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Radeon *Value* Family - 9700 and below. . .



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 15th 03, 02:35 PM
Sparky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Radeon *Value* Family - 9700 and below. . .

"Wayne Youngman" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have been a NVIDIA user the past 4 years (since TNT-2Ultra) and have
followed very closely everything NVIDIA (and INTEL), however the past few
months I have been swatting up on ATI and their Radeon Family of GPU.

Most
of the stuff I have read about is the 9500/9500Pro, 9700/9700Pro and
9800Pro. After digesting this information I had my heart set on getting a
9500Pro or 9700 128Mb card, but I have noticed my suppliers in the U.K are
offering allot of good value cards based on the 9000, 9100 and 9200 GPUs,
and heck I have to admit it I am getting a bit confused. . . .

The new system I am planning to build will be based on a Barton 2500+,
NForce2 Ultra 400, and 512MB PC3500/PC3700, so now I am trying to work out
which Radeon I can pick up cheaply, Currently my top-end choice would be

a
Atlantis 9700 128MB DDR AGP 8x (£175) but the more I think about it, it
seems like this is too much money to spend especially when my supplier

also
is selling the Atlantis 9100 128MB DDR AGP 4x (£58.41), and newer cards
from ATI are just a couple of months away

Now what I am thinking is if I was to buy the 9100 (or other?) today (vs.
9700) I would be saving £116.59, that's allot! then maybe I could put this
money towards a new graphics card in 3-6 months time and pop the used

Radeon
into my old PIII system. I do play allot of games but none of them are
really FPS games. . my fave is NeverWinterNights. .My current card is an

old
GeForce256 DDR 32MB (150Mhz core/300Mhz DDR) (PIII 550E) and games still
look good to me using this, so I am sure I will see a great improvement
using one of the Radeons

Which is the better sub £100 Radeon GPU plz, 9000 - 9100 - 9200? I think
DX9, AGP x8 and more than 128MB are almost superfluous to my needs now,

DX8
and AGP 4x should be ample (I think?), Also I use a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond
Pro (CRT) and generally play games in 1024x768

I spent more time researching this graphics card stuff than any other
component in the system

Thanks for any advice u guys may have,

Wayne ][

The way i see it is that you should always spec in a graphics card that
performs about as well as the rest of your system - otherwise it's just
going to be a bottleneck. I recently put my system together and while the
XP 2800 Barton I bought is not 'top of the range', I felt that putting in
something like a low-spec GF FX or Radeon 9100 - 9500 would just have me
upgrading again at some point down the line - - so I spent a bit much on a
R9800 Pro. If i had thought about it - I'd probably have gone for a 9700 as
it's not much of a performance hit for a lot less ££.

As for ATI releasing something in the future - well, that's computer
ownership for you, unless you spend silly money on parts every few months,
then you'll always be behind the latest specifications - I bought a R9800
last week but tbh, it's going to be superceded in a few months... old hat in
6 mnonths and perhaps obsolete in a year. I tend to just keep what I have
until I find I can;t run the games I want at sufficient speed and then
upgrade the part(s) causing the performance bottleneck.

--
Sparky


  #2  
Old July 15th 03, 04:50 PM
Andy Cunningham
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

I don't believe you should bother upgrading to a 9100 ready for a near
future upgrade. Either stick with the GeForce for the next couple of
months, or get a card worth keeping for a year or more. Neverwinter Nights
ran OK on my Radeon, but considerably better on a Radeon 9000 Pro, which is
a bit slower than the 9100. However, it wasn't really worth an upgrade for
NWN. Mainly I upgraded with the hope of getting GTA3 to work quickly, but
that never really materialised either. Other games such as Sim City 4 and
Age Of Mythology do run much better though.

You will see big improvments with the 9700. I'm guessing NWN has to be run
in 800x600 on the GeForce to get decent framerates (1024x768 was a bit
choppy on my original Radeon). You should easily be looking at 1280x1024
with the 9700, and also the image quality at the same resolution/settings is
arguably higher on ATi cards anyway.

The in-between option would be a Radeon 9600 non-pro. These can be picked
up for £85, and would be half way between 9100/9700 performance. This gives
you DX9 features, meaning when you do start to play newer games, performance
will not suffer as much, but at half the price of the 9700. You'll find the
card at www.ccl-computers.co.uk


"Wayne Youngman" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have been a NVIDIA user the past 4 years (since TNT-2Ultra) and have
followed very closely everything NVIDIA (and INTEL), however the past few
months I have been swatting up on ATI and their Radeon Family of GPU.

Most
of the stuff I have read about is the 9500/9500Pro, 9700/9700Pro and
9800Pro. After digesting this information I had my heart set on getting a
9500Pro or 9700 128Mb card, but I have noticed my suppliers in the U.K are
offering allot of good value cards based on the 9000, 9100 and 9200 GPUs,
and heck I have to admit it I am getting a bit confused. . . .

