Choosing a Medium End Graphics Card?

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StealthyFish

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 2, 2005
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Hey, So I've been posting around about my GTO2 and I am sending it back to newegg for a refund. What should I get? Looking at my GTO2 and how it was refurb and screwed up, this time I don't want a refurb. I've got 2 choices picked out, if you guys have something in the 100-129 (129 is my max, up 5 with rebate is fine). If you guys can give me some input and help me choose a card, that'd be great. Here are my choices:

PowerColor X800GTO 256Mb GDDR3

Or...

XFX 6800 Xtreme 256Mb GDDR3

X800 series doesn't have SM3 like the 6 series of Nvidia does, I know that. I dunno what would be better. Overclocking is a factor in the decision, so if one card can overclock//unlock//volt mod easier//better than the other, that would be taken into consideration.

Thanks guys
 
I'm going to go with the GTO considering its a 12 pipe card, and possible unlocking ability. This same debate is going on the 'x850xt or 6800gs' thread. I think the raw power/FPS potential of the GTO is the better choice. Were you running AGP or PCI-e?
 
PCIe. I kinda skipped over AGP and everything (pretty much from p1 and w/e socket that was to LGA775). So PCI express
 
You have PCIe and you are using those as your choices for a Mid-Range card?

Wrong GPU era for midrange in my opinion.

I think you be better served with either of the following solutions (I like nVIDIA, but I'll also provide you an ATI selection as well).

Budget (around 100-120):

ATI:
X1600PRO (MSI) $104 (also lower after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127201

nVIDIA:
7600GS (eVGA) $109 (also lower after rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130020


Mid-Range ($150 - 200)

ATI
X1800GTO (Sapphire) $185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102021

nVIDIA:
7600GT (eVGA) $169.00 (Almost $130 with rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130017

Earlier generation for a new PCIe purchase just doesn't make since right now. All the products on this page, including low end will out perform the products you listed earlier and provide newer feature sets.

Make sure to check out the reviews as the 7600 series outperforms the perspective X1xxx series it's pared with in terms of FPS. Some find the visual quality of ATI to be better, where as others like myself prefer the quality of nVIDIA.

But the selections you offered didn't make since to me at this point in time.
 
StealthyFish said:
(129 is my max, up 5 with rebate is fine)
Click to expand...

The 7600GT with "rebate" is close to this, but clearly the 7600GS and the X1600Pro are both in your budget range.
 
yea, your definatly going to want a 7 series/X1K series card. the 6800XT is... meh.. if you can unlock it its not a bad card, but its small cooler, large process, not gonan work all the time.

the 7600/X1600 is what your looking for, as mentioned above.

shop around. the 7600GT KO is on for a pretty good price right now, and ocs pretty well.

also Nvidia has unofficially announced a 7900GS and 7600GTX. 7600GTX doesnt make sense to me, since the 7600GT is already starved for pipes. who knows. cant give you a very good estimate on either cards price. and the 7900GS has one shader disabled, and four pipes disabled? something like that. you can expect it to cost probibly about $230-$280

the 7600GS is just a lower clocked version of a 7600GT, so it has plenty of overclocking head room, with an active cooler.

the X1600 PRO and X1600 XT are a mere 90MHZ apart, and they use the same cooler, so its quite possible to get a card that can oc to XT levels. the X1600XT would perform somewhere between a 7600GS and 7600GT.
 
that doesn't make any sense because an X1600Pro doesn't perform very well. In fact, it runs worse than an X800GTO in gaming benchmarks (X1600s have high 3dmark 05 scores but incredibly lower FPS in games than an X800GTO). The 7600GS wasn't considered me either becuase the 7600GS's i found were GDDR2.Higher latencies and I haven't beat an X800GTO or the 6800Xtreme from XFX. both of the cards I chose were GDDR3 for higher RAM clocks atleast. 6800 Xtreme has about the same tech as the 7 series cards without the 90nm, but i'm fine without a certain manufacturering process. I'm thinking about a 7600GT, but I've gotta try to find enough to pull my budget up a little more (but i'm concerned about the small heatsink on the graphic card).
 
