Ti42000. Time for an Upgrade?

jabberwock95

jabberwock95

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I need a bit of guidance, so what better place to come than the HL2.net forums!

Currently, I have a GeForce 4 Ti4200 graphics card. I have experimented with overclocking and I have got it up pretty high. But is it time to upgrade? Are DirectX 9 games the way forward? Should I wait for a price drop?

So far the most affordable video card I have seen is a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256Mb for around £80. Good deal or rip-off?

Also, my computer only supports AGP 4. Will this make a noticable difference from AGP 8?

Finally, any suggestions on good cards would be appreciated. But remember im on a budget here (around £100)...
 
No difference between 8X AGP and 4X AGP. More marketing speak than any real world performance difference.

What are the rest of your system specs?
 
Ti 4200 is a decent card but is beginning to reach its limits with games coming out at the moment. You should be able to play HL2 ok-ish but without the dx9 bells and whistles.

£80 for the 9600 pro is an ok deal check out Overclockers.co.uk for some good deals.

AGP 8x has a negligible performance increase over 4x so do not worry all recent cards play decently on the 4x agp.

The best deal at the mo is probably the 9800 pro but is a bit over your budget at about £130, but if you can stretch to that it really will be worth it!
 
Oh yeah and one more thing if you get any 9600 card get the 128mb one, 256mb are slower and can't really use the 256mb memory properly. But I still suggest the 9800 pro.
 
blahblahblah said:
What are the rest of your system specs?
Click to expand...

AMD 2600+ Athlon Processor
512Mb RAM
80Gb HDD
GeForce 4 Ti4200

I think it's just the graphics card holding me back at the moment. I guess I could go for 1Gb of RAM but would it make a big difference?

I see that a lot of you recommend the 9800 Pro. I may be able to stretch (as long as my mum doesn't find out!) but it's a sizeable chunk of money to be blowing. I would want it to last me for several years at least.
 
Wow, I just took a look at the 9800 Pro's on Overclockers.co.uk and my head nearly exploded. I really cannot spot any difference between them (apart from price). Will there be any differences between brands? What should I look out for?

EDIT: I begrudge paying £8.50 for shipping a graphics card, should I buy from overclockers.co.uk. Any other good sites for graphics cards?
 
My brother noticed a huge difference between his ti4200 and his new 9600 xt. He's pretty happy with it.
 
Thanks to everybody who helped. I think i'm now in love with the 9800 Pro from eBuyer. I've bought from there before so I know they deliver the goods (no pun intended). I've read the 9800's reviews and it looks like an excellent card.

Only a couple of things worry me. The first is noise, I don't want to add a noisy fan to my computer. The second is my power supply. I don't know exactly what it is but my guess is a 300w. That's the mimimum recommended for the 9800 pro. I really don't want to blow out my PSU or fork out another £100.

Oh, anyone know how to get parents to let you spend £130 on a graphics card?
 
Make sure you order the 256bit with 128mb card, its the bees knees.

Tell your parents it will benefit you educationally, they are always suckers for things like that.
 
Eep. Now I have learnt a bit more about 9800 pro's I have been a bit put off. Turns out I would have to spend about £166 to get a decent 9800 pro from a reliable retailer (ie. the 256mbit version).

That's a lot to spend when my handy ol' GeForce 4 could probably run HL2 fine at DirectX 8 settings. I'll have to think about it, I might wait until there is a price drop.
 
jabberwock95 said:
Oh, anyone know how to get parents to let you spend £130 on a graphics card?
Click to expand...

Get a job :rolleyes:

9800 pros won't get any cheaper for ages. The MSI 9800 pro with 256 bit memory and R360 core is under US$200. I got mine for $446 NZ dollars. I dont know what that is in pounds.
 
jabberwock95 said:
Eep. Now I have learnt a bit more about 9800 pro's I have been a bit put off. Turns out I would have to spend about £166 to get a decent 9800 pro from a reliable retailer (ie. the 256mbit version).

That's a lot to spend when my handy ol' GeForce 4 could probably run HL2 fine at DirectX 8 settings. I'll have to think about it, I might wait until there is a price drop.
Click to expand...

