Upgrading from one Radeon to another...

[mal]

I'm upgrading from a Radeon 9600 to an x800 pro. Yeah, a bit of a step up.

Anyway, will the already installed Catalyst drivers be OK as they are, or should I uninstall and reinstall them as I change over cards?

 

[tsumake]

I should think so. The Catalyst drivers are supposed to work with at least nearly all non-mobile radeon cards. But really, to be on the safe side, uninstall the driver, replace the card, then reinstall the driver with the new card. It will save you a lot of hassle.

 

[it290]

I'm sure they'll work okay, but I would reinstall anyway, because the installer might set certain registry keys and whatnot based on the type of card. I don't really think it's necessary to uninstall, though.

 

[mal]

It matters not either way.

I think I need a bigger power supply - the 380W unit I have doesn't seem to have enough grunt. I guess having 5 drives doesn't help. :/

 

[Edge-`]

I would uninstall the drivers, install your card and then reinstall the latest. When I upgraded from a Radeon to a Radeon, things initially seemed fine, but I had later issues (which might have just been specific to the version of the drivers), but just to be safe its not a bad idea .

 

[IceDigger]

Don't upgrade yet!!!!

In a couple months the new cards will be out!!!!

 

[mal]

Too late!

I got the x800 pro last week and when I finally got around to installing it, my PC wouldn't boot.

To make sure it wasn't DOA I put in another PC (same case, less drives) and it ran fine. *shrug*

 

[it290]

Damn, I can't believe it'd be sucking that much juice. Did you hook up the external power header?

 

[IceDigger]

Yea, your gonna need at least a 350+W power supply.

Also check your motherboard for bios updates.

 

[it290]

Guess I'm just used to my Shuttle's PS.. no power problems at all with that baby, although I do only have one hard drive and one optical drive hooked up.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

having recently upgraded from a 9700pro to a 256MB 9800pro (not that large a jump) I can honestly say, you should definetly uninstall the drivers. Whether you do it before or after you change cards, uninstall the drivers and then install new ones. I took a HUGE performance hit from keeping the same drivers. Another thing you may want to look into is running the omega drivers. They're 3rd party, do all the same stuff (and more), and are missing much of the bloat that the catalyst drivers have been adding the last several versions.

Edit: I run a 550 watt power supply, a good quality one (ttgi). I run a 9800pro, 2 opticals, 2 harddrives, 2 cpus, and something like 7 case fans (2 of which are used for cpu fans).

 

[it290]

I like the DNA drivers, personally.

 

[Malakai]

Yeah, I think 350 watt power supply isn't nearly enough for the radeon 9800. I have a radeon 9700 w/450 watt power supply, and I did have to make some initial changes, as some of the hard drives wouldn't power up correctly and such. Of course, I'm using a server case, with like 5 case fans, a window/light mod, 3 hard drives, floppy, 1 cd-rom/writer, 1 dvd-rom/writer, as well as some other various usb and pci devices.

When I unhooked the light mod and 1 fan, and took out the tv tuner, it gave me just enough juice to run the video card with no problems. Best bet is to get about a 700 watt one, and you'll have a bit of upgradability left on the PC. Otherwise, you might be limited to what you can add, as far as fans, pci cards, more drives, etc.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

As long as you go with a good brand, 500ish watts is way more than enough. Most of the non good brand ones (anything below atleast antec quality) typically can't handle their rating for any significant amount of time. I'm also running a couple cold cathodes on occasion in my pc with no side effects. It's better I think to put the extra power supply money into a good brand, rather than into something that says it's "700 watts".

 

[it290]

I agree. I've had cheap supplies die on me before several times. Stable voltage and reliability are the most important, IMO.