Video card upgrade question. ATI: x600 vs 9700

[Inchworm]

Someone else upgraded their 9700 and offered it to me.

I rarely play online games any more, but when I do I take what I can get. Up until about 6-7 months ago the x600 gave me 40-60 fps on World of Warcraft. Lately it has gotten very choppy and sometimes 3-10 fps (which makes play basically worthless). I assume it is due to new content and Blizzard utilizing the capabilities of cards now available.

Do you think a 9700 would make much of a difference?

By the way... I know I can buy something fairly cheap that out performs them both, but since I'm fairly broke and just want to play games better I can't justify a new purchase.

Thanks in advance

:hi:

[RoyGBiv]

1. The 9700 is a downgrade ...

At least, if we're talking about the card I'm thinking of, one of the old AGP 8x slot designs?

The 9700 was a high end card when the 9500 was the budget card, but the 9600 and 9800 proved to be more popular, IIRC. My old 9600XT is in an old machine I built, and it hit its maximum usefulness with Sims 2. It ran it okay, IOW, but it can't keep up with modern games.

The x600 is very low-end today, but it's a PCI-Express card, which has double the bandwidth of the AGP standard. It also has a higher core clock speed.

Your perception of your problem is likely correct, but exchanging those cards probably isn't going to help you.

All that said, I *could* be wrong. When ATIs x#### series first got started, some of these cards did compare fairly well with the older technologies. They did too much all at once and failed to perfect any of it. So, the x600 may be one of those cases.

I wonder, though, if you even have an AGP slot on your motherboard that would allow you to use this. They were made (I had one at one time), but most mobos with the PCI-Express slot didn't have an AGP slot.

[Inchworm]

2. Thanks!

I suspected this was the case. Bigger numbers do not always equal better.

I guess I need to start exploring what is out there that is in my price range.

Thanks RoyGBiv.

:yourock: