9800 pro... buy now or wait for lower price?

[hawkeye_wx]

I am currently running a 2 GHz(oc'd) TBred B with a GeForce 3 Ti 200. I don't want to spend $400 for an X800 or 6800 that wouldn't do much good with my older cpu so I guess I'm strongly leaning toward buying a 9800 pro now that they have come down to a decent price. The question is, should I spend the ~$210 for one now or wait until HL2 and Doom3 hit the shelves when the price might be a bit lower? Will the 9800 pro price even go much lower this summer?

[trueplaya4ever8]

i think you would be better off with it now ;)

[Albis521]

i just bought the sapphire r360 core 9800 pro off newegg for 210. i have it flashed to a 9800xt and it runs perfectly :)

[Cyrix_2k]

No offense, but you'll need a new processor to take full advantage of the x800 series. That and the fact that your Ti200 is rather dated tell me that you should go ahead and buy the 9800pro.

[hawkeye_wx]

My main question is will the 9800 pro fall in price much from current level over the summer once all the X800 and 6800 boards are on the shelves?

[Nebulous]

It'll fall just a bit, but not "rock bottom" so to speak. I personally would look into a better cpu so you can take advantage of the 9800 Pro. Possibly a XP2500 Barton would do very nicely. By then the 9800 Pro would drop some more in price which would be the perfect opportunity to jump on one :D

[hawkeye_wx]

I have thought about picking up a mobile Barton 2500+ and try to get 2.3 GHz out of it. I'm sure the extra 300 MHz would convert directly into increased framerate if/when I get a 9800 pro. I absolutely do not want to upgrade my entire system to an Athlon 64... that will have to wait another year.

[Nebulous]

Well then, i see you have your plan of attack. I say go for it :D You can also find a 9800 Pro 256mb for a very nice price on ebay then flash it to an XT ;)

[NiTrO bOiE]

Newegg has refurbed 9800Pros as low as $159. Good deal if you ask me. Then you can upgrade to a x800 later on this year.

[tomchong]

i dont see 9800pros going down much in price, there already pretty cheap, and now that there has been a new series of cards released, ati will not make any more of them. if you have the money and you want this card, buy now! Ati has also been selling 128bit, lower clocked "9800pro's" so watch out, those things stink.

[hawkeye_wx]

One more question regarding the purchase of a 9800 pro 128MB. I have only 512 MB of system ram(2 x 256). I have heard some new games like Far Cry don't run great with only 512 MB. I wish I knew if HL2 and Doom3 ran ok with 512MB, because I am not going to go to 1 GB or 2 GB of ram until my next major upgrade no earlier than next year(.

Bottom line... is a system with a 9800 pro (128 mb) and 512mb of system ram going to work well enough for the next year?

[Stiffler69]

yes it will work very well

[Xr400r]

One more question regarding the purchase of a 9800 pro 128MB. I have only 512 MB of system ram. I have heard some new games like Far Cry don't run great with only 512 MB. I wish I knew if HL2 and Doom3 ran ok with 512MB, because I am not going to go to 1 GB or 2 GB or ram until my next major upgrade no earlier than next year.

Bottom line... is a system with a 9800 pro (128 mb) and 512mb of system ram going to work well for the next year?

LoL, that is kind of the same dilema I am having, 'cept it's just about the card.
As far ram, there are lots of folks on this board and others that have reported problems with under a gig and Farcry, then again, there are folks that are having zero issues with 512 megs. I think a bunch of it has to do with the system surrounding the vid card.

[timzak]

Don't worry about the cpu (yet). If you plan on running your games with AA/AF enabled, you won't see any difference between your current 2Ghz and even 2.5Ghz on a Mobile XP. I've done the benchies on my system. With AA/AF disabled, you see the expected leap in fps going from 2Ghz to 2.5Ghz. However, with AA/AF on (4x/8x) the video card is fill rate limited so framerates don't show any improvement going from 2.0 to 2.5Ghz cpu. You should be fine at 2Ghz and 512 ram with a 9800 Pro for the next year or so. I upgraded to the 9800 Pro from a GF4 Ti4400 and the difference was amazing. I'm running at 4X AA and 8X AF at speeds the same as or faster than the Ti4400.

[Calculusaurus]

Trust me, you'd have to wait a very long time for the price to drop significantly. It may drop a few bucks here or there; who knows? But you'll be kicking yourself come the end of summer when you waited all that time for a $20 price drop. But of course, the market is unpredictable, so there actually may be a huge price drop; just don't count on it.

[Mustanley]

I have Far Cry on one machine with 512MB ram and also on another with 1GB of ram. While I can tell a difference between the two, the game still runs nicely with only 512MB of memory.

[Cyrix_2k]

I have Far Cry on one machine with 512MB ram and also on another with 1GB of ram. While I can tell a difference between the two, the game still runs nicely with only 512MB of memory.

What settings? With the system listed in my sig, I can't get far cry to run smoothly no matter what :(

[Mustanley]

All set to "Very High" and water set to "Ultra High" at 1024x768. No AA and Particle AF set to 2.

[Cyrix_2k]

I've set mine to "Low" for everything, and no AA/AF @ 1024x768. At those settings, the graphics will smooth out, but the sound skips :( I'm gonna do some searching in the game forum...

::update:: With everything set to medium @ 640x480, it drops frames!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

[hawkeye_wx]

Well, I went ahead and bought a Sapphire 9800 Pro 128 MB (256 bit) from Newegg. Everyone for the last several weeks has received a 360 core, but mine is 350. I noticed Newegg briefly ran out of stock two days after I ordered mine last weekend, so my card was probably an old one sitting at the bottom of the stack. No big deal, though. I was not planning on flashing it to XT.

[Nightingale]

9800 pro's will come down but probably only like 2 years from now when they are really outdated and you can pick one up for like 149 for a 256mb 9800XT or something(kinda like the Geforce 2's 9200Se's etc that you find on newegg and stuff).

[Mito]

I've done the benchies on my system. With AA/AF disabled, you see the expected leap in fps going from 2Ghz to 2.5Ghz.

How many FPS do you gain by doing so?
In my case, what processor do you recommend for a worthy improvement?

[Silversinksam]

Newegg has refurbed 9800Pros as low as $159. Good deal if you ask me. Then you can upgrade to a x800 later on this year.


That's where I got my BBA 9800pro, great card. I'd AVOID Ebay when buying a video card, I've had to help a few people here that recieved damaged, defective, artifacting 9800's at Ebay, one of the issues was a new sealed box, turned out it was a dead, OVERCLOCKED to death 9800 that was OEM and not sealed.

Trust me, some things you can buy at Ebay and 9800's are not one of them....


hawkeye_wx, In my opinion now is as good a time as any to get a 9800 pro, make sure you get a 256bit version, as many have been fooled (http://63.74.115.230/tips00603/) by the 9800 pro 128 bit version.

The Saphire 9800 pro 256bit 128mb memory New is $209 shipped (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-268&depa=0) at Newegg, or if you spend a few more dollars this ASUS RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 256MB DDR is $269 +$1 shipping in the refurb section HERE (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-505R&depa=0)