Powercolor Radeon AIW9800SE

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slip

Hi

I'm looking to purchase a graphics card for a system which has an
Athlon 1800 cpu with a GA-7N400-L mobo.

I'm looking to play games such as Medal of Honour.

Since I don't play games as much as I used to I'm now looking to get
something around the £100 mark but will consider spending a little
more if the card is worth it.

I've been looking at reviews and prices and found that the PowerColor
Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800SE 128Mb at around £140 may be a contender
but I would like other people's opinions.

Is the AIW9800SE a good buy or would I be better off with something
else?

Thanks

Duds
 
" Is the AIW9800SE a good buy or would I be better off with something else?
"


The All-In-Wonder cards have TV tuners in them, which you may not feel the
need for. You can get a much better gaming card if you forget the
All-In-Wonder altogether. A Radeon 9800 Pro can be had for less than £140
( http://snipurl.com/b5t0 ), and that blows the 9800SE out of the water.

The following articles compare the performance of various cards:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/over2k4/index.html

You're currently running a 266FSB 1800+ on a motherboard that supports
400FSB Athlon XPs. If you are willing to spend £140, then you might be
better off upgrading the CPU and getting something slightly slower than a
Radeon 9800 Pro. You said yourself that you don't play games that often, so
a faster CPU might benefit you more in the long run.

You didn't state the rest of your system, in particular the speed and amount
of RAM you have. If you have PC2700 or above, you can opt for a 333FSB
Athlon XP. If you have PC3200 or above, you can opt for a 400FSB Athlon XP.
A combination of the following is easily possible for your money.

1) Get one of the following cards:
GeForce FX5700LE 128MB http://snipurl.com/b5u5
GeForce FX5700 128MB http://snipurl.com/b5ug
GeForce FX5900XT 128MB http://snipurl.com/b5uq
Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB http://snipurl.com/b5tw
Radeon 9600XT 128MB http://snipurl.com/b5uj
Radeon 9800SE 128MB http://snipurl.com/b5tr

2) Get a faster Athlon XP (if you have PC2700 or above):
2600+ http://snipurl.com/b5vj , http://snipurl.com/b5vi
2700+ http://snipurl.com/b5v9
2800+ http://snipurl.com/b5uy , http://snipurl.com/b5v2 ,
http://snipurl.com/b5v4

3) Sell your XP 1800+ at www.ebay.co.uk to re-coup some cash
 
Hi

I'm looking to purchase a graphics card for a system which has an
Athlon 1800 cpu with a GA-7N400-L mobo.

I'm looking to play games such as Medal of Honour.

Since I don't play games as much as I used to I'm now looking to get
something around the £100 mark but will consider spending a little
more if the card is worth it.

I've been looking at reviews and prices and found that the PowerColor
Radeon All-In-Wonder 9800SE 128Mb at around £140 may be a contender
but I would like other people's opinions.

Is the AIW9800SE a good buy or would I be better off with something
else?

Thanks

Duds
Click to expand...

The 9600XT-9800 are good suggestions - avoid the SE versions cause
they tend to be wimpy unless you can get it a really good price and
some have success at unlocking the pipes so its more like a 9800 at a
cheaper price but thats not guaranteed.

I had the 9800 but recently sold it cause I think the 6800s are a
pretty good deal now. The 6800GT and Ultra of course are red hot cards
but they sell for ridiculous prices.

You can get the plain old 6800 which has some pipes diasbled and is
clocked a bit lower than the 6800GT and Ultra. If you get the 128 meg
versions instead of the 256 meg versions the price Ive seen in the US
has started to come down to alomost reasonable.

I think the hot card could be the 128 meg 6800 GT when it hits $200
which has all the pipes and speed but just lacks the bigger memory -
no big deal. But for now you can get a 6800 with 128 megs which is
still quite fast , though a bit slower --- where it really lags is in
the really high resolution settings 1600x1200 with all the goodies on
because of the disabled pipes etc. However you can unlock the pipes
and hopefully not get artifacts if you are lucky and even overclock it
a bit to get an overall performance boost . The 6800 GTs Ultras have
16 pipes if I recall correctly and the 6800 has 4 of them disabled -
so it has 12. The 9800 ATI series has 8 pipes and the 9600 etc if I
recall correctly has 4 pipes.

I just got one of these during the black friday sale in the US for
$199 and have unlocked the pipes easily with Rivatuner. Im not
bothering with overclocking it though , its fast enough for me.
 
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