...your right, little searching, ATI musta been on crack when they made the X1600, its totally not meant for gamers.

if you want a cheap gaming graphics card from ATI, you want an X1800GTO, which can unlock pretty easy to an X1800XL.

i would still recomend the 7600GS, if you can just tape an 8cm fan onto that passive cooler, you could totally OC to 7600GT levels. Galaxy has a 7800GS with GDDR3, im pretty sure other vendors do too, shop around, you can find em.

but really the cheapist graphics cards for gaming are 7600GT and X1800GTO.

edit: oh duhh heres why the X800GTO is so cheap:

"DirectX Compliance: 9.0
PS Version: 2.0b
VS Version: 2.0"
 
i have a x800gto unlocked and overclocked 465/575 it goes higher but gets hot. i only have stock cooling. with a barton 2600 @2.15 i am impressed with it's performance for it's price. glad i didn't go for the x1600.

some cards dont unlock and some dont OC well. from what i read on the forums just have to get lucky with the right one and it is a steal.
 
The 7600 GS and x1600 Pro are the two cards in your price range. Of the two, the 7600 GS walks all over the x1600 Pro. You have to step up to the x1600 XT to beat the 7600 GS, and that costs quite a bit more.

See the HardOCP review for details

I love the 7800 GS because it proves to the world how CRAPPY the x1600 architecture is. The world used to blame the poor performance on the 128-bit memory bus, but now the 7600 GS sports the same memory configuration, and still performs well. The lack of extra texture, Z and ROP units REALLY holds the x1600 series back.
 
I couldn't find any vendor, let alone company, that produces 7600GS's with GDDR3. Essentially, that would just make the 7600GS an underclocked 7600GT (Except for galaxy's, but even then, i can't find anyone who is selling it in my price range, it's priced around an X1800GTO). I've been hearing a lot of good stuff about the HIS X1800GTO but I don't think I can get another 70 bucks to buy that card (it's 180 AFTER MIR, and i hate MIRs, only use them if i have to). If anyone can find a 7600GS with GDDR3 and placed in the 120 dollar range, that would be great. Anyone know a vendor that sells them?
 
An unlocked x800gto will spank the 7600gs and x1600. Hell, even with 12 pipes and oc'ed to relatively high speeds the x800gto will rape them. I vote for a x800gto or a 7600gt. If you're going to go with a 7600gs, keep in mind their cores do REALLY high speeds (7600gt+)) but are limited by the ram. Deffinately save up for a 7600gt.
 
yup, keepin my eye on that. I thinking 7600GT KO > 6800 Xterme > X800GTO as my level of preference from left to right. BTW, what does the 7600GT KO from eVGA get on 3dmark 05. i've see anything from 5800 to 6680 for 3dmark 05. what's with that?
 
eh, I'm guessing these cards are medium range. All these card performances are all jumbled due to SM3//SM2 and a bunch of other things. the older 6 series and X800 series really messes things up since some can compete while other parts of the series can't.
 
StealthyFish said:
that doesn't make any sense because an X1600Pro doesn't perform very well. In fact, it runs worse than an X800GTO in gaming benchmarks (X1600s have high 3dmark 05 scores but incredibly lower FPS in games than an X800GTO). The 7600GS wasn't considered me either becuase the 7600GS's i found were GDDR2.Higher latencies and I haven't beat an X800GTO or the 6800Xtreme from XFX. both of the cards I chose were GDDR3 for higher RAM clocks atleast. 6800 Xtreme has about the same tech as the 7 series cards without the 90nm, but i'm fine without a certain manufacturering process. I'm thinking about a 7600GT, but I've gotta try to find enough to pull my budget up a little more (but i'm concerned about the small heatsink on the graphic card).
Click to expand...

