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Ok then, I have decided to upgrade my GeForce3 Ti 200 to something with more power.

I'm thinking a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis PRO 128MB for $236

Is that a bad choice? If you have ay better suggestions please post them, but remember my budget is limited to $280 max.

What do you do with your computer?

The 9800 is about a hundred dollars more, but it's got a lot more power as well. My friend just got it, and I hate him to no end, as he will now be able to run Half-Life 2 at maximum graphical capabilities.

Nothing wrong with an R9600.

But why settle for second best?

Sam Or I wrote:What do you do with your computer?

Mostly gaming, but sometimes also 3d modeling(very, very bad modeling)

But why settle for second best?

To save $100.

DeadM wrote:

Sam Or I wrote:What do you do with your computer?

Mostly gaming, but sometimes also 3d modeling(very, very bad modeling)

What's your specs? If you don't atleast have a 2GHz chip, theres no point in getting a new card as your CPU will be the bottleneck.

Vertigo1 wrote: What's your specs? If you don't atleast have a 2GHz chip, theres no point in getting a new card as your CPU will be the bottleneck.

Mainboard: ASUS A7A266
CPU: AMD Athlon™ XP1700+ (1477MHz)
RAM: 384MB SDRAM

But I already have the RAM and the CPU covered, I'm gonna get a 512MB DDR chip and a AMD Athlon XP2400+ (2GHz) when I order the GFX card.

But another alternative I have thought of was if I wait 2-3 months and then maybe things will be a little cheaper so I can get more power for the same cost. Maybe even get a new mainboard as its getting a bit old.

I'd recommend a R9700pro or a GFX 5800 ultra... the tip-top boards aren't worth the extra dollars, and the 9700pro is cheap atm because of the 9800. I'm running a pair of R9700pros in my two puters, and never run into problems with anything.

Question: Are any of the boards being suggested good as a long-term consideration?

Knowing little more than what Consumer Reports tells me, I want to buy a graphics card that will play high quality games at a reasonable level in, say, five years. As such, money is no object, since I'd rather invest sparingly but heavily.

There's really only one intelligent choice. The R9800 non-pro can be had at Newegg for $259, not much more than you were going to pay for that 9600 pro, which tests have suggested isn't that much faster than the card you've already got. The 9800 np is comparable in speed with the 9700 pro, it has a newer architecture, it overclocks like a sumbitch, and it's priced close to a mainstream card. Get anything else and you're just screwing yourself.

EDIT: Btw, the 9700 pro is about $285 in case you were wondering.

EDIT: Oh, and avoid the 9800 SE at all costs. It's not cheaper than the non-pro and it has 4 of 8 pipelines disabled. Still faster than that 9600 pro though, I suspect.

EDIT: Wow, three edits this post, I must be scatterbrained today. Ahem, anyway if you still want the 9600 pro, you can get it at Newegg for $178. Don't know where you do your shopping, but $236 is a fucking ripoff.

Thanks for your help everyone, but I think I'm gonna just wait until the more powerful cards become cheaper, what I have now is not really that bad and I think it can go another year or so before its getting really old. Then I'll do a major upgrade to the most important components like the mainboard and the CPU, and I will also have more money then.

That's actually the best way to go. I still use a GF3 and I see no reason to stop anytime soon. When Half-Life 2 comes out we'll talk.

Get a 9500 non-pro 128mb. You can get a driver hack that converts it into a 9700. They're available for between $90-140 from places like newegg. If you get one make sure to look up the brand first to see if it works with the hack.

Or a Radeon 9800 and softmod it to a 9800 Pro.

Seggybop wrote:Get a 9500 non-pro 128mb. You can get a driver hack that converts it into a 9700. They're available for between $90-140 from places like newegg. If you get one make sure to look up the brand first to see if it works with the hack.

That won't always work, as only early 9500s were 9700s in disguise.

The word on HardOCP forums last I checked was that softmodding 9500s to 9700s was very iffy. There was a less than 50% chance that it would work, and even if it did it might crash periodically or have strange artifacts, and there was a not-insignificant chance that the attempt would ruin the card.