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Which ~$250 Radeon AGP?

Nazo

Nazo

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 2, 2002
Messages
3,672
Well, I definitely have messed up my video card it looks like. Seems the only way I can get it 100% stable is to underclock the heck out of it. It acts fine at stock or OC for a while, but, can't take it for long. Besides, there's the whole stupid stuttering bug with NF3. There's the possibility I'll still see stuttering if I went ATI, but, I have a better chance with them. Unfortunately, I haven't really been keeping up with ATI since the 9600 Pro I used to have fried (literally. Lightning.) I'm going to have to get a new video card later on (possibly Christmas) so I'm trying to figure out just which one. I want it to be at least equal to my current card, preferably a little better at least, but, I think it's time to go ahead and upgrade to 256MiB (no, no 512MiB suggestions please.) At this point it's starting to get to where I actually would benefit. Anyway, I THINK I'm looking for something in the general area of the x800 series. I see an ASUS X800 Pro 256MiB on newegg for around the pricerange I"m looking for. I tried to get a rough idea by looking at the 3dmark thread, but, there's just too much variance -- especially in light of the fact that the list doesn't show other hardware (like CPU.) The impression I have is that X800 Pro should be roughly equal to my current card, maybe a little better, so I think this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. Could someone with more ATI knowledge enlighten me on if this is true or not? I MIGHT, MIGHT be able to get up to as much as the $300 or so range, so I am a bit curious about some like the X800XL and X800XT as well. I kind of have my eye on an X850Pro if those are any good. It's kind of confusing though because so many of them end up priced about the same. Is the X850 series better than the X800? I ask because ATI (and nVidia, but, I'm not looking at their stuff atm) has been known to pull little tricks where they make a higher numbered card that's actually weaker (take, for example, the 9200.) Right now I'm thinking that X800 XL looks most ideal for what I want if I can manage to get that much somehow. For one thing, I don't want to have to rely on unlocking, and newegg shows the X850 Pro as having only 12 pipes. If I were to judge by price I'd think the X850 Pro were better though. I'm just not really clear on what's what, hence my need to ask around in here.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and when I said that I wanted one at least equal to my current card, I meant equal to what my current card used to be capable of, which is to say, roughly 6800 GT level. It was able to open all 16/6 pipelines and the GPU ran at 375 at stock voltage. The memory I messed up and never overclocked well even before that, but, overall, the card was still doing around GT level give or take just a little bit. So, I want a card to at least equal the 6800GT, not the NU.
 
Hmm.
First off, dispite the price.. X800xl > x850 pro (on paper). I have owned both cards and I like my x850 pro better. It overclocks better, has lower temps and performs better on almost every game I play. Its almost a sureshot if you want to flash the bios to an x850xt pe too. I personally, haven't done it because I am very satisfied with the performance of my card as is. I just downloaded the cod2 demo and it ran it like a charm at higher res + x4 AA. Its faster than a 6800GT and LOADS faster than a 6800nu.

ADDED: Plus with your budget of $250, you can actually get one from bestbuy/circuitcity/compusa.. saving you the hassle of RMA if you get a bum card.
 
That's the thing. The 6800 series has the advantage of RivaTuner to unlock those pipelines theoretically by software so that if they didn't work you could just stop unlocking them. From what I read about the radeons, they only seem to have the BIOS mod trick which, just like with the 6800s before RivaTuner came up with that trick, if you unlock them and they are unstable, you're stuck.

Anyway, so, stock X800 XL is definitely better than stock X850 Pro, right? You said that earlier, then practically made an about face and changed your mind. If there's actually some way you can DEFINITELY get back to 12 pipelines if the other four turn out unstable, and the X850 Pro is relatively close in performance to a X800 XL, I might be willing to take the risk -- especially in light of the fact that you say it's supposed to run cooler and everything (that's more overclocking headroom in most books after all.)

And I seriously doubt I can buy from a brick and mortar store. At least around here they seem to be a good $100 or so extra for no apparent reason whatsoever other than that the stores have no sense when it comes to how much to buy of whatever when it comes out. Heck I've actually seen an old 9600 non-pro non-xt vanilla selling for over $200 once at a brick and mortar store not very long ago (certainly not long enough ago to be anything other than a pile of crap, and no, it was not All-In-Wonder or VIVO.) I mean, I can check -- there's a best buy near enough -- but I really doubt this will be an exception.
 