The new system I am planning to build will be based on a Barton 2500+,
NForce2 Ultra 400, and 512MB PC3500/PC3700, so now I am trying to work out
which Radeon I can pick up cheaply, Currently my top-end choice would be

a
Atlantis 9700 128MB DDR AGP 8x (£175) but the more I think about it, it
seems like this is too much money to spend especially when my supplier

also
is selling the Atlantis 9100 128MB DDR AGP 4x (£58.41), and newer cards
from ATI are just a couple of months away

Now what I am thinking is if I was to buy the 9100 (or other?) today (vs.
9700) I would be saving £116.59, that's allot! then maybe I could put this
money towards a new graphics card in 3-6 months time and pop the used

Radeon
into my old PIII system. I do play allot of games but none of them are
really FPS games. . my fave is NeverWinterNights. .My current card is an

old
GeForce256 DDR 32MB (150Mhz core/300Mhz DDR) (PIII 550E) and games still
look good to me using this, so I am sure I will see a great improvement
using one of the Radeons

Which is the better sub £100 Radeon GPU plz, 9000 - 9100 - 9200? I think
DX9, AGP x8 and more than 128MB are almost superfluous to my needs now,

DX8
and AGP 4x should be ample (I think?), Also I use a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond
Pro (CRT) and generally play games in 1024x768

I spent more time researching this graphics card stuff than any other
component in the system

Thanks for any advice u guys may have,

Wayne ][





  #3  
Old July 16th 03, 12:21 AM
Wayne Youngman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Sparky wrote:
The way i see it is that you should always spec in a graphics card
that performs about as well as the rest of your system - otherwise
it's just going to be a bottleneck. I recently put my system
together and while the XP 2800 Barton I bought is not 'top of the
range', I felt that putting in something like a low-spec GF FX or
Radeon 9100 - 9500 would just have me upgrading again at some point
down the line - - so I spent a bit much on a R9800 Pro. If i had
thought about it - I'd probably have gone for a 9700 as it's not much
of a performance hit for a lot less ££.

As for ATI releasing something in the future - well, that's computer
ownership for you, unless you spend silly money on parts every few
months, then you'll always be behind the latest specifications - I
bought a R9800 last week but tbh, it's going to be superceded in a
few months... old hat in 6 mnonths and perhaps obsolete in a year. I
tend to just keep what I have until I find I can;t run the games I
want at sufficient speed and then upgrade the part(s) causing the
performance bottleneck.




Andy Cunningham wrote:
I don't believe you should bother upgrading to a 9100 ready for a near
future upgrade. Either stick with the GeForce for the next couple of
months, or get a card worth keeping for a year or more. Neverwinter
Nights ran OK on my Radeon, but considerably better on a Radeon 9000
Pro, which is a bit slower than the 9100. However, it wasn't really
worth an upgrade for NWN. Mainly I upgraded with the hope of getting
GTA3 to work quickly, but that never really materialised either.
Other games such as Sim City 4 and Age Of Mythology do run much
better though.

You will see big improvments with the 9700. I'm guessing NWN has to
be run in 800x600 on the GeForce to get decent framerates (1024x768
was a bit choppy on my original Radeon). You should easily be
looking at 1280x1024 with the 9700, and also the image quality at the
same resolution/settings is arguably higher on ATi cards anyway.

The in-between option would be a Radeon 9600 non-pro. These can be
picked up for £85, and would be half way between 9100/9700
performance. This gives you DX9 features, meaning when you do start
to play newer games, performance will not suffer as much, but at half
the price of the 9700. You'll find the card at
www.ccl-computers.co.uk




Hi,
thanks to you both for some feedback, it does help me make a better choice
for my Value-Midrange graphics needs:

Low End: 9100
Upper Low End: 9600
Middle End: 9700

These choices are all based on bang for buck graphics while maintaining some
kinda 3D performance. . . .Just out of interest which *Value* ATI card do
you think would be suitable for an Office/Web-Surfing/Email Machine?

Thanks again,

Wayne ][

BTW: I run NWN on my BX/550eMHz/GeForceDDR32MB/512PC133 rig at 1024x768 with
32MB textures and most graphics nearly maxed. . .totally playable


  #4  
Old July 17th 03, 09:49 PM
YanquiDawg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

The 9100 is a renamd 8500.About as fast as a GeForce 3. If you like
gaming,especially FPS then get the fastest card you can afford. Don't skimp on
ram either.
BTW,I have an Athlon XP1800 asnd GF3 and did notice some slowdowns even on
Icewind Dale2 at 1024. I'm looking at either the FX5900 or the Ati 9800

Most
of the stuff I have read about is the 9500/9500Pro, 9700/9700Pro and
9800Pro. After digesting this information I had my heart set on getting a
9500Pro or 9700 128Mb card, but I have noticed my suppliers in the U.K are
offering allot of good value cards based on the 9000, 9100 and 9200 GPUs,
and heck I have to admit it I am getting a bit confused. . . .

The new system I am planning to build will be based on a Barton 2500+,
NForce2 Ultra 400, and 512MB PC3500/PC3700, so now I am trying to work out
which Radeon I can pick up cheaply


Currently my top-end choice would be
a
Atlantis 9700 128MB DDR AGP 8x (£175) but the more I think about it, it
seems like this is too much money to spend especially when my supplier

also
is selling the Atlantis 9100 128MB DDR AGP 4x (£58.41), and newer cards
from ATI are just a couple of months away

Now what I am thinking is if I was to buy the 9100 (or other?) today (vs.
9700) I would be saving £116.59, that's allot! then maybe I could put this
money towards a new graphics card in 3-6 months time and pop the used

Radeon
into my old PIII system. I do play allot of games but none of them are
really FPS games. . my fave is NeverWinterNights. .My current card is an

old
GeForce256 DDR 32MB (150Mhz core/300Mhz DDR) (PIII 550E) and games still
look good to me using this, so I am sure I will see a great improvement
using one of the Radeons



 




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