Would a new video card be worth it?

[Hi Ho]

I'm in upgrade mode right now. While I want to build a new top of the line PC thise year I want this one to cut it for the time being. Right now I have a Gainward GeForce 4 Ti 4800se. I can play games like Far Cry Demo, Doom III Demo, Half Life 2, etc. on the highest settings at reasonable framerates. However, I know I'm missing eye candy when it comes to shaders and water effects. Would it be worth it to upgrade to something like a 9600 XT? I play Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising a lot and I don't get very good frame rates (10-15fps) even though it's a DX8 game. That doesn't make much sense to me. The thing that has me worried is the fact that the Ti 4600 (same as the 4800se) outperforms the 9600 XT in several tests in Toms AGP Charts IV. Even then, would it still be worth $120? I'm also thinking about upgrading my CPU (details HERE.

[kram 2.0]

You've probably seen the images comparing the DirectX8.1 and DirectX9 pictures and in Half Life 2, they make a substantial difference. While the GeForce4 Ti can still hold its ground, HL2 graphics quality is somewhat compromised due to sheer age.

As for upgrading from a GF4Ti card to a R9600XT, I personally do not see much merit to it unless you intend to make this build geared soley towards HL2. I don't know how willing you are but I was able to dig up a ATI Radeon 9500 Pro which would be the better canidate for what you're looking at - the only problem is its a refurb.

kram

[Hi Ho]

After looking around more at video card performance charts it seems the only option that would give me a substantial increase in performance, especially in Joint Ops, would be to upgrade to at least a 9800 Pro. I'm not sure if I want to spend that much. I do want to play those games at their best though. Decisions desicions... If I build my dream machine it will have a 6800 GT, possibly SLI. That would be an increase. Maybe it would be worth upgrading this one so it can keep up in newer games while playing over LAN. My motherboard also has only a 4x AGP slot. How much would that inhibit performance? Would it even be noticable?

[Darth Revan]

I was looking around and coulsn't find out much but I did find this link to ATIs site. It might help. ATI It says the 9800 would work in 4x and I am guessing that if there is a difference it wouldn't be noticable.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Darth Revan I was looking around and coulsn't find out much but I did find this link to ATIs site. It might help. ATI It says the 9800 would work in 4x and I am guessing that if there is a difference it wouldn't be noticable.

It will work, given that you don't use a Sapphire made Radeon 9800 Pro (check specifications on Newegg), but you would be bottlenecking the performance just slightly. I believe we're seeing the full use of 4X with the release of Half Life 2 - you might consider sticking with the GeForce4 Ti, Hi Ho, until you can do a full system upgrade. The GF4Ti can still hold its ground against many ATI cards and almost all FX series cards.

kram

[fedz]

There have been several comparisons over the time, and it has been proved that the bottleneck with AGP 4x is negligible. The 9800 will run really well, and you'll be able to use that eye candy

fedz