Radeon *Value* Family - 9700 and below. . .

[Wayne Youngman]

Hi,

I have been a NVIDIA user the past 4 years (since TNT-2Ultra) and have followed very closely everything NVIDIA (and INTEL), however the past few months I have been swatting up on ATI and their Radeon Family of GPU. Most of the stuff I have read about is the 9500/9500Pro, 9700/9700Pro and 9800Pro. After digesting this information I had my heart set on getting a 9500Pro or 9700 128Mb card, but I have noticed my suppliers in the U.K are offering allot of good value cards based on the 9000, 9100 and 9200 GPUs, and heck I have to admit it I am getting a bit confused. . . .

The new system I am planning to build will be based on a Barton 2500+, NForce2 Ultra 400, and 512MB PC3500/PC3700, so now I am trying to work out which Radeon I can pick up cheaply, Currently my top-end choice would be a
*Atlantis 9700 128MB DDR AGP 8x* (�175) but the more I think about it, it seems like this is too much money to spend especially when my supplier also is selling the *Atlantis 9100 128MB DDR AGP 4x* (�58.41), and newer cards from ATI are just a couple of months away

Now what I am thinking is if I was to buy the 9100 (or other?) today (vs.
9700) I would be saving �116.59, that's allot! then maybe I could put this money towards a new graphics card in 3-6 months time and pop the used Radeon into my old PIII system. I do play allot of games but none of them are really FPS games. . my fave is NeverWinterNights. .My current card is an old GeForce256 DDR 32MB (150Mhz core/300Mhz DDR) (PIII 550E) and games still look good to me using this, so I am sure I will see a great improvement using one of the Radeons

Which is the better sub �100 Radeon GPU plz, 9000 - 9100 - 9200? I think DX9, AGP x8 and more than 128MB are almost superfluous to my needs now, DX8 and AGP 4x should be ample (I think?), Also I use a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro (CRT) and generally play games in 1024x768

I spent more time researching this graphics card stuff than any other component in the system

Thanks for any advice u guys may have,

Wayne ][

 

[RonK]

I had the same decision to make as you.
I ended up buying the Radeon 9000 and I am very pleased with the graphic display. The games (Especially Battlefield 1942) run excellent and it produces very sharp and clear images and motion is very smooth. The 9000 was half the price of the 9600 I was originally going to buy. The 9000 does not support the TrueForm but I think it is a very big improvement over the Radeon 7500 I had before.

"Wayne Youngman" wrote:

Hi,

I have been a NVIDIA user the past 4 years (since TNT-2Ultra) and have followed very closely everything NVIDIA (and INTEL), however the past few months I have been swatting up on ATI and their Radeon Family of GPU. Most of the stuff I have read about is the 9500/9500Pro, 9700/9700Pro and 9800Pro. After digesting this information I had my heart set on getting a 9500Pro or 9700 128Mb card, but I have noticed my suppliers in the U.K are offering allot of good value cards based on the 9000, 9100 and 9200 GPUs, and heck I have to admit it I am getting a bit confused. . . .

The new system I am planning to build will be based on a Barton 2500+, NForce2 Ultra 400, and 512MB PC3500/PC3700, so now I am trying to work out which Radeon I can pick up cheaply, Currently my top-end choice would be

a

*Atlantis 9700 128MB DDR AGP 8x* (�175) but the more I think about it, it seems like this is too much money to spend especially when my supplier also is selling the *Atlantis 9100 128MB DDR AGP 4x* (�58.41), and newer cards from ATI are just a couple of months away

Now what I am thinking is if I was to buy the 9100 (or other?) today (vs.
9700) I would be saving �116.59, that's allot! then maybe I could put this money towards a new graphics card in 3-6 months time and pop the used Radeon into my old PIII system. I do play allot of games but none of them are really FPS games. . my fave is NeverWinterNights. .My current card is an

old

GeForce256 DDR 32MB (150Mhz core/300Mhz DDR) (PIII 550E) and games still look good to me using this, so I am sure I will see a great improvement using one of the Radeons

Which is the better sub �100 Radeon GPU plz, 9000 - 9100 - 9200? I think DX9, AGP x8 and more than 128MB are almost superfluous to my needs now, DX8 and AGP 4x should be ample (I think?), Also I use a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro (CRT) and generally play games in 1024x768

I spent more time researching this graphics card stuff than any other component in the system

Thanks for any advice u guys may have,

Wayne ][

 

[Wayne Youngman]

RonK wrote:

I had the same decision to make as you.
I ended up buying the Radeon 9000 and I am very pleased with the graphic display. The games (Especially Battlefield 1942) run excellent and it produces very sharp and clear images and motion is very smooth. The 9000 was half the price of the 9600 I was originally going to buy. The 9000 does not support the TrueForm but I think it is a very big improvement over the Radeon 7500 I had before.

Hi,

oops! of course this was meant to be posted to the ATI newsgroup. . .DOH! thanks for your reply anyway. . .

Wayne ][