What do i choose......9600, 9800 or Geforce 5700?

[wailey]

Hi,

Base on price/performance, which card is more suitable to my new system ? I hope i can use most of the effect in FS9.

Also, what should i choose ? Pro verion, or standard version ?

My propose new system is :

1. P4 2.8E
2. 512MB DDR 400
3. 80GB HDD and CD-R...etc

Thanks a lot

[TheFlightMan]

Well, a 9800 Pro (Not from Sapphire) will run you about $230 or a bit more. This will be the top of the line card out of the three you mentioned. The 9600 is slight faster than the 5700, unless, the 5700 is running GDDR3 which makes them equal. However, you can go for a 5900XT whic beats the 9600 and 5700 for the same price of a 9600/5700. The 9800 Pro and 5900XT both come with a 256-bit memory interface (more bandwidth) compare to the 128-bit interface of the 9600/5700.

First choice would be a 9800 Pro (Not from Sapphire), if not, then the 5900XT.

TheFlight

[stabilep]

Hey if this is in your price range I would recommend it.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-268&depa=1

Sapphire is a fine brand and they manufacture part of ATi's own retail line (ATI Branded) Just make sure when your buying, buy from a reputable place and make sure its 256bit. As they now have a 128bit version.

[wailey]

First of all, thanks for ur kindly help !!!

sb tells me the image quality of nvidia is not as good as ATI one, is that true ?

Also, in terms of FS9. I found many ppl in here having trouble from 9800 Pro. Is it need a difficult optimisation process after installing the driver ?

[TheFlightMan]

Image Quality is good with either brand, ATI cards allow you to run at higher AA/AF without impacting FPS too much. I've own NVidia cards for a while and don't have any complaints, currently own the 5900XT.

As for the 9800 Pro, I've got a couple of friends that have it and they are happy with it. A lot of the problems you see in this forum is related to end user mistakes and I will not judge the 9800 Pro based on that. Like the previous poster said, it's a great card if you can make the leap.

Personally, I like the use and feel of NVidia products and that is why I continue to use them today. I almost bought a 9600XT a while back but the 5900XT came out around the same time and provider better performance.

TheFlightMan

[Bruce]

video card aside i would strongly recomend at least doubling the size of your HD and amount of RAM.

[davidd]

Well, I strongly disagree about your suggestion to upgrade memory and hard drive. Both are more than enough unless you are running low on HDD space. Adding more memory (above 512MB) will do nothing to improve performance.
Check this forums history to prove my point.

The ATI 9800 Pro is a good buy right now, $199, and I will be upgrading my 9600 very soon to a 9800 Pro or XT. Also, ATI drivers are very stable now and all the bugs are worked out. That used to be a problem with them, but not any more.

[wailey]

Hi,
If i choose 9800 Pro as my choice, what brand you would suggest ?
is there any different between them except the memory size ?

Also, I saw some ATI's card model num w/o any suffix, like just simply 9800, 9600...etc without "pro", "XT", "SE" word. What does thess kind of cards represent ?

Finally, I read some magazine teach us to modify the bios of the 9800 Pro and upgrade to 9800 XT, is this worth to do so in terms of performance gain-to-risk ratio ?If it is worth, which brand of 9800 Pro can do that ?

[stabilep]

Well I recommend the Sapphire brand or the one I psoted earlier (which I think is MSI) either one is good. 9800 without any suffix is a sloweer clocked model. If you feel bold you can try to overclock it to pro speeds but no guarantee can be made. SE's are crud unless you can manage to unlock it and overclock it but thats just too much hassle if you ask me and it only become comparable to a 9600XT. Also make sure its a 256bit card newegg will tell youin the title usually. As for the Pro-> XT question I don't feel its worth it as it involves replacing the bios on your video card which always makes me nervous. If you are going ot do it I would say leap for a 356mb card but again I don't think its worth it.

[pAAvo T]

>Adding more memory (above
>512MB) will do nothing to improve performance.
>Check this forums history to prove my point.

Not always. I had 1gig of ram & at demanding sceneries like ORD or DFW my ram would go down to 60mb. I upgraded my computer to 2gigs today & my computer doesnt slow down as much any more (not big diff in fps)..I go down to 800mb though when flying..proving that FS can easily use up over a 1gig of ram. A stick of 512mb wouldn't probably cost too much..I paid $59 (for each 512, after rebates) at Circuit City.