Should I upgrade to a Radeon 9700 Pro?

[LiquidX]

I guess I am being follower:


I have the Ti4200 and man does it look good. I dont know if I just because I have some high specs on my system all around or what. But this card all most never stutters and I play all my games at resolutions over 1200 MOHHA/Spearhead, Unreal 2k3, WOLF.

Basically I want to know if the 9700Pro will blow it out, I have read all the reviews but seeing these games running on my Ti4200 I just cant imagine it. Yes I dont turn on AA but its still crisp.

As anyone who upgraded from Ti4200-6 to a 9700 seen a big improvement? Should I even consider it. This card even ran Doom3 Alpha farely well. If you have The 9700 and can post a pick that would be great. This issue shouldnt be but is really bothering me.

Any input is welcome

[Shinri Hikari]

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6992

This should help....:)

[PreservedSwine]

Personally, I wouldn't upgrade from a GF4Ti4600 to an R9700, unless I was just a haredware NUT, maybe you are:)

But I certainly wouldn't go just by one persons experience, either. Here's another thread at Rage3D where someone asked the exact same question.

"Any x-Ti4600 owner impressed by its Radeon 9700 Pro? "

Here's the Link (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33662476)

:)

[lagadu]

PreservedSwine, he has a 4200, not a 4600 :)
but i agree, i'm not rich so i wouldn't go from a 4600 to a 9700 as i don't buy two cards in less than one year, having a 9700 now(ever since september) i'm only planning to upgrade again in maybe 10 months or so, to the R400 or maybe NV40 if it's early than expected...
but i'd go from a 4200 to a 9700 (or even 9500pro) for sure, it's an entirely different league.

[StealthHawk]

if you want to play at high resolutions and use AF/FSAA then upgrade to the r9700.

if you don't care about that stuff at high resolution, or don't care about it in general, then your gf4 is fine.

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by lagadu
PreservedSwine, he has a 4200, not a 4600 :)


*rubs eyes*

How did I miss that??:crosseye:

Anyway, I've seen many users from Overclockers.com who switched from a Geforce4TI series to ATI, and they are, quite frankly, blown away. I think there's a great number of folks making the switch from Nvidia to ATI right now, as ATI seems to have the better product for less money, or just the better product for more money, depending on what your needs are.

I wouls suggest visiting an impartial site like overclockers.com (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/) and asking the same question:)

[CherryPopper]

You may be interestyed in taking a peek at this thread:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6910

This guy went from a TI 4600 to an R300. He seems pretty happy to me...:)

[Gator]

I'm surprised some people are blown away. I mean obviously the R9700 has more features and DX9, but in benchmarks like 3dmark it's only marginally faster than TI4600, often about 11% I think.

If you told me TI4200 (stock speed) to R9700 was killer, I'd agree completely. But TI4600 is nothing to snear at, I'm really surprised the R9700 is THAT different & better

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Gator
I'm surprised some people are blown away. I mean obviously the R9700 has more features and DX9, but in benchmarks like 3dmark it's only marginally faster than TI4600, often about 11% I think.

If you told me TI4200 (stock speed) to R9700 was killer, I'd agree completely. But TI4600 is nothing to snear at, I'm really surprised the R9700 is THAT different & better

for IQ and AA + FSAA and what not in games... you are not going to beat the 9700pro...

if you sell the 4600 and put in a few extra dollars and buy the 9700pro... for me that is a very good deal...

also to those who say the 9700pro is NOT a big upgrade? well the gf FX is listed as being 2.5 better than the 4600 and the 9700pro holds up pretty well to THAT card... hence you can make your own judgements :)

[creedamd]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
if you want to play at high resolutions and use AF/FSAA then upgrade to the r9700.

if you don't care about that stuff at high resolution, or don't care about it in general, then your gf4 is fine.

My thoughts exactly.

