HLP Network

News:

Thanks to the hard work of rev_posix and Sandwich, the HLP email system has been fixed!  All registration emails from the past few months have been re-sent.  If you still need help, please sign on to Discord and let us know.  The Discord link can be found in the top navbar under the HLP menu. ヾ(´︶`♡)ﾉ

 
« Previous Thread Next Thread »
Print
Pages: [1] 2 Next >   Go Down

Author Topic: new videocard  (Read 3676 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Rol

  • 24
new videocard
on: September 10, 2004, 08:35:34 pm
hi
i need help
should i buy the radeon 9600XT 256mb  or the 9800pro 128mb? both are from sapphire. the price is very similar...

or a completely different card?

thanks for the help
 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
new videocard
Reply #1 on: September 11, 2004, 12:12:44 am
Tough question. If they are similair in price, then they are most likely (though I could be wrong) similair in performance.


Btw, wouldn't this belong in the Hard Light forum?
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key
 

Offline Trivial Psychic

  • 212
  • Snoop Junkie
new videocard
Reply #2 on: September 11, 2004, 12:52:15 am
About 2 months ago, I performed a major core system upgrade (CPU, MB, RAM, VC).  I was planning on getting an R9600XT, and was interested in the low price of the 256MB version.  However, everyone I talked to, told me that 256MB on an R9600 is useless, since the card itself can only address 128MB worth.  The R9800 series on the other hand (except for an Atlantis model, can't remember which manufacturer), can address the whole 256MB worth.  Now, the R9800 Pro you mentioned was only 128MB, so if the R9600XT can only use 128MB, then the R9800 Pro should actually run faster, since its got the better core and wider data pathways.

Answer, if you can afford it, go with the 9800Pro, even if its 128MB.  If you can't, stick with the R9600XT with 128MB, which is what I'm running.

Hope that helps.

Later!
The Trivial Psychic Strikes Again!
 

Offline Plasma

  • 22
new videocard
Reply #3 on: September 11, 2004, 01:35:55 am
Wait.

For what? The nVidia GeForce 6600 GT. Just like ATI did in early 2002 with the Radeon 9500 Pro, so will nVidia do in October/November of 2004. They will produce a card that is overpowered and underpriced. The 6600GT does impressively well for a midrange ~$200 card and thoroughly stomps the 9600 and its derivatives. No insane two slot cooling solution, and apparently it does fine without the extra molex connector. Frankly I intend it to be my next card unless ATI can conjure a rabbit out of their hat before then which is doubtful. Don't get me wrong, ATI makes some fine cards and I've had great fortune with their drivers for years, but it looks like nVidia will soon take the crown in the midrange market.

Dunno about you guys, but high end makes no sense to me. $400-500 a card? No thank you, that's best spent on multiple whores on Aurora Avenue, but the midrange $180 to $250? Yeah, that's good.

Wait for the 6600 GT.

Quote

However, everyone I talked to, told me that 256MB on an R9600 is useless, since the card itself can only address 128MB worth. The R9800 series on the other hand (except for an Atlantis model, can't remember which manufacturer), can address the whole 256MB worth. Now, the R9800 Pro you mentioned was only 128MB, so if the R9600XT can only use 128MB, then the R9800 Pro should actually run faster, since its got the better core and wider data pathways.


I'm guessing your "everyone" mistook the maximum addressable memory for memory path bandwidth. 128 bits is the width of the 9600 memory bus (with the exception of the SE revision which is a pile of crap. 64 bits? NO.) However to the best of my knowledge 256 megabytes of physical memory is no problem for the RV350 core, it just sports a 128 bit wide bus compared to the 256 of it's elder 9700 brother and 9800.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2004, 01:45:08 am by 741 »
"One day I turned over against the other chappies in gestapo and said itself, "BY JOE! IT IS A ROCKETMELLON!" and everyone emphasized that they knew someone as that. This is this man." - A biography from some random clan webpage.

