if it is between just those two cards get the X800
I went from 9700pro to a X800 pro a wile back and there was a lot of
difference in performance, but now I got a Nvidia evga 7800 superclock
and it blows the X800pro away
I also went from a 9700 Pro to an X800XT-PE which I'm still running. The
difference between the X800 and 9700pro is night and day. I had to turn
down the settings on the 9700 Pro pretty far in order to play FarCry and
it *still* had performance issues. Ran smooth as silk with max settings
on the X800, though. I was able to play HL2 with *most* settings maxed
and no AA or AF but still had a lot of stuttering sometimes.
With the X800XT-PE, I can play HL2 and SiN with max settings, 1600x1200
(native for my LCD), and max AA and max AF and it plays perfectly smooth.
It does struggle if I try to turn on bloom or HDR in Lost Coast or HL2
Episode 1. It's playable (fps probably in the 20s), but not enjoyable,
so I leave it off.
Probably this card has spent most of its life playing BF2. Able to play
1600x1200, max settings, 2x AA, & max AF and I get about 45-50fps.
Occasionally, for no good reason, my fps in BF2 takes a permanent
nosedive into the teens and the only way to fix it is to exit and restart
the game. Have never figured that one out.
The card *is* showing its age sometimes, though... had to make serious
video setting compromises in Q4, FEAR, and COD2. And I which it was a
Shaders3 card so that I could have enabled the next-gen content of Tomb
Raider Legend.
My CPU is an AMD FX-53, btw.