Nazo said:
That's the thing. The 6800 series has the advantage of RivaTuner to unlock those pipelines theoretically by software so that if they didn't work you could just stop unlocking them. From what I read about the radeons, they only seem to have the BIOS mod trick which, just like with the 6800s before RivaTuner came up with that trick, if you unlock them and they are unstable, you're stuck.
Click to expand...

Actually, the article at techpowerup uses a method that is not permanent. If you have problems you can go back.
 
Ah. Thanks for the info. How close is X850 Pro to X800 XL in performance if both are at stock?

BTW, what about this: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814102606

It doesn't say VIVO, and seems to lack the encoder/decoder box that I saw on another card earlier. It's the only one that's so close in price to the X800 XL though. It does have the audio connector curiously enough. It's also the only X850Pro AGP I find on Newegg.
 
Nazo said:
Ah. Thanks for the info. How close is X850 Pro to X800 XL in performance if both are at stock?

BTW, what about this: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814102606

It doesn't say VIVO, and seems to lack the encoder/decoder box that I saw on another card earlier. It's the only one that's so close in price to the X800 XL though. It does have the audio connector curiously enough. It's also the only X850Pro AGP I find on Newegg.
Click to expand...

Performance wise, it depends. On paper and on 3dmark, the 800xl is "faster". Personally, I like how the x850 performs in real tasks like games over the x800. The XL DOES have 4 more pipes, but I cant notice a difference (even with framerates) on games..
 
Sounds like it's worth the chance then. There's always the possiblity it could do more, and, even if it doesn't, it will be roughly equivalent and if worse at all, not by too much. Plus, VIVO can be kind of nice sometimes, though I'm usually dissapointed by the quality of every video input I've ever seen so far (thing is, my TV, while a tad old and not new enough to have S-Video, is actually so good that composite input to it seems to look better than s-video input on any capture card or vivo card I've tried so far. So, I doubt I'll be seriously taking advantage of such a bonus feature, but, it's nice to have anyway.)

Thanks for all the help people. I think I've pretty well figured out what I want I think.
 
if you spend just a little more you can have the very top ati agp card. the x850xt pe. they reduced the price of it and you can get it at newegg.com. i just ordered one. i was debating on the x800xl and this one. i thought well i might as well spend a few more bucks on top of the line if it will last a little longer.
 
Heh, well, even I know the XT-PE line refers to the best of the best. Unfortunately, I think it's just a little too much "just a little bit more."

And I won't be buying for a while. I'm probably just going to end up sticking with newegg. I'll probably have to do it around christmas with monetary gifts instead of the usual cases of audio cdrs that I won't use and such. d-:
 
good luck with your new card. the price i got for mine was actually only about 280. because i am selling my old card my 6200 for my friend for 50 dollars. i do agree about the performance thing. i have seen the benchmarks and there isn't a major difference in performance, but since the price dropped on them and the price difference i'm thinking is only like 50 dollars between them now i decided to get one . also i'v noticed all the agp cards are selling out and i wanted to get a top notch card before all the cards sell out. i was origonally looking for a 6800gt in agp but you can't even find one unless you pay about 350 now. good luck with your new card.
 
Thanks. Do you think I need to rush and get it now? Not particularly happy about trying to convince people of that, but, if AGP cards are getting rarer and more expensive I don't want to miss my chance while it's still only moderately in the outrageously expensive category. If it goes completely over I'll end up with an X800 Pro or something with my luck. )-:

And where is XT-PE only $50 more than Pro? Isn't it more like $50 more than XT, which in turn is $50 more than Pro (give or take)? On newegg I see one that's more than $100 more than the pro, which seems to fit that general criteria.
 
If i was you i would order one ASAP. no joke. well i looked on newegg and i see the x800 pro in agp listed for 289 plus 5 dollars shipping. this is the card i bought. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814129048. it is 329 with free shipping. just like 2 days ago it was like 350. that is what i was comparing. with the post up above though with the rebates i guess you can get it cheaper than the newegg 289? i was really looking for a 6800gt and everyone seems to be out of stock of them or they are selling them for a major premium. The fact that stores are running out of stock of agp's is the reason i bought my card now instead of waiting for fear i wouldn't be able to get any descent agp card. i'm wondering if they are even making any more agp cards, because all i see is stores losing their stock of them with no estimated time of getting restocked. hope this helps. :)
 
WOW. Newegg does NOT like you. It gives me a X800 Pro for nearly $100 less than the X800 XT-PE: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121519 $239...