No, you're thinking about the 256mb (MEGABYTE) version. They're a lot more and aren't any better. The one you want is 128mb, but it has a 256-bit memory bandwidth. They're all supposed to have it, but there have been some "fake" 128-bit versions that are severely worse, but chances are you won't find them. Get the 128mb one, and send us a link to the one you have picked out and we'll make sure it's not a fake.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/9700_to_9800_Series.html

The Connect 3D is 112 pounds, the Sapphire is 117 pounds. Either one is fine.
 
I think Sapphire make lots of 9800 pros but only one of these is the bastarding 256bit one. No other manufacturer makes a 128bit 9800pro, so dont worry about that too much. It should say fairly clearly in the product description which varient it is should you choose to go with a Sapphire card.
 
Oh yeah and to check your psu, open the case and there should be a sticker somewhere on the psu. But my guess is you'll be fine with that. And if you're worried about noise, one of the 9800 pros on the link I gave you is perfect. It's this one:

HIS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR IceQ TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-006-HT)

It's 134 pounds, but it has this awesome Artic cooling system that is silent and will keep you 9800 pro cool no matter what.
 
Ha, I'm not worried enough about the noise to justify another £30-£40.

Im mainly worried about the price. I know it says £112 but with VAT and postage it would cost £140. I have the cash but my mum would never approve of me spending that much. It is very tempting though...
 
Well how about selling your 4200 to cover some of that price?
 
Ah go on, just do it. You seriously will not regret it when you see the performance in game compared to your ti4200. Plus on the street they are still going for £150-200 so you are also saving a bit as well when you buy online.
 
I was pretty suprised at how CS Source ran on a 4200, got about 60fps at 800x600 but this is ofcourse without any sort of ansio or antialiasing.

Still very playable though, and I guess the same will be said for HL2
 
No, temptation overload!! Must... resist... urge... to... spend... cash...

Oh, hell with it. What do you guys think of this:

9800 Pro from eBuyer

Check out the reviews. I want to be sure that it is the right sort of card (256-bit, so on, so on).
 
Yep thats a good card there. And yes it has got 256bit. Your all set to go. Just make sure ur PSU is up to it ;)
 
Would I need more than 300w? I have a HDD, 2 optical drives, FDD, 2 networks, sound, modem, etc.
 
No you do not need more than 300 watts, you're fine. Nice pick, you'll be glad you got a 9800 pro.
 
*sigh*

I remember when i upgraded from a Geforce 2 gts to a 9800 pro. Blew my socks off.

Good times, good times indeed.

Have fun with it jabber
 
Hey, I haven't made my mind up yet! Or rather, I haven't made my mums mind up yet...

One of the advantages of ordering from eBuyer is that if my mum asks how much it costs I just say "Oh, around £100". With a bit of luck, she never sees the invoice or my bank statement. The perfect crime...
 
GPRT said:
*sigh*

I remember when i upgraded from a Geforce 2 gts to a 9800 pro. Blew my socks off.

Good times, good times indeed.

Have fun with it jabber
Click to expand...

That's what I'm doing next week, GF2Ti 64mb to 9800 Pro 128mb/256bit.
 
It really would be worth it, the 9800 pro is kinda gonna be like the 4200, at least I think so. Very nice fast card, I think it could still be running games well as we approach longhorn and dx10. The 4200 did with dx9.
 
What games at the moment are the most graphically testing? Id like to test my GF4 and my 9800pro (if I get one) (preferably demos, I don't think im gonna have much spare cash.)

Thanks for all the advice, im going to double-check my PSU at the weekend and maybe get a 9800 in a week or so. Thanks again!!
 
Well obviously theres doom3, comes out tomorrow in UK, and far cry. But also use 3D mark 2003 and aquamark 3 to compare scores between the cards.
 
Dude... I got a Ti4200 128mb card and I will keep using it for another 6 months (hopefully a year). I dont have anything to worry about because the games that SHOULD be big hits will run fin on my comp (and card).
 
