9700 vs 9800

[vega]

I'm currently building a games pc for a friend, he's on a tight budget but has stipulated that the radeon gfx card must be FAST but must not exceed £120, which rules the 9200 and the 9600, both being budget models.
The problem is that I've come across retailers selling the 9800 pro for around £150-£160 which is a little over my friends budget, but I have also seen retailers on ebay selling the 9700 from £100 to £110 which is well within his budget - what I'd like to know is, is there a SIGNIFICANT difference in performance between the 9700 pro and the 9800 pro?

 

[snowman]

from what i have heard i dont think there is a huge difference, try searching for some benchmarks, i think techspot did a review of some sort sometime.

 

[SornyPanafonic]

i think the difference is very little (i was planning on getting me the ATI AIW 9700pro before i got the 98 version) its a few mhz on the GPU (380 vs. 325) and the memory (680 vs. 620) - the 9700 uses the r300 while the 9800 uses the r320. i think both use the samsung memory chips. a few things to think about (i did) is support from ati and the 'used' factor vs. new. also the 9800s might support more technical crap, but money is money...



edit - you could in theory up the mhz and voltage to make the 9700 into the 9800. but thats tricky and dangerous

 

[MattG]

We ran some tests with this system setup:

AMDXP2600
512MB 333mhz Geil
120GB 8mb MAxtor
Radeon 9700 Pro
Catalyst 3.5 Driver
MSI KT600 Motherboard

(rest doesnt matter)

On 3dmark 2001SE it scored about 14,000~ (little higher, exact numbers not available right now - too lazy to look em up )

Other system

AMDxp2600
MSI K7N2
512mb 400Mhz Corsair
40gb Maxtor
Radeon 9800 ( NOT the pro edition)
Catalyst 3.5 Driver

3dMark2001SE Score: 15,500

So the Pro would score even higher than that, maybe around 16000 or higher.

So this leaves you with what?

For the buck...the 9800 isnt worth it (however the Pro might be) but where you are on a budget, the 9700 Pro would suit you just fine.

 

[vega]

Thanks for the info people, the guy I'm building the system for would love to pick up a 9800 but he's literally counting the pennies so is'nt in a position to go the extra £30+ , what he worries about is that once he gets his 9700 powered system, in later life, he'll be fretting that his system could be going that much faster IF he'd invested the extra cash into a 9800.
I'm building his system so that when THOSE two, much talked about titles finally make an appearance (you know what titles I mean!), his system'll be able to handle those gfx hungry babies.
System specs are - amd 2400, asus a7n8x-x, 512 meg 333, ati 9700, santa cruz audio card.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

If he gets the 9800, it will be faster than the 9700, but not by a lot.

The general consensus when the 9800 was released was that if you had a 9700 it wasn't worth upgrading to. And I'm sure this still holds true.

The 9700 should be able to perform quite OK in the two games you're thinking about, so I wouldn't really worry about it.

I don't plan to upgrade my 9700pro in a while, and I'm too waiting for those games and has a very similar rig.
(See profile)

Conclusion, save the money and buy the 9700

 

[Th3M1ghtyD8]

Alternatively the Hercules AIW 9800SE is around £130 and the reports are that most of these cards can be soft-modded into a full 9800, and then overclocked to 9800Pro speeds.

Don't be tempted to buy a normal 9800SE though, most have an I shape memory layout which can't be modded, the AIW versions have the required L shape layout, and the hercules version features better spec ram, which aids in reaching 9800pro+ performance

 

[Ayasha]

.

Save the extra 30 quid I'd say. The performance difference between the two isn't great. But one of the enhancements to the 9800 Pro core was to increase the number of PS instructions that can be used at once. The difference was quite substancial though the actual numbers escape me at the moment. But given that games are becoming more PS dependant over time I believe it would be worth the investment.

 

[vega]

I've just come across Micro Direct selling the 9800 pro for £129 inc vat - at this great price, I urged my friend to take advantage of this and buy the card which he's now done even though it is above his budget (with much grumbling about how the hell is he gonna pay the rent??!!) - I know he wont regret it.
Again, thanks for the help people.

 

[LNCPapa]

He'll love it - especially if he gets used to AA being on. The AA algorithms are supposedly much more efficient on the 9800 Pro.