Upgrading advice from X800XTPE AGP

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AtomicFire

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 7, 2001
Messages
1,214
Currently I have an X800 XT PE - its served me very well as I only play these games often:

Oblivion
World of Warcraft
Counter-Strike: Source
gMod 10

Specifics of my rig are in my sig.

However, with the introduction of Bioshock and its requirements for Shader Model 3.0, my X800 can't really carry the weight anymore. I'm not looking to upgrade my rig to PCI-E so please don't tell me to do that. I'm looking for a powerful sub-$300 solution. I'm also not looking to go DX10 yet, that'll be my next rig. XP Pro + DX9 for me for now :)

Also, i'm a fan of ATI. Always have been, so i'm trying to keep nVidia out - but I AM open minded.

Its my understanding that the fastest DX9 ATI card in AGP form is the X1950XT 256MB from GeCube. However, a little Google research tells me that the cooling solution is poor, it uses a lot of power, and because the X1950 XT GPU is PCI-E native, GeCube's implementation is poor and doesn't always play nice with all AGP slots. I'm also a little put off by the 256MB vram.

Currently what i'm thinking of is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161082

Its the HIS X1950 Pro 512MB AGP card. However, reading on Wikipedia tells me that GPU has a lower fill rate than the X800 XT PE I currently have. All my research leads me to believe that the X1950 Pro is about on par, if not a little faster than the X800 XT PE.

Here is the GeCube monster:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241049

Questions:
1. Just how fast is the HIS X1950 Pro 512mb? With the games I run (listed above) will I get better\worse\about the same framerates as I currently do?
2. Does the GeCube X1950XT need "Special" drivers from GeCube, or can I just use driver's from ATI's website?
3. Anyone's user experiences with the X1950 Pro 512MB AGP.
4. How much of an improvement is the XT over the Pro?

Thanks!
 
I switched from an X800 xtpe to a Sapphire x1950 pro. Overall I am pretty happy with my new card. I didn't get alot higher framerates, but was able to up the overall visual quality.

You will probably hear from alot of people telling you AGP is dead blah, blah. But if your current rig is serving you well, I don't see a problem with the upgrade. Besides, I believe the reason they have switched from AGP is because they can sell some more video cards with SLI and Crossfire.
I don't know too much about HIS, but I have been very happy with my Sapphire X1950 PRO 512.
 
I just ordered the GeCube monster not five minutes ago. If you haven't decided by Wednesday, I'll letcha know how it runs.

I have pretty much the same kinda rig you do minus the overclock on the CPU.
 
ive got the x85o pro, overclocked and was thinking about upgrading to the x1950 pro as well.

seems they are the best choice for the price range im looking at.

im AGP as well, and going to go with an AGP x1950 pro, for my final upgrade for this system.

early-mid next year ill hopefully build a quad core with all the goodies,
 
vs your card the x1950xt is atleast a good 50% faster, more if its a shader intensive game, in which case the x1950xt is over 3x faster at shader operations. Its my understanding that the x1950pro is still a nice upgrade from your card but its a half step below the XT as it looses some shader power, along with memory bandwith, the extra 256mb of memory isent that big a deal for that card.

IMO id grab the x1950xt and see how that fits you, its a better card for not really that much extra cash.

edit: wow not sure why that GeCube x1950xt is so expensive, the darn pci-e are $100 less ><
 
AtomicFire said:
Currently I have an X800 XT PE - its served me very well as I only play these games often:

Oblivion
World of Warcraft
Counter-Strike: Source
gMod 10

Specifics of my rig are in my sig.

However, with the introduction of Bioshock and its requirements for Shader Model 3.0, my X800 can't really carry the weight anymore. I'm not looking to upgrade my rig to PCI-E so please don't tell me to do that. I'm looking for a powerful sub-$300 solution. I'm also not looking to go DX10 yet, that'll be my next rig. XP Pro + DX9 for me for now :)

Also, i'm a fan of ATI. Always have been, so i'm trying to keep nVidia out - but I AM open minded.

Its my understanding that the fastest DX9 ATI card in AGP form is the X1950XT 256MB from GeCube. However, a little Google research tells me that the cooling solution is poor, it uses a lot of power, and because the X1950 XT GPU is PCI-E native, GeCube's implementation is poor and doesn't always play nice with all AGP slots. I'm also a little put off by the 256MB vram.

Currently what i'm thinking of is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161082

Its the HIS X1950 Pro 512MB AGP card. However, reading on Wikipedia tells me that GPU has a lower fill rate than the X800 XT PE I currently have. All my research leads me to believe that the X1950 Pro is about on par, if not a little faster than the X800 XT PE.

