9800pro or wait for the XT?

[willy1ka]

Hey,

Hoping you lot can help me to decide...

I am rebuilding my pc to run half-life 2 when it finally shows up and I want it to run in all its glory.

Problem I have is I am about to spend £360 / $570 on the ATI 9800pro 256mb but have been reading about the imminent 9800XT.

Anyone know anything about the XT and whether or not i should hold onto my green till that comes out?

Thanks, Willy

 

[Guest]

The XT is probably going to suck ass and be much more expensive. You should wait until the 9800 pro drops in price when the XT comes out and buy the 9800 pro.

 

[scribblehead]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

stop teh hate, ban this mate!! :cheese:

 

[Alanity]

The price of the 9x00 series has apparently bumped so this may not be the best time to get a card anyway.

 

[willy1ka]

Cheers fellas.

Anyone have any idea when we are likely to see the XT?

 

[scribblehead]

Originally posted by willy1ka
Cheers fellas.

Anyone have any idea when we are likely to see the XT?

well it should be announced any day now (sine it'll ship with hl2 on the 30th)

 

[Quotidian---]

go to newegg.com and buy the 9800 sapphire pro i don't think the xt will be worth the million bucks it'll cost when it first comes out

 

[Fjolle]

as someone mentioned you should wailt till xt is out and then buy the pro as it will drop in price!
:afro:

 

[dawdler]

Originally posted by Quotidian---
go to newegg.com and buy the 9800 sapphire pro i don't think the xt will be worth the million bucks it'll cost when it first comes out

Considering prices, my guess is that the 9800XT will cost about as much as the 5900 Ultra.

 

[Gorgon]

XT is 15% increase in IQ+P over the 9800pro. So I think its worth the wait. OH yes Athelon XP 64 FX beat P4 by 50% in all benchmarks. I am going to upgrade for 64FX CPU+ 9800XT.

64FX+9800XT= You can build a Dream World (THE MATRIX).

 

[Dagobert]

Never buy a card as soon as it comes out. It's waste of money.

I'm a relatively wealthy guy, but I'm still not interested in shelling out $400 for a card.

 

[roxXx]

Originally posted by G0rgon
XT is 15% increase in IQ+P over the 9800pro. So I think its worth the wait. OH yes Athelon XP 64 FX beat P4 by 50% in all benchmarks. I am going to upgrade for 64FX CPU+ 9800XT.

64FX+9800XT= You can build a Dream World (THE MATRIX).

thats what im gonna skip and buy th even newer generation

 

[Gorgon]

Originally posted by Dagobert
Never buy a card as soon as it comes out. It's waste of money.

I'm a relatively wealthy guy, but I'm still not interested in shelling out $400 for a card.

Your right. But always give it one week after the release date + read the reviews on the Internet....THIS CAN HELP ALOT.

Worth it= buy it
N woth it= Do whatever you want:cheers:

 

[scribblehead]

Originally posted by G0rgon
Your right. But always give it one week after the release date + read the reviews on the Internet....THIS CAN HELP ALOT.

Worth it= buy it
N woth it= Do whatever you want:cheers:

Well i'm buying 9800 pro128, there's no point in getting the XT, atleast not if you're on a decent DX9 card already...

 

[Jerjerod]

how long is it till the 9900 anyway?

Its not realy of interest to me since iv got a 9700pro*, and if youve got a DX9 card already i dont see the point.

* in theory, the thing just broke and iv sent it off for a replacement

 

[scribblehead]

Originally posted by Jerjerod
how long is it till the 9900 anyway?

Its not realy of interest to me since iv got a 9700pro*, and if youve got a DX9 card already i dont see the point.

* in theory, the thing just broke and iv sent it off for a replacement

actually it was mentioned that the 9900 was renamed XT..so there you have it

 

[willy1ka]

anyone know specs of the XT

 

[Jerjerod]

Originally posted by scribblehead
actually it was mentioned that the 9900 was renamed XT..so there you have it

bah, shows you how up to date i am

Why rename it though? everyone would know where they were with a 9900pro, if you hadnt told me i would have thought an 9800XT was just what some manufactorer was calling the 9800...

 

[Gorgon]

Originally posted by Jerjerod
how long is it till the 9900 anyway?

Its not realy of interest to me since iv got a 9700pro*, and if youve got a DX9 card already i dont see the point.

* in theory, the thing just broke and iv sent it off for a replacement

there is no 9900. the name is 9800xt:cheese:

 

[bastard_loud]

Originally posted by G0rgon
XT is 15% increase in IQ+P over the 9800pro. So I think its worth the wait. OH yes Athelon XP 64 FX beat P4 by 50% in all benchmarks. I am going to upgrade for 64FX CPU+ 9800XT.

64FX+9800XT= You can build a Dream World (THE MATRIX).

Anyone have any idea when the 64bit AMD cpu will be available?

 

[Asus]

heres the link if you missed it
Radeon 9800XT

AMD Athlon 64 = Sept 23rd
lower versions sill have ratings (e.g. Athlon 3200+,3400+)...single channel memory...lower L2 cach.
Higher end versions have no rating (e.g. Athlon FX 51)...dual channel memory...same L2 as opterons.
benchies
3dmark website link

 

[bastard_loud]

Wow, the 64bit cpu's really crept up on me... sept 23rd eh?

I was going to upgrade to a p4 3.0 around October, but now i'll have to wait and see what AMD have to offer me by then.

*mmmm* 64bit PC gaming...

/me drools.

[edit]Thanks for posting those links!

 

[Dagobert]

Your right. But always give it one week after the release date + read the reviews on the Internet....THIS CAN HELP ALOT.

Nah, the important point is 'is your card supported by the software' We wil be able to max out HL2 and run it as silly resolutions with a 9800 pro, and there won't be any games that ue DX9 significantly for a few months. The only sensible thing is take advantage of the inevitable price drop on the 9800's and 9800 pros and buy one of them.

 

[Asus]

btw this link has been posted b4 but ill post it again.
They use an Opteron which has same L2 and dual channel mem. as the FX models but they have to use slower DDR.
Its ECC and registered memory at higher timings so the score would be better on an FX dual channel with nice fast DDR400 and low timings.
AMD64 @ AnandTech

 

[TheRook]

buy a sapphire 9800 (none pro) 128 meg and flash the bios... to the 9800pro

its entirely yourfault if you do it and it breaks though... so um read up about it on forums you can find lots of stuff using google

much cheaper!

TheRook
:dork:

 

[$pazmatazz]

Originally posted by G0rgon
OH yes Athelon XP 64 FX beat P4 by 50% in all benchmarks. I am going to upgrade for 64FX CPU+ 9800XT.

If you're taking about the article Anandtech put up (which was an overclocked Opteron and not even an Athlon 64), it beat out the P4 by 50% in some gaming benchmarks, not all.

It does look like a good CPU. Although, I hope the rumours are true about Yamill and Intel's 64-bit extension in Prescott.

 

[Asus]

Originally posted by $pazmatazz
If you're taking about the article Anandtech put up (which was an overclocked Opteron and not even an Athlon 64), it beat out the P4 by 50% in some gaming benchmarks, not all.

It does look like a good CPU. Although, I hope the rumours are true about Yamill and Intel's 64-bit extension in Prescott.

So, for our 1.8GHz Opteron 144, the multiplier is 9x, which is why raising the HT frequency to 222MHz increases the clock speed to around 2GHz. But we are increasing the HyperTransport clock in our overclocking, and not a FSB clock, which does not exist on Opteron/Athlon64. In real terms, this means our CPU overclocking has a significant impact on Performance, but it is unlikely that our increase in memory speed will have nearly as much impact on performance. Since we are nowhere near saturating the Hypertransport bus at 200 (effective 800), increasing HyperTransport to 222 (888) will not likely have much, if any, impact on overall performance. Our performance improvements, with Opteron/Athlon64, are mainly coming from increase in CPU clock — much more so than on the Pentium 4 or Athlon architectures.

the increase they gave it, in my opinion, would only off set the fact that they used ECC/registered DDR.
Which does slow memory down. has to check parity etc.

They just wanted to get it to 2ghz.
in the future, AMD Athlon FX benchies dont have to use ECC DDR. Will be much faster memory and no need to OC because they will have 2ghz-2.2ghz versions out.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

Originally posted by willy1ka
anyone know specs of the XT

From this article...

The Radeon 9800XT will end up at 425MHz+ for the chip and 700MHz for memory and there are likely to be DDR I and DDR II cards.

Not too shabby.

 

[kelisis]

Yeah, this is a big decision for me too. I have the money I just don't know if I should spend it on the 9800XT if it isn't that better. And then Nvidia is going to release it's NV38 card soon which will probaly suck.

 

[Heitai]

I do have a question about the 9800xt. Other then the bump in clock/mem speed is there anything different? All I can seem to find is that Inquirer articles and random hearsay right now.

As for the thread starter my opinion depends on what card you are upgrading from. I would say go with the 9800 pro if your upgrading from a geforce 2 for example. Now if your old card was a 9700 pro then I would say wait since your card would be able to handle Half Life2 acording to the benchmarks. I hope that helps you desicision

 

[MaXGTS]

I'm a very wealthy guy, so I buy every videocard that comes out. I use it for a short while, and the moment a new card comes out, I throw the last one in the garbage.

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by MaXGTS
I'm a very wealthy guy, so I buy every videocard that comes out. I use it for a short while, and the moment a new card comes out, I throw the last one in the garbage.

you sound more like your a 12 year old :/