You should get 6800 xtreme because it has SM 3.0 over GTO.. FTW... :rolleyes:
 
StealthyFish said:
yup, keepin my eye on that. I thinking 7600GT KO > 6800 Xterme > X800GTO as my level of preference from left to right. BTW, what does the 7600GT KO from eVGA get on 3dmark 05. i've see anything from 5800 to 6680 for 3dmark 05. what's with that?
Click to expand...


and x800gto wil actually own the xfx 6800 xtreme. the xfx 6800 xtreme is at most as fast as a 6600gt, the x800gto is about on par with a 6800nu at stock speeds. Depending on what core you get on the gto you should be able to hit 550MHz or so, at that speed you will own a 6800gt.
 
Save up an extra 10-15 dollars if possible and get the 7600GT, from what I've seen, it's an incredible card for an incredible price.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
yea, your definatly going to want a 7 series/X1K series card. the 6800XT is... meh.. if you can unlock it its not a bad card, but its small cooler, large process, not gonan work all the time.

the 7600/X1600 is what your looking for, as mentioned above.

shop around. the 7600GT KO is on for a pretty good price right now, and ocs pretty well.

also Nvidia has unofficially announced a 7900GS and 7600GTX. 7600GTX doesnt make sense to me, since the 7600GT is already starved for pipes. who knows. cant give you a very good estimate on either cards price. and the 7900GS has one shader disabled, and four pipes disabled? something like that. you can expect it to cost probibly about $230-$280

the 7600GS is just a lower clocked version of a 7600GT, so it has plenty of overclocking head room, with an active cooler.

the X1600 PRO and X1600 XT are a mere 90MHZ apart, and they use the same cooler, so its quite possible to get a card that can oc to XT levels. the X1600XT would perform somewhere between a 7600GS and 7600GT.
Click to expand...

Are the 7900gs or 7600gtx AGP or PCI-e?

edit: nevermind <---
 
sabrewolf732 said:
and x800gto wil actually own the xfx 6800 xtreme. the xfx 6800 xtreme is at most as fast as a 6600gt, the x800gto is about on par with a 6800nu at stock speeds. Depending on what core you get on the gto you should be able to hit 550MHz or so, at that speed you will own a 6800gt.
Click to expand...

Actually 6800XT performs better than the 6600GT. Because it has 256bit memory bus... It's actually a 6800GS without the 4 pipes and lower clock rate.
 
why are we not opting for a 7600 or 7900 which are more overclockable and cheaper according to overall performance.Better architecture too.

also if its budget then 7600 is not that different to the 6800
 
O, i have another question. The 7600GT KO has a lot of DOAs from what I've heard, what's with Nvidia's 7 series? I've heard of a lot of problems with those cards/
 
i have a 7950 and that is probably the last card in that series and i can honestly say it is a nice card , it will eat any game and digest it ,so tell you the truth i dont really know what problems they have , not saying they dont have any problems either but i have really not experianced any.

There is one from nvidia side and that is that people overclock them too much.
 
well, tried my hardest to get some money, but I couldn't get anything much. My budget is now 129 after MIRs, so if there's anything that's 129 or less after MIR, i'd pick up the best thing out there. I'm thinkin the HIS X800GTO, what do you guys think about that card? the aftermarket HIS heatsink looks good for the R423/430/480
 
Marvelous said:
Actually 6800XT performs better than the 6600GT. Because it has 256bit memory bus... It's actually a 6800GS without the 4 pipes and lower clock rate.
Click to expand...

No, the 6800xt was pre 6800gs and it has 8 pipes. The 6800 performs on par with a 6600gt and runs away at higher settings, however the xt has 4 pipes less making the ram bandwidth null.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
No, the 6800xt was pre 6800gs and it has 8 pipes. The 6800 performs on par with a 6600gt and runs away at higher settings, however the xt has 4 pipes less making the ram bandwidth null.
Click to expand...

I read a review and it sait it had 350mhz. But I see that it has same clock as the 6800GS...