Here is the GeCube monster:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241049

Questions:
1. Just how fast is the HIS X1950 Pro 512mb? With the games I run (listed above) will I get better\worse\about the same framerates as I currently do?
2. Does the GeCube X1950XT need "Special" drivers from GeCube, or can I just use driver's from ATI's website?
3. Anyone's user experiences with the X1950 Pro 512MB AGP.
4. How much of an improvement is the XT over the Pro?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I will share you my experience, I used to have the X800XT PE paired with a P4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition and once I upgraded to the GeCube X1950XT, most of the gains were in eye candy, not in FPS, the performance gain overall was like around 30% which is not bad, but not good either. I used to score 6,184 in 3DMark05 with the X800XT PE and then with the X1950XT I scored 7,784 and that wasn't right cause I saw lots of people scoring up to 9k with the X1950PRO which is inferior to my card. Once I upgraded the CPU my score jumped to 10,086 which is more realistic, was able to get an increase in FPS with the same or higher eye candy.

I would recommend you to get the X1950PRO and overclock your CPU to see appreciable increases in performance, the Pentium 4 is a severe bottleneck for cards above the X1900GT/7900GS and the GeCube card doesn't need any special drivers, and it's compatible with any AGP8x motherboard. My card has been working great from 4 months ago and it idles at 39C and max at 62C. Also any current DX9 card like the X1300 and above or GeForce 7 or above are native PCI-E cards. All the ATi cards based on those GPU's uses the same RIALTO bridge when are made to AGP, no matter who made it, the performance improvements over the PRO can be between 20% and 33% when not CPU limited, otherwise the difference can be seen only on high resolutions.

The power comsumption of the PRO is vastly lower cause of it's small manufacturing process, the PRO tops at 73W while the XT tops at 130W approx, anyway both needs high quality 450W or greater PSU. The only flaw in the GECube card is that sometimes the cooler is not tight enough and tends to loose contact with the GPU overheating it, just tight them up or find here in these forums about the GeCube X1950XT AGP Mod for the cooling.
 
evolucion8 said:
I will share you my experience, I used to have the X800XT PE paired with a P4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition and once I upgraded to the GeCube X1950XT, most of the gains were in eye candy, not in FPS, the performance gain overall was like around 30% which is not bad, but not good either. I used to score 6,184 in 3DMark05 with the X800XT PE and then with the X1950XT I scored 7,784 and that wasn't right cause I saw lots of people scoring up to 9k with the X1950PRO which is inferior to my card. Once I upgraded the CPU my score jumped to 10,086 which is more realistic, was able to get an increase in FPS with the same or higher eye candy.

I would recommend you to get the X1950PRO and overclock your CPU to see appreciable increases in performance, the Pentium 4 is a severe bottleneck for cards above the X1900GT/7900GS and the GeCube card doesn't need any special drivers, and it's compatible with any AGP8x motherboard. My card has been working great from 4 months ago and it idles at 39C and max at 62C. Also any current DX9 card like the X1300 and above or GeForce 7 or above are native PCI-E cards. All the ATi cards based on those GPU's uses the same RIALTO bridge when are made to AGP, no matter who made it, the performance improvements over the PRO can be between 20% and 33% when not CPU limited, otherwise the difference can be seen only on high resolutions.

The power comsumption of the PRO is vastly lower cause of it's small manufacturing process, the PRO tops at 73W while the XT tops at 130W approx, anyway both needs high quality 450W or greater PSU. The only flaw in the GECube card is that sometimes the cooler is not tight enough and tends to loose contact with the GPU overheating it, just tight them up or find here in these forums about the GeCube X1950XT AGP Mod for the cooling.
Click to expand...

Can't disagree with anything Evo just said, and I tried ...:p I had both the Pro and XT and last year came from a X850XT-PE. Evo was right on the money with everything, get the Pro, or even the Sapphire X1950GT for $119 including rebate at NewEgg and you'll liklely be able to overclock it to Pro Speeds. Good luck.
 
I also went from a X800XTPE to a X1950Pro 512mb and it was a noticeable improvement AGP. Tho my rig is Opteron 170 @ 2.75Ghz. Everything they have said is correct in this thread biggest boost is being able to push more graphic settings. Tho on Shader intensive games the X1950pro was more than slightly faster than the X800XTPE.

I currently play Bioshock at 1680x1050 and it runs great.

I did find however if I turn off High post processing in the bioshock graphic menu it gives me a nice 10+fps boost with everything else on high.
 
I have the same card with a Venice @ 2.4Ghz and wasn't even thinking of upgrading because the only game I ever play now is an mmorpg called Ragnarok Online. I checked my email this morning and Newegg had the Saphire x1950gt 256mb for $119 without a rebate and free 3 day shipping. Here is the promo code: EMC907VGA10
 
Well I got my x1950gt in and I'm very disappointed. Oblivion doesn't run much better than with my X800 and the new card doesn't like to over clock at all.
 
What would be faster for bioshock with an opteron 185 - 2600xt 512mb or 1950pro 512mb?
 
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