Moving to X850xt...

[ls25 0]

Hey all,I have a semi-acceptable system, I guess. I have an x800xt, AIW (bah, I hate the AIW mess) already on board, but I have removed it & gone back to a 9800Pro for the time being. The reasoning is not due to problems, but rather I am wanting an x850xt Pro (no AIW), and I gave the old my my brother & sister in law for them to use, & allow the children to use.Anyways, what is the general concensus on the x850xt Pro? I would go AGP, as I am not worried about a future upgrade to PCI-e, as I will completely rebuild this system in 2-3yrs without a doubt, if not sooner. I am not too worried about frame rate issues, as I seem to do well with even the old 9800 Pro(128 lol), and 2GB of RAM, on a 3.4Without rambling too much, I am just curious about the thoughts on possible benefits to my system, as I am just a little concerned about FPS, but mostly I want to improve image quality substantially. My system spec's are below.Thanks for any opinions, as I am just undecided, where I usually am pretty comfortable with my own decisions.

[Guest Edwin]

Hi Larry,Not to be picky but there is no such card as the X850XT Pro. There is the top-of-the-line X850XT PE (PE stands for Platinum Edition) and there is the X850XT (i.e. non-Platinum Edition) and then there's the X800Pro.As for your question, I have heard that FS9 doesn't scale that much with new graphics cards. My *guess* would be that you might be able to up the AA and AF a bit with an X850XT PE (or any other variant mentioned above) but I doubt there would be much FPS difference nor significant differences in image quality per se (save for the improvements from AA and AF).As mentioned on my previous posts, if I were you, I wouldn't make the graphics card upgrade now. I'd either hold off for a bit (since you are already using the top-of-the-line CPU for your motherboard) or take the plunge and upgrade CPU (AMD Athlon64!), motherboard (NVIDIA nForce4 SLI!) and graphics card (NVIDIA 7800GTX!) all at the same time.Incidentally, as a complete aside, isn't the 9800 Pro just an amazing card? I bought mine just over two years ago (right when it was released) and it still does well in new games like Half-Life 2 @ 1600x1200! Obviously, performance would be even better with new cards (like the new 7800GTX from NVIDIA!) but I find HL2 still very playable on the 9800 Pro. In these days of ever-increasing hardware power and software demands, I find it just amazing that a graphics card can last this long and not feel too outdated.Edwin

[ls25 0]

Edwin, Thanks for the reply. And, yes, sorry... I meant the Plat Edition, but that is what happens when you post when about to fall asleep & trying to get it out before you fall asleep.I will think about it a bit longer & see what I decide. And YES! The 9800 Pro is an amazing card. I too purchased it not long after release & have had it since then, except for a few days with the x800 AIW. I still get great frame rates on the newest games as well.:)