pro for £70 but 75 seems more realsitic as most owners don't realy want to know/believe their gfx cards have suddenly dropped in value

 

there's a new 9800 pro going for jut under £80 here on scan, and I'm sure they were at least £100 when I looked about a month ago. Mid-low end cards seems to be coming down in price quite a bit at the moment as the X800s, X850's and nVidia SLi stuff filters in at the top. I recon within a month a 9800 will be within your budget...
but by then a 6600GT will only be £20 or so more....

 

Thats a 9800SE (sucky edition) mate

 

oh right, didn't read hard enough, I'll mention that to my mate who was telling me about it today...
me bad

 

se is a bad 9800 then...

jeeeze why have practically the same name, just to confuse i guess

 

not really, no. Its just the lower range one. You can get 9800s in SE, non-pro (normal), pro, and XT Then theres the 9800pro w/ 128bit memory rather then 256bit which is more or less a SE with higher clockspeeds. Confused yet?

The 9800pro is more or less a beefed up 9700pro.

 

mergh! yep am confused now thats for sure.. so ideally i need to be looking for an XT failing that a 256bit pro for the top 2 of that range. ok. I guess nvidia are worth staying well clear of

 

Unless you are going for their current range (the 6xxx) or a nicely specced 5900, then yes, avoid them, as at your price range, they do not perform as well as the last generation ATi cards.

I would suggest getting a 9700, 9800 pro, 9800xt depending on how important gaming is to you, from cheapest to most expensive.

 

Just to clarify - this is the order of goodness:
9800SE
9800
9800Pro
9800XT

Same with all ATI cards, although the X800 range has the XL and XT PE aswell...

 

I'd say try to get a 9700Pro 2nd hand, I managed to pick up one with a TV card as well off ebay for £60 and i've been really happy with it in my athlon 2600+ CPU'd PC. The stock coller is pretty noisy, but i have an arctic cooling silenser on order so that should make it pretty much silent to fit with the rest of my PC

The benchmarks i've got are as follows.

3D mark 01SE: 16124
3D mark 03: 5155
3D mark 05: 2131

i am also playing around with overclocking it with softmod drivers and ati tool and have had reasonable success raising the 3d mark 01 score 1000 points, and the 03 one 500 points on stock cooling.

 

thanks for all the advice fellas,

I bought a 9800pro off the for sale forum for 70 quid, cant wait till it arrives now- with whats described as an arctic cooler r3 ?

I've never overclocked anything before, although may look into it in the future.. im hoping the new setup wont need it for the games im playing

 

An Arctic Cooler rev3, is one of these:
http://www.ocfaq.com/reviews/ArcticCooling/VGASilencer_Rev3/images/package1.jpg

Probably the best air cooler available for the 9800 series