Member of the ZylonBane Fan Club! Join Today!
 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
new videocard
Reply #4 on: September 11, 2004, 02:03:23 am
Quote
~$200 card and thoroughly stomps the 9600 and its derivatives


The 9600 costs about half that, IIRC.
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key
 

Offline Rol

  • 24
new videocard
Reply #5 on: September 11, 2004, 08:28:38 pm
thanks for the help i will wait for the 6600 GT
 

Offline Blitzerland

  • 29
    • http://www.freewebs.com/blitzerland/
new videocard
Reply #6 on: September 11, 2004, 09:49:56 pm
Buy a 9800 Pro. It rocks.

I just got one myself...and the performance is excellent.
 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
new videocard
Reply #7 on: September 11, 2004, 11:54:57 pm
Just out of curiousity, what are you upgrading from?
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key
  

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
new videocard
Reply #8 on: September 12, 2004, 01:28:55 am
Oh and Plasma, I just read a review of the 6600GT and the Radeon X600XT was able to keep up with it. I'd go with ATI mostly because "Radeon" sounds cooler. :D But seriously, it will just come down to brand loyalty between those two since they cost the same.
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key
 

Offline Blitzerland

  • 29
    • http://www.freewebs.com/blitzerland/
new videocard
Reply #9 on: September 12, 2004, 08:26:29 am
Quote
Originally posted by Kosh
Just out of curiousity, what are you upgrading from?



Good point. I wouldn't know quality if it hit me in the face with a BFRed. I just upgraded from an Nvidia 2 MX 400. SUCKAGE!!!

I was getting 30 FPS tops (I just couldn't turn off jpgtga, must...have...lightspeed's engine...effects...).

Now, with my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, I get a steady 100 FPS.

The only thing is, I can only play two missions at a time, because I run out of RAM. Something is eating up RAM really fast (I have 512 MB)...
 

Offline aldo_14

  • Gunnery Control
  • 213
new videocard
Reply #10 on: September 12, 2004, 10:19:21 am
Quote
Originally posted by Blitzerland



Good point. I wouldn't know quality if it hit me in the face with a BFRed. I just upgraded from an Nvidia 2 MX 400. SUCKAGE!!!

I was getting 30 FPS tops (I just couldn't turn off jpgtga, must...have...lightspeed's engine...effects...).

Now, with my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, I get a steady 100 FPS.

The only thing is, I can only play two missions at a time, because I run out of RAM. Something is eating up RAM really fast (I have 512 MB)...


What FSO version are you running?  The older ones have memory leaks, IIRC - which have been fixed, though I can;t remember exactly in which builds. (which is ok, as someone will almost immediately post here to correct me ;) )
 

Offline Blitzerland

  • 29
    • http://www.freewebs.com/blitzerland/
new videocard
Reply #11 on: September 12, 2004, 10:27:48 am
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14


What FSO version are you running?  The older ones have memory leaks, IIRC - which have been fixed, though I can;t remember exactly in which builds. (which is ok, as someone will almost immediately post here to correct me ;) )


I'm using Fs2_open_ex
 

Offline Liberator

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 210
new videocard
Reply #12 on: September 12, 2004, 12:05:19 pm
Blitz, I posted a possible solution in your thread in the Source Code forum.
So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

There are only 10 types of people in the world , those that understand binary and those that don't.
 

Offline ChronoReverse

  • 29
new videocard
Reply #13 on: September 12, 2004, 06:08:05 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Kosh
Oh and Plasma, I just read a review of the 6600GT and the Radeon X600XT was able to keep up with it. I'd go with ATI mostly because "Radeon" sounds cooler. :D But seriously, it will just come down to brand loyalty between those two since they cost the same.


Which review have you been reading?  Every place I've seen has the 6600GT stomping the X600 into the ground and some cases matching the x800pro.  Until ATi releases the x700, nvidia is going to own the midrange market.
 

Offline Rol

  • 24
new videocard
Reply #14 on: September 12, 2004, 07:34:50 pm
at the moment i have a radeon 9600 pro atlantis 128mb but someone who wants a cheap card pay me 80€ so i think abaut buying a new one
 

Offline mitac

  • 28
new videocard
Reply #15 on: September 13, 2004, 02:35:01 am
Quote
Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
However, everyone I talked to, told me that 256MB on an R9600 is useless, since the card itself can only address 128MB worth.


