info/opinions on this GPU

[iamlost_]

i've just got my new PC in bits and the GPU is an Geforce 4 MX4000 and i want to know a bit about it mainly peoples opinions on it

[[email protected]]

poor, will struggle with newer games.

[mt50]

total poo, will play far cry at around 4fps in a [email protected] and 512mb ram.
mine gets 238 marks in 3dmark 03.

[MartyG]

Specs for such a card here

Regards
Marty

[iamlost_]

bugger. what is a descent card and how much would it cost.

[demon9k]

9800 Pro is an excellent card and with the new Radeon X800Pro and X800Pro XT coming out very soon I would expect to see a price drop aswell hopefully. So I would say just wait out for the time being. They are ?100-?150 atm.

I suppose you could go for the X800 Pro XT which is going to be ?350 on overclocker.co.uk I will be getting myself one of those soon enough I think.

[iamlost_]

so what should i look for in a card? there are tons of different 9800s what's the difference between?

[demon9k]

I don't think there is anything different between the cards performance wise, or if there is its not worth bothered about.

This one would be excellent:

ATi Radeon 9800Pro 128M OEM

I would still hold out though.

[replicant]

It depends on two things...

1. how much you want to pay
2. the type of performance you are after

Unfortunately the two go hand in hand. If you are after performance for Half Life 2, Doom III, Far Cry, Stalker then go next gen.

The x800 pro is now shipping in the UK from today on various online retailers. This card will cost you in the region of 300 quid, which is good considering the overclocking ability of the card.

Then theres the x800xt plat which comes out in the uk in the next 2 weeks. Obviously faster than the pro, and most probably the daddy for Half Life 2. this card costs in the region of 370 - 400. Should get it in two weeks as Gainward are just waiting for Nvidia to release the intitial non-beta drivers and they ship. If you want 6800 go for this card.

Finally the Nvidia Gforce 6800 Ultra which imo is the card to go for. Great clocking ability, fantastic features and its got raw power which Nvidia have yet to capitalise on with the extremely buggy beta drivers for it. Price range 400 quid seems to be the asking price. Plus this is the card for Doom 3.

Ive got a Gainward Geforce 6800 Ultra Golden Sample on order. Gainward cherry pick their gpu for this card to enable improved clocking performance on gpu and memory so it is a beast. It ships at an initial 430 compared to other ultra cards running at 400mhz. The price 420 quid, including next day delivery.

If you want any urls to these cards let me know, and I'll pop some up. One thing, a lot depends on your cpu and overall system. CPU scaling on these cards is pretty heavy, esp at low res of 1024 x 768 where the CPU does hold the card back. Ideally you want either a high spec p4, or A64.

[demon9k]

From what I read about the new Nvidia card it has got very poor image quality, the Toms Hardware article on it made that very clear.

While the new X800 Pro XT might not have as many frames per second as the 6800 I think its far better to have top image quality rather than the extra frame rates. Also its not as if the games will be running slowly with the X800, its still double the speed of the 9800 Pro XT.

[Concept]

Thanks for the info rep. I've been wondering when the X800 Pro and XT have been coming out.

I'm going to have to upgrade myself, because when I first got my PC I was led to believe my ATI All-In-Wonder card came with the 9800 Pro, but when I checked the diagnostics a few days ago I found it to be the 9800 SE instead, and it's giving me performance issues on Far Cry with everything maxed out at a decent resolution during the later levels. :/

My CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+, backed up by 1GB of DDR Ram... So I'm assuming if I pick up an x800 XT I'll be pretty much set for running things high-end on Half-Life 2 (assuming it comes out this year). Right or wrong?

Also, I noticed on overclockers.co.uk, that the Sapphire x800 XT is available for pre-order, costing around ?350. Having never used overclockers before, are they reputable and what are they like getting stock in?

As soon as the x800 XT comes out, I want in. It's a shame it isn't Pixel Shader 3.0 compatible, but I've heard there aren't any games even using such tech yet. Another thing which is holding me off a buying a high end Nvidia card are claims that they use huge amounts of power to run on, and hence require an extra power supply on top of the cost of getting one.

[MartyG]

The 9800SE isn't an official ATi chipset

Have you tried softmodding your card Concept? You might be able to unlock the additional 4 pipelines, essentially making the card a 9800 Pro proper. It's not 100% guaranteed to work, but it's worth a shot as it's easily reversed. Have a look here for details.

Regards
Marty

[iamlost_]

i don't have a load to spend Far Cry and Half Life are coming out on Xbox are they? if yes then i'm not too fussed about them and i don't want to spend huge amounts on a PC that's not my own. I'm not really into PC gaming i just wanna play the games i want. What does Battlefield 1942 need?

[MartyG]

Give us an idea of your budget, then we can better suggest a card.

There are no announcements of either game on Xbox.

Regards
Marty

[iamlost_]

i could probably stretch to around ?50 maybe more