[SnakeEyes]

It's mainly the AA + aniso in UT2003 that has convinced me to get the 9700Pro. I was waiting to see what the GF-FX was going to be like, and now that it has, I've concluded (for now, at least):

1) The GF-FX is generally faster with no AA / no aniso than the R9700Pro, but not by a large margin.
2) Turning on AA / aniso for both, the 9700 is usually faster. (with BOTH on)
3) The IQ of the 9700 with both on is better than the GF-FX IQ. This was what made up my mind, btw.
4) The 9700 Pro is quieter.

I expect the GF-FX performance to be improved to the point that it is beating the 9700Pro in all situations as drivers mature for it, but the IQ issues are mainly hardware, so I don't see those fixing anything. Also, since I tend to upgrade once a year, my next upgrade should have me choosing between the nV30/r400 based products from both companies, and in the meantime the 9700Pro should be fine to tide me over.

Forgot to mention, along with the 9700 I'm doing a motherboard / memory / processor upgrade too. Since the minimum framerates in UT2003 are primarily processor dependent (check the reported framerates comparing the Ti4600 noAA / noaniso and the 9700Pro noAA/noaniso out for botmatch benchmarks to see what I mean), the processor upgrade is definitely needed to boost the minimums. The 4600 was more than capable of keeping up with the processor without the extra IQ features enabled (and hence, also with the 9700), but I was waiting for the GF-FX to come out (and also to see how the 9700 hardware / drivers would mature) before looking for a product to let me ramp up AA / aniso settings without taking a hit to those minimums. My GF4 doesn't do that, so it had to be one of these two, and right now the 9700 is winning in those conditions, while still providing (imo) superior IQ.

Next time around may be different though (I won't hesitate to go back to nVidia if they get the IQ and noise issues down w/nV40 while still keeping the performance similar to the the R400).

[Hellbinder]

Everyone has their own experience and story to tell. I upgraded from an MSI GF4 Ti 4200 To a 9700pro

Myself, I dont have any wierd texture issues... I dont play Morrowwind, or mafia so i have never been exposed to some of the issues people may have there.

ATi did/does know about the Stuttering issue that affects *some* systems. The Cat 3.0a's Addressed 90% of that. The upcomming driver release, i am told, should completely Axe the rest of the issue. Meanning that most of the stuttering issues left after the Cat 3.0a's are faint little stutters here and there, and do not affect everyone.

My personal experience has been a Very successful one. I have never had any major game, or stuttering issues. I did get a stutter issue in BF 1942 right after I did a Format/reinstall of WinXP last weekend. I reinstalled DX9 over top the drivers and it went away. Currently I am paying BF1942 at 1024x768 with high detail settings and 6x FSAA+16x perf AF and it is a WONDER to play and behold. Simply stunning quality and speed.

I have never had any wierd texture poping issues at any time OTHER than when i overclocked to far. Then yes you might see the occasional texture popping. But not under normal operation, or even my current overclock of 351/344

[Smokey]

Originally posted by LiquidX
I guess I am being follower:


I have the Ti4200 and man does it look good. I dont know if I just because I have some high specs on my system all around or what. But this card all most never stutters and I play all my games at resolutions over 1200 MOHHA/Spearhead, Unreal 2k3, WOLF.

Basically I want to know if the 9700Pro will blow it out, I have read all the reviews but seeing these games running on my Ti4200 I just cant imagine it. Yes I dont turn on AA but its still crisp.

As anyone who upgraded from Ti4200-6 to a 9700 seen a big improvement? Should I even consider it. This card even ran Doom3 Alpha farely well. If you have The 9700 and can post a pick that would be great. This issue shouldnt be but is really bothering me.

Any input is welcome

As we dont know the rest of your system specs, Im going to post a link. Your video card will scale quite well with a faster cpu (asuming you dont have an XP2700+ or P4 3Ghz) Going with a faster cpu, you could keep your card longer, maybe look at a new card at the end of the year? Anyways take a look at this (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html)