Video Card Upgrade

[Messiah89]

Hi,

Within the year or so, I'm planning to upgrade my current Athlon XP 2400+ to an Athlon 64 2800+

Also, I might want to upgrade my video card to be able to run the newer FPS games coming out (Doom 3, Half Life 2, etc.)

Would upgrading from a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 to an ATI Radeon 9600XT or 9800SE be worth the upgrade? And how much more performance would I get?

[Omardeth]

wait till the games come out before you upgrade . that would be my advice

[tony_j15]

rule number one: stay away from "special edition" ATI cards! they are castrated POS.

by the end of June, production and sales of the X800/6800 will be in full swing and prices on 9800/5900's will be rapidly falling. I suggest you wait until then and pick up a Radeon 9800 Pro. You will see great improvements over your current ti

[byunews]

Yeah, wait for the 6800 non-ultra. That sucker, supposedly, is going for $300.

[custompccases]

What is your budget for these components? The 9800 pro's could barely produce ‘playable’ frames in HL2 while running at 1024x768 no aa no af.

The ti4200 can actually stay pretty close to the 9600xt in some tests since it runs in dx8 mode. In other games the 9600xt can out pace the 4200 by at most around 20 frames (except when in BF secret weapons where the xt can put out around 50 more, however both cards are well past playable frames as it is). This is however at 1024, once you start upping the rez and turning on aa/af it is clear that the xt dominates.

The xt is the better choice between the 9800SE as well. They can stay pretty close in some games but the xt is the clear winner.

Since you won’t be upgrading right now I would just wait. I bet you will end up getting a 64 3000 by that time not to mention a better vid card. AMD and ATI have just announced new products so expect to see the prices fall across the board.