Yeah the 4200 can still run medium maybe 1204x768 on today's games, but it won't look as good and it's only dx8 and starting to show it's age. I'd test the Far Cry demo, Doom 3 demo when it comes out, maybe Jedi Academy demo and Halo demo. Those are good. But why not take a look at these benchmarks from Tom's Hardware, it benches all the cards from a Geforce 4 mx 440 to a 9800xt.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html
 
Thanks again for the valuable info. According to those benchmarks, the GeForce 4 Ti4200 128Mb card can run nearly all the tested games at high details with playable framerates (ie 30+).

The problems occur when AA or AS are used. With either or both of these on, framerates take a plunge to around 15-20. And of course, the card can't show any lovely DX9 effects.

Normally I would wait for the 9800 to drop in price, but considering NVidia and ATI have very recently released new cards, another drop won't come until more new cards are released, which could take ages. Plus, HL2's release date seems to be looming, and I would like my first glimpse to be of it in it's full glory.

Im slightly wary about my PSU struggling to run the card, or of the card overheating. But eBuyer have always been very good about returns (anyone who recieved a 128bit 9800 having mistakely ordered it was given an exchange or refund). So I might as well keep ahead of the curve and get the best HL2 experiance I can. Im going to make sure my GeForce 4 goes to a good home though, theres life in the old thing yet!

Sorry for the long post, I just had to put some of my thinking down in writing, seems to make my train of thought a little clearer. Thanks again for all the good advice people have responded with!
 
Yup, you can always return it if it doesn't work. And I'm kinda having the same problem with my mom right now, my Dell didn't come with an AGP slot (I didn't know what I was doing when I asked for one). So I bought a new motherboard after researching and asking for about a month, learning I needed a microatx board and it would work. But right now it's not working, probably got a bad board because after trying a bunch of thing we gave up and put the old board back in and everything worked, so the problem is with the motherboard. So we're gonna exchange it for another one, but now my mom doesn't want me buying more computer stuff because she says she doesn't want me wasting my money on stuff that doesn't work.
 
Now I understand the anger in your sig...

Parents can be very un-understanding when it comes to spending money on computer components (even when it's your own money). :(

It's a pity you were unlucky with the new MB, what are the odds? I hope you bought it from a retailer thats understanding about returns. Some parents like to jump on any bad experience as a reason to pack it all in and go back to the dark ages of unrealistic computer games. ;)
 
Yeah I got it from newegg, but it's only my mom, my dad's the one who was installing it.
 
OMG OMG OMG!!

Sorry to bump my own thread, but I JUST BOUGHT A 9800 PRO!!! And I can't keep it to myself! THANK YOU to everyone who helped me out in this thread, the decision really was agonising.

I got the one from www.ebuyer.co.uk, and I also picked up this. An Arctic VGA Cooler/Silencer.

I have heard quite a few stories about 80+ degrees on a non-OC'ed 9800 pro, so I thought a little extra cooling might be in order. I'm not going to install it right away, that'd void my warranty. Once im sure it works, and I want to up the speed, ill go for it! The cooler only cost me £7.00, so money well spent in my opinion. God, I can't stop typing! This thursday I will (hopefully) become a high-end gamer!
 
bosox188 said:
And if you're worried about noise, one of the 9800 pros on the link I gave you is perfect. It's this one:

HIS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR IceQ TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-006-HT)

It's 134 pounds, but it has this awesome Artic cooling system that is silent and will keep you 9800 pro cool no matter what.
Click to expand...

Just realised, I said I didn't want that card because it was more expensive, but i've inadvertantly bought the cooler that is on that card! So I got the cool, silent 9800pro, I just have to fit the cooler myself!
 
I wouldn't worry about your warrenty, if something goes wrong just replace the cooler with the original. No one will know the difference.

The arctic cooler is a very nice cooler, its got my x800 pro at xt ideling at a nice 30C and underload at 60-65C, so you can probably expect similar temps.
 
Thanks for the warrenty tip. Did you install the cooler yourself or did it come fitted? If you installed it, got any tips for me? :) I'm a total coward when it comes to modding anything.
 
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