Advice on some video cards please...

[odie812]

Let me introduce myself, aka my system...

Antec Sonata w/ 380watt True BLue PSU
Athlon XP 3000 400fsb
A7N8X-X 2.0
1 gb pc3200 Corsair xms
160 GB Seagate sata raid O
20gb western digital IDE (for windows/drivers)
Powercolor Radeon 9600 pro (480/744)


ok ok ok... now...

I have no real problems with my system except that I'm starting to feel like my system, namely the video card, is working pretty hard to run games, and is struggling. I've noticed also that prices have dropped for the 9700pro/9800pro quite a bit, and even options like the 9600xt/9800xt (though the latter is pricey) are looking promising. I'm not even going to touch crappy nVidia, but do you think it's worth my money to go for the radeon 9800 pro? will it last me at least a year with all of these new games coming out?

I have a moderately tight budget... a friend of mine said he would buy my 9600 pro for $100, so that's a start. I may have to spend the christmas funds otherwise.

I'm just confused

please advise me if you would..

thanks,

odie

[Force Flow]

What do you usually do that stresses out your present card?

[odie812]

Force Flow...

I'm not sure I "do" anything, but just that I run most of my games, i.e. lately Max Payne 2, Need for Speed Underground, Lord of the Rings... with high detail settings at 1280x1024. I use Omega's drivers, which help a bit, but there must be something out there that will allow me to run these games flawlessly. Shouldn't there be?

I've had recommendations to 1.) buy a 9800 Pro (or XT), or 2.) buy a 9700 pro and wait for the 9900's to come out. Any thoughts? Would I really receive a siginificant boost in, oh say, 3dmark with these cards?

One last thing, what's a hot place to buy cards these days? any good deals going on?

[Force Flow]

Having a lot of programs running in the background sometimes slows down a game.

I've been toying with the settings on Halo, and been finding that no matter how low I have the settings and no matter who's computer it is played on, certain areas are *always* slow.

From what I've heard, the best video card on the market now is the 9800XT. I'm guessing that if you get that, you probably won't need to upgrate for possibly 1-3 years to be able to run future games.

I don't put much stock in benchmarking; I just look at real-world performance.

The 9700 pro is a highly recommended card on these boards and runs games really well. Frankly, it's up to you what you ultimately want to spend.

googlegear.com and newegg.com are two good places that deal in parts.

Prices on some of the cards went up this past friday on newegg.com, so I would wait until after christmas when prices should be down again. Again, that's up to you when to get the card.

I'm sure other members here could give you something better to go with to choose one card over the other or to keep the one you have.