I like the idea of the X850 Pro better though. At the worst it's not far below the best X800s. At the best, it might just unlock all the way and end up being better. Anyway, I don't think I dare try to go over $300 as it is.
 
Well, if your gonna wait till Xmas to buy anything, I would spend the cash on a PCI-E motherboard and a PCI-E video card, at the same time.

I was in the same boat as you (wanted to upgrade) but the thought of spending all that cash on a top of the line AGP card now seemed sensless to me. You already have a 939 setup. Everything you have now would go into the new MB except for the video card.

PCI-E cards are generally cheaper than their AGP counterparts and they are bound to go down in price by Xmas, especially the X800 and X850 series since the X1xxx will be out.

If you have the extra cash then, go for a PCI-E motherboard and video card.

Here's a nice MB at the egg.
 
PCI-E components are BARELY cheaper than their AGP counterparts. Certainly not enough to offset the amount I just very very recently spent on my current board tp buy a whole new board. With the same amount of cash, I will have to get a much lower end card. Possibly lower than my current card. AGP isn't dead yet, and, in fact, PCI-E doesn't TRULY perform better yet (yes yes, it will in a couple of years, maybe even in a year or so, but, right now AGP isn't even pushed to it's limits completely.) So, with the same amount of money, I can choose between having a more powerful system or a weaker one that I won't have to upgrade AS QUICKLY (remember, s939 is about to become the next 754 when M2 comes out, so it doesn't make a huge difference.) Anyway, this thread is about the card not the board. I'm happy with my board and it's not really up for debate atm. Actually, before I messed it up, I was happy with everything about my current video card but the 128MiB limitation. THAT is what held me back more than anything else at all. Games like Doom 3 ran at maximum quality settings smoothly and beautifully, but, FEAR finally reached the point where I couldn't max things out. A nu with 256MiB of memory almost would make me happy, but, I want to upgrade a little too for future games that might matter more to me (I don't care about FEAR, it just feels like Doom 3 all over again to me, but, Oblivion may push the limits just as much if it follows in the footsteps of it's predecesor as much as I think -- I just hope it follows the good footsteps, not the bad ones.)

In short, I'm staying with AGP for now. Period. Do give me some credit though, it's not as if I didn't do any research at all to get a pretty good idea of the lifetime of things. If I'm not mistaken, I can get by on an X850 Pro (possibly with some unlocking) for at least as long as I've gotten by on this card if I can live with less than absolute maximum settings in some games down in the future. And I can live with that believe it or not. I just don't like how low I have to set things now (the card is now performing about half the level of what it used to.) Honestly I'd even consider another 6800 nu if nVidia hadn't worked their very hardest to chase some of their customers away (see the thread on freezing with NF3 with forceware > 66.whatever.)
 
sorry about that. my bad nazo i was looking at the x850pro. i didn't even look at the x800pro. that looks like a good buy. if your still interested in the 850xtpe edition (which it sounds like your not) but i'll mention it just in case they have dropped it in price 10 more dollars today. let us know which card you go with. :)
 
Why do you need to know? I'm sorry, it's just it sounds like you're rather surprisingly interested. ^_^ Anyway, I am forced to admit I now have to consider that card. It's gone down again. $320 now. If it goes down any further I may need to snatch it up indeed. Heck, now that it's that low I may still have to consider it. I'm definitely doing what I can to get whatever I end up getting before christmas, so maybe there's a vague hope it won't be gone by the time I can manage it. Failing that, the X850 Pro seemed the most cost effective solution with the theoretical possiblity it could actually unlock to the level of that thing. Only thing I worry about is this generic unknown company. Who is VisionTek?

EDIT: Based on the 50 reviews all 5 stars and the acceptable price (went back up to $330 overnight btw) I've decided that I should just go ahead and get the X850XT PE after all. The heatsink alone is worth the difference in cost almost, and it is the best AGP card out to date, so such an upgrade leaves me as far along as I'm going to get before I have to switch to PCI-Express, giving me a maximum amount of time before I have to upgrade again.
 
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