Which card?....please help

After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Barry

I believe the 9700 is an older model replaced by the 9800. Their numbering
scheme is terrible. I found a 9800 Pro recently for $US 299, not much more
than your £219. I think you can find one in that price range with patience.

Great card.

Tom
"codeblue" wrote in message
...
After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Barry

You will need to consider the rest of your system, in this process.... Just
getting the best card you can afford, may not be the best approach
(depending on your system). I would say that if you have a decent
processor/motherboard/memory combination, the 9700pro would do fine. Tell
us just what kind of box you are going to put the new badboy in.


-
codeblue stood up at show-n-tell, in
, and said:

After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Barry

--
Strontium

"It's no surprise, to me. I am my own worst enemy. `Cause every
now, and then, I kick the livin' **** `outta me." - Lit

codeblue wrote:
After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

The R350 (9800, 9600) core replaced the R300 (9700, 9500) core and has
stopped being manufactured. The reason few people are selling it is because
they've already sold their remaining stock.

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

I've got a Crucial 9800 Pro (now £240) and it's excellent. Probably worth
£20 more than the 9700 Pro (and delivered for free too).

There are a few seemingly minor improvements from the R300 to the R350,
they'll help when games are supporting more complicated pixel shaders.

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

The system i built included a Athlon 1800+ with the MSI K7T266 Pro2
moboand 80gb HD. 512mb of PC2100 mem and a Creative 5.1 Live sound
card running 5.1 speakers. Iiyama Visiion Master Pro 411 monitor,
Logitec opital/wireless Wingman, Keyboard and Mouse, Plex CD-rw a
Pioneer cd/DVD player and a partridge in a pear tree...(well it is
Christmas!)

The card is the first step to upgrading. Next will be the CPU and
Motherboard, then a DVD witer and a new sound card.

Barry

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 06:06:28 -0600, "Strontium"
wrote:

You will need to consider the rest of your system, in this process.... Just
getting the best card you can afford, may not be the best approach
(depending on your system). I would say that if you have a decent
processor/motherboard/memory combination, the 9700pro would do fine. Tell
us just what kind of box you are going to put the new badboy in.


-
codeblue stood up at show-n-tell, in
, and said:

After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Barry

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:54:59 +0000
codeblue wrote:

After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.
=20
I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?
=20
Having about =A3200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!
=20
For the =A3200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for =A3219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the =A3100 more 9800?

The 9700 is a discontinued product--the reason it was discontinued is
more marketing than anything else--nvidia started crowing about how
their pixel shader allowed longer shading algorithms than ATI's to be
applied, so ATI brought out the 9800 with the same capability and
discontinued the 9700.

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

The 9700 at the price you mention is probably your best bet.
=20
As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Sometimes--depends on the brand and on your luck and to some extent on
the particular circuit board used--for example some 9500 non-pro boards
could be upgraded into 9700s with a software modification, but others
with a different circuit board could not (ATI changed the board design
specifically to prevent this). Many of the non-pro boards can be
overclocked to approximate the performance of the"pro" board in the same
family but that depends on your luck--some boards just plain won't
overclock no matter what you do to them--whether and how far you can
overclock always depends on whether you lucked out on the manufacturing
tolerances. Before you ask, the 9600 series boards cannot be modded to
any higher series--the 9600 uses a different chip from the 9500/9700 and
the 9800. Also, you'll see 9600XT and 9800XT boards that are clocked
pretty high--don't count on getting a non-XT to that level--ATI changed
the manufacturing process they use slightly on the chips for the XT
boards, allowing them to clock much higher than the chips used on the
non-XT boards.
=20
Barry=20


--=20
--=20
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Depending on your timeframe for upgrading the CPU/Motherboard, I would
suggest opting for the 9700pro. There may be something new, around the
corner (dropping prices of all current cards). And, since you say
'next'...(if you're anything like me, that will mean when you have the
cash....).


-
codeblue stood up at show-n-tell, in
, and said:

The system i built included a Athlon 1800+ with the MSI K7T266 Pro2
moboand 80gb HD. 512mb of PC2100 mem and a Creative 5.1 Live sound
card running 5.1 speakers. Iiyama Visiion Master Pro 411 monitor,
Logitec opital/wireless Wingman, Keyboard and Mouse, Plex CD-rw a
Pioneer cd/DVD player and a partridge in a pear tree...(well it is
Christmas!)

The card is the first step to upgrading. Next will be the CPU and
Motherboard, then a DVD witer and a new sound card.

Barry

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 06:06:28 -0600, "Strontium"
wrote:

You will need to consider the rest of your system, in this
process.... Just getting the best card you can afford, may not be
the best approach (depending on your system). I would say that if
you have a decent processor/motherboard/memory combination, the
9700pro would do fine. Tell us just what kind of box you are going
to put the new badboy in.


-
codeblue stood up at show-n-tell, in
, and said:

After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's
time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net
for prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that
it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to
buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Barry

--
Strontium

"It's no surprise, to me. I am my own worst enemy. `Cause every
now, and then, I kick the livin' **** `outta me." - Lit

J.Clarke wrote:
Also, you'll see 9600XT and 9800XT boards that are clocked
pretty high--don't count on getting a non-XT to that level--ATI changed
the manufacturing process they use slightly on the chips for the XT
boards, allowing them to clock much higher than the chips used on the
non-XT boards.

My Crucial 9800 Pro will clock to a core of 450MHz, significantly (10%)
beyond an XT, no? The memory reaches 360MHz as well, only 5MHz shy of the
XT.

I'm using a Zalman ZM80A-HP, not sure if that is helping or hindering the
overclocking ability of the core, I know the whole heatsink gets rather hot.

Ben
--
A7N8X FAQ: www.ben.pope.name/a7n8x_faq.html
Questions by email will likely be ignored, please use the newsgroups.
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

The 9700Pro is a good card, it is power hungry, needs its own power
connection.
ATI has stopped making the 9700s, could the one you are looking at
be a refurbished or open stock unit ?

I would say to get the 9600 Pro, should be good enough for most people.
In the US they start around $140, starts around 125 pounds mail-order in the
UK.

"codeblue" wrote in message
...
After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?

Barry

"codeblue" wrote
After several years, and with Doom 3's 2004 release, i feel it's time
to put my trusty ATI 7200 VIVO to bed and upgrade.

I will opt for another ATI card as i have had know probs with the
7200, but which one?

Having about £200 pounds to spend i've been looking round the net for
prices, reviews and support and come to the conclusion that it's a
bloody minefield!

For the £200 mark the best option would be the 9700 pro currently at
Dabs for £219. Whats puzzeling though is that Dabs are one of the
VERY few places on the Net to stock the 9700 in any form. Why is
this? Is their anything wrong with it or does ATI want people to buy
the £100 more 9800?

Bottom line is that i want a card that will give me great gaming for
as long as my 7200 did. Which one?

As a final thought, can i buy a cheaper model and overclock it to a
better one?


Hi,

if you can find one then the RADEON 9800 (np) is about the best card you can
get for around the £200-00 mark. They seem to be all gone though so good
luck in trying to find one. . . .
--
Wayne ][

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