That's not correct. The R9600 can address 256 MB of graphics memory. It just makes no sense, anyway, since 256 MB are used purely for large sized texture, which only occur when using high resolutions. But the R9600, regardless of being standard, Pro or XT, simply does not have the power to handle these amounts of data.


Quote
Originally posted by Rol
at the moment i have a radeon 9600 pro atlantis 128mb but someone who wants a cheap card pay me 80€ so i think abaut buying a new one


If you ask me : buying a 9600 XT is a waste of money, since it won't provide a notable gain in speed over your 9600 Pro. The larger memory size won't be an upgrade, either, for the aforementioned reason. If you intend to upgrade, you should go for the 9800.
marcet sine adversario virtus.
 

Offline Tahna Los

  • 26
new videocard
Reply #16 on: September 14, 2004, 10:59:08 am
Look at the benchmarks.  Many people will tell you the same thing: the R9800Pro 128 MB has the best Price-performance ratio.  After all, I am a very satisfied customer of my R9800Pro.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2004, 11:01:57 am by 1291 »
 

Offline Blitzerland

  • 29
    • http://www.freewebs.com/blitzerland/
new videocard
Reply #17 on: September 14, 2004, 12:16:30 pm
Me too! Heh, heh, heh. ATI shall rule all! DIE, PUNY NVIDIA! HOO-HA HA! HOO-HA HA!

But seriously, ATI is a much better choice.

EDIT: I have a 9800 Pro too! Welcome to club, buddy! Together, we shall crush the foolish Nvidia users! Or not...depending on whether or not I get over this cold i'm currently suffering.
 

Offline Kosh

  • A year behind what's funny
  • 210
new videocard
Reply #18 on: September 15, 2004, 10:16:31 pm
Quote
Originally posted by ChronoReverse


Which review have you been reading?  Every place I've seen has the 6600GT stomping the X600 into the ground and some cases matching the x800pro.  Until ATi releases the x700, nvidia is going to own the midrange market.



www.hardocp.com


One that actually uses real world games. :p
"The reason for this is that the original Fortran got so convoluted and extensive (10's of millions of lines of code) that no-one can actually figure out how it works, there's a massive project going on to decode the original Fortran and write a more modern system, but until then, the UK communication network is actually relying heavily on 35 year old Fortran that nobody understands." - Flipside

Brain I/O error
Replace and press any key
 

Offline ChronoReverse

  • 29
new videocard
Reply #19 on: September 18, 2004, 08:55:45 pm
And if you read the HardOCP article carefully (which I did read incidentally... it's included in the "every site I've seen"), you'll realize two things.

First, they also say the 6600GT is insanely fast for the price.

Second, the graphs have the cards at different settings (for a reason).  The 6600GT is always at a higher graphics level (i.e. higher AF or AA or resolution or combination of those).

Quote
Please be aware we test our video cards a bit different from what is the norm. We concentrate on examining the real-world gameplay that each video card provides. Gameplay includes performance and image quality evaluation. We have two sections, “Highest Playable” and “Apples to Apples”. The Highest Playable section shows the best Image Quality delivered at a playable frame rate. Following the Highest Playable section we have a brief Apples to Apples performance section for those that find benefit of framerates with matching IQ.


From the article with the 6600GT in question.


Some tidbits from the article graphs.

D3:
6600GT:  52.7 FPS
X600XT:  50.7 FPS

Sure sounds close and like the X600XT is keeping up right?

Gee whiz, the 6600GT is at 1280x1024 noAA/8xAF HQ mode while the X600XT is at 800x600 noAA/noAF MQ mode.


Of course we know that nVidia's cards perform better in D3 so lets try FarCry where nVidia is known to perform worse.

FarCry:
6600GT:  47.1 FPS
X600GT:  51 FPS

Both are at 1024x768 4xAF BUT

6600GT is at 2xAA and "Very High" graphics settings.
X600XT is at noAA and "Medium" graphics settings for everything except for lighting which was at "Very High" (HardOCP says this enables PS 2.0).

A whole different story eh?

At least I try to be objective about video cards.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2004, 09:06:41 pm by 998 »
Print
Pages: [1] 2 Next >   Go Up
« Previous Thread Next Thread »