Only game 6800XT runs all over the 6600GT is Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.
 
the 6600GT and the 6800XT were, from what I've heard, on par with each other. But you guys have to realise that this isn't a normal 6800XT. normal 6800XTs have GDDR1 clocked from anywhere between 600-700. The 6800XTreme from XFX comes with GDDR3 clocked at 1000. It has 8 pipes and the same clocks as a 6600GT. I'm not very sure what's different once that I think about it, EXCEPT 256 bit over 128 bit. It might make the 6800 Xtreme better. Btw, so I'm looking at that X800GTO from HIS compared to the XFX 6800Xtreme. Does the 6800Xtreme allow for bios volt modding as the 6800GS does? or do you have to hardmod like the X800s?
 
StealthyFish said:
the 6600GT and the 6800XT were, from what I've heard, on par with each other. But you guys have to realise that this isn't a normal 6800XT. normal 6800XTs have GDDR1 clocked from anywhere between 600-700. The 6800XTreme from XFX comes with GDDR3 clocked at 1000. It has 8 pipes and the same clocks as a 6600GT. I'm not very sure what's different once that I think about it, EXCEPT 256 bit over 128 bit. It might make the 6800 Xtreme better. Btw, so I'm looking at that X800GTO from HIS compared to the XFX 6800Xtreme. Does the 6800Xtreme allow for bios volt modding as the 6800GS does? or do you have to hardmod like the X800s?
Click to expand...

the 6600gt has imensely higher fillrate.
 
yea. i heard the 6600GT had upper hands over the 6800XT, but the 6800XT had more mem bandwidth. Anyway, is the 6800Xtreme from XFX volt moddable through a hex change?
 
through a hex value change or a hardware mod is what i'm wondering. the 6800GS is able to be flashed with a tweaked voltage in bios and be able to run at that voltage. I'm wondering if the 6800 Xtreme can do the same
 
In that price range, forget about SM 3.0 and go for the speed. Look for a used x800xt, x800xtpe, x850xt, or x580xtpe. The performance is equivalent to a 7600gt (ahead and behind in certain areas).

If you can cough up an extra $30-40, the 7600gt will get you SM 3.0.

Oh, and regarding the 7600GS with GDDR3, we can only hope that Galaxy starts to sell to the states :)
 
haha, yea. I've had a pretty bad experience with refurb cards now. Just one screwed up graphics card is enough to stop me from buyin refurb again (bought an X800GTO2 and it screwed up bad). I've heard X800GTOs with R480s (like the HIS X800GTO) are just faulty GPUs (meaning the 4 extra pipes that would make it an XL or XT//XTPE, are damaged, so they disable it). So should I get decide on an HIS X800GTO or an HIS X800XL? XL is 6 dollars more. worth 4 pipes or should i take a chance and see if those 4 extra pipes on the GTO aren't laser cut or screwed up?
 
posting: What's the BEST card (I prefer ATi for this, because I've got a 7900GT in my other system, and like to use both), for around $100. MAX budget is $110.
 
lol. sounds about what my question is. 110 on the spot would be the X800 GTO from Powercolor.. I'm tryin to figure out whether to get the 6800 Xtreme, Powercolor X800GTO, the HIS X800GTO, or the HIS X800XL. lol. all around 130 ish ( after MIRs)
 
StealthyFish said:
lol. sounds about what my question is. 110 on the spot would be the X800 GTO from Powercolor.. I'm tryin to figure out whether to get the 6800 Xtreme, Powercolor X800GTO, the HIS X800GTO, or the HIS X800XL. lol. all around 130 ish ( after MIRs)
Click to expand...

that's about what I'd figured, but I thought I'd ask. I'm used to playing in the top-end market... but this is for a secondary system.
 
I think I've made my decision on the graphic card. It will be the HIS X800XL from newegg for 161 + a 30 dollar MIR to make it 131 =D.
 
I may have found an x1800xt for $160 on ebay, going to try for that.
 
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