Aqua-Soft ForumsIf I wanted to purchase a radeon 9800 pro 128/256 when is the best time to purchase it? I hear rumors of price drops in like 3 months? Is it true? Thanks.
BTW: Will a Radeon 9800 pro be good enough for DOOM 3 or Half Life 2?
Best Time To Get A Radeon 9800 Pro?
depends on what you call good enough.
just wait till mid sept, believe me prices will drop 
ati has a new card coming out soon, might not be better than the radeon 9800 but it will be much cheaper and will run hl2 on very high no prob just wait, and screw nvidia 
i'd just get the 9700 pro, and use the hacked drivers, this is what i did, and it works great!! the 9700 pro and 9800 pro are identical hardware wise, it's just the software that makes the 9800 pro (or at least this is what i've heard...) if you want to talk to a real expert about this, contact mageguru, he's the one who told me about it 
not exactly the same, because you can clock one much higher, (Y)
Id get a Radeon 9500Pro. Your losing minimal performace (15-20%) and paying HUNDREDS less.
Then you can spend that money on the games.
*agrees with Contrasutra*
Valve used a 9800 pro to show off hl 2 at the games expo where it was unveiled = yes it will do the job very nicely indeed.
I think the 9500 would be just as good though... imagine if it wasn't... the game is coming out in 2 months and 90% of pc gamers don't have a good enough gfx card for it - unlikely i feel
-fissy
Actually, most recent cards will do. Because Half Life 2 wont work with Anti aliasing, and thats what these newer cards are really good at. So with that out of the way, you're requirements will be much less.
Doom 3 on the other hand... 
Originally posted by contrasutra@Jul 28 2003, 01:10 AMActually, most recent cards will do. Because Half Life 2 wont work with Anti aliasing
How on earth did they get it looking so nice?
I've played doom 3 alpha on a 9000 pro and it was 2 frames a second sort of speed when there was a monster in your view - not nice. to be fair though, the actual software will be released about 18 months after that alpha.
and yes it looked amazing
It looked so nice because they were showing it on a regular TV. The extremely low resolution of a TV masks any problems HL2 would have.
i've got a 500 MB quictime video of the whole demonstration and it looks to me more like a vga feed from the computer
[edit]have you not seen the screenshots?
The movie is compressed anyway, so you're not seeing how good(bad) it looks.
Same thing with the screenshots. I don't think they're TIFFs.
compression artefacts would only make it look worse though...
That means it looks even better than i thought
Dont get a 9800 Pro - wait for the value line of the next batch of ATI cards. Unless you can get lucky and find a Radeon 9700 Pro for $150, like I did, then jump on that.
HL2 looks f*cking SWEET! The walkthrough demo of the games new abilities made me wet my pants.
Doom ]|[ alpha leak was fun, but just doesn't reflect how the game is going to run. Id says an x86 processor around a 1.7ghz rating will do just fine for the 2004 release. By then you can pick up CPU's of that rating for about $30. Heck, you can already get AthlonXP 2000+ for about $50.