Tell me what you know

I want to buy a decent graphics card. At the moment im looking at the Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB DDR.

Has anyone bought one or is using one at the moment? If so what you think ?

 

I still prefer to sit on the nVidia side of the fence when it comes to graphics cards, but then again, I've not tried any of the new ATI cards...

If you can get the card you mentioned for under £140, I'd say go for it......although if you're getting it for pure gaming, I'd say fork out a bit more for the 9800-series. You can pick up a 128Mb 9800SE these days for £160-170, although not sure how they compare to the 9600XT (since the XT is the top-spec, with the 9800XT costing £340 and upwards)

 

cheers Dan, have gone and bought a card now

Bought a Saphire ATI 9600 XT 128mb

 

Enjoy!

 

Now let's see what it can do

 

Will prob run faster than my CPU can

 

Buy a new CPU, then......and so the vicious circle begins!

 

Yeah, new cpu = new motherboard, new motherboard = new ram, and so it begins

 

Been there, done that, got the receipts for £1,400 of equipment from Scan Computers in Bolton!

 

well story so far, the graphics card dont fit my motherboard.

So that a new motherboard, a new CPU, a new HDD, new RAM, new PS. and there goes £400

Dan B how much!

 

That's either a monster computer, or you got robbed blind

 

Im running a ATI 9600 Pro 128 - its got 600mhz memory speed + 400 mhz clock but me being me over clocked it!

its now running 670mhz mem and 422clock speed!

When playing F1 challenge 99 - 02 and turn everything off I get a sick 400frames per second!!!!

With all cars on tracks and all graphics on max I get around a solid 60fps

But then I got 1Gb of 3200 ram and a overclocked XP2800 cpu

Have a look at www.aria.co.uk for parts. Spends thousands with them. Are spot on and never had any faulty parts!

 

Was a while ago, back when the Athlon XP2800+ or so had just been released...

* Athlon XP2600+ CPU
* 2x512Mb PC3200 DDR (nothing faster available, and 1Gb chips were pricy)
* Asus A7V (8-speed AGP, built-in 10/100/1000 LAN, 6ch Audio (disabled now), firewire, USB2.0 (4 ports), S-ATA support, and more)
* SB Audigy 2 sound-card
* Gainward 128Mb GeForce Ti4600-750XP (GeForceFX series hadn't been introduced yet)
* IBM 180Gb 8Mb-cache 7200rpm hard-drive (S-ATA drives were ridiculously expensive at the time)
* IBM 123.5Gb 8Mb-cache 7200rpm hard-drive
* Coolermaster black-aluminium windowed case with 3 built-in fans (two at front, one at back) and 2 built-in USB2.0 ports
* Enermax 430W adjustable-fan-speed PSU
* iiyama 19" flat-screen CRT (the better of the two available models)
* Lite-On 32x12x40x CD-RW

I think that's everything......wasn't cheap at the time, the graphics card was top-of-the-range when it was bought, funny how things become obsolete so quickly! So, it was a monster computer at the time, and still runs games like UT2k4 smoothly enough, but if I try to run things in hi-res and hi-detail, it starts to stutter a little.

 

Just priced up everything listed above (or as close as can be to parts they don't sell any more), and it came to £953......nice how prices rocket down once a new model is released!

 

thinking on the new p4 3.4gig chip

radeon 9900 pro for graphics or if not released, the 9800 pro

 

IMO the 3.4 ghz P4 will be the biggest waste of money you could buy.

New CPU's are always priced high becuase its the "latest" chip out and they need to make as much money on it BEFORE they release the next "latest" CPU that they already have sitting ready for sale but cant until they recover their costs of develoment on the last one

If you buy 2 steps down from the top you will get the best hardare for your £££

look at it this way :

P4 3.4ghz = £293
P4 3.2ghz = £198
P4 2.8ghz = £129

The 2.8ghz CPU dropped nearly £280 in the last 2 months!

The 3.2ghz is £100 cheaper and only 200mhz slower then the latest 3.4ghz chip

 

Shouldnt have any probs with the radeon, ive got a Tyan radeon 9600 pro which is bsically the same card but comes in a cool blue colour





Theres software out there to let you overclock theses btw

 

looks like a nice card, has that got dual monitor output's on it ?

 

ive got the saphire radeon 9800 pro

will never go back to nvidia i sold my geforce fx after a couple of months of owning it to buy this

i run a athlon xp3200 + Barton 400fsb
on an abit NF7-S mobo

runs top

any game you can throw at it

 

Yea Dan, ones DVI but has the adapter so u can run 2 normal ones

 

Might have to invest in that or similar, got 2 x 17" monitors on me desk

 

I'm happy with a 19" iiyama, not got the desk-space at the moment for dual-monitors!

 

Lol, my desk is a tad cramped

 

Roll on the day when I can afford a wall-mounted 46" plasma-screen!

 

Quake 3 would look the bollox on that !!!

 

GeForce FX 5900 XT

 

Well i now have my new comptuer up and running and hopefully tonight will be testing the ATI 9600XT graphics card.

 

ive just bought a radeon 9600 256 mb mem graphics card

cant get the thing to work properly

just installed ut 2004 and its in no way having it, just crashes to a blank blue screen when the opening vid thing has played.

also wont play black hawk down in multi player mode but it will play single player black hawk down

the only 3d game it will properly play is vice city so far

really wanted to play ut2004 tonight

any ideas whats wrong ?

seriously miffed cos the gefore mx 440 that i changed it for was running pretty good

cheers guys...............matt

 

hi
my system is
Duel 3.2 P4 2 CPU
2 Gb DDR memory
ATI 9700
scsi 100 Gb harddrive
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2
CDR writer
DVD drive
DVD writer
PRO XP

cabman