X800XL... good choice?

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KevC

Supreme [H]ardness
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Oct 21, 2001
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Hey,

I'm so out of the loop of video cards and such. I'm given 3 choices, 6600GT, X800XL, or 6800GT. I'm sure these are increasing in "goodness" but I'd rather spend as little as possible. Is the X800XL a good card? The difference between all these cards are $100 each (CDN).

I have a 17" CRT so I'd probably play all my games at 10x7 anyway. Maybe 12x9, not sure. I wanna play Doom 3 and HL2 in all their glory. Just don't want to replace everything in 6 months.
 
My X800XL, with a 3700+ San Diego, gives me plenty of FPS for all of my games at 1280x1024x32, 2X AA/8X AF. In the actual [H]ard|OCP X800XL retail launch preview, they came to much the same conclusions (although it didn't hold 2X AA in all of the review games IIRC). I got mine for $200USD used, and have been quite pleased.

If you're only gaming at 10x7 or 12x9, then an X800XL is plenty of horsepower. Also remember that the X800XL is the best (only?) 16 pipe video card going that doesn't require the 6pin PCI-E power connector.
 
When I was looking 800xl was somewhere in between 6800gt and Ultra.

Although now with the x800gto and the gto2 that can be unlocked to 16 pipelines and made virtually into a x850 xt pe, I would source the x800gto2.
 
If you can get the 6800GT for the same price, then go with it, but the X800XL is an excellent bang for buck card that has been serving me well for almost 5 months.
 
As most people who were looking at the 6800gt/X800XL relationship , when I wanted to buy one, I did alot of reading of reviews.

I came to the conclusion that for the money in agp form X800XL would be the way to go but I would have prefered the 6800GT for PCIE because of price. At stock X800XL wins more than not but OCed 6800GT wins more.

I say, get what's cheaper.

~Adam
 
you really can't go wrong with either the x800xl or 6800gt...you'll probably get more out of doom3 with the 6800gt...but more out of hl2 with the x800xl...

personally I vote for the 6800gt...more overclockable...better featureset...

but it really comes down to price...go with the cheapest one...
 
If price is same get the 6800GT for more longevity. And I have used both X800 XL and 6800GT, they are virtually same in performance but feature wise, 6800GT takes the cake.
 
1c3d0g said:
Agreed. Plus you can easily overclock the 6800GT to Ultra levels, thereby completely 0wning the X800XL. :)
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Take a look at the average 3dmark05 scores for the cards in question.

Price is the key here. If they are close, then the 6800GT is probably a better choice for the HDR support.
 
Aaron_ATX said:
Take a look at the average 3dmark05 scores for the cards in question.

Price is the key here. If they are close, then the 6800GT is probably a better choice for the HDR support.
Click to expand...

never buy a card based on a 3dmark05 score unless you are comparing it to another card from the same manufacturer...across different architectures, the results don't tell you very much if you're within a couple hundred points of eachother...
 
And now the gto2 is out that can be unlocked to 16 pipeline and near equal to a 850 xt pe, why buy an 800xl ????

bang for buck that has to be cheapest option.
 
mattykhz said:
And now the gto2 is out that can be unlocked to 16 pipeline and near equal to a 850 xt pe, why buy an 800xl ????

bang for buck that has to be cheapest option.
Click to expand...

well it depends on how dicey the unlocking thing is...I doubt 100% of them unlock...has anyone heard different>
 
Don't let anyone tell you that HDR is a function of SM3.0, because it isn't. HDR using Open_EXR is specific to NV cards supporting FP16 blending, but HDR can be done in other ways; see Valves implementation for The Lost Coast as an example.

Both cards perform similarly. Right now I am going to say that ATi's drivers are better in Windows; Linux users should stick with NV. Still too many reports of playing driver tag with NV depending on which game you want to run at that time. NV's official driver releases only seem to come about quarterly, with 2-3 betas inbetween. ATi does official releases monthly.

However, all things aside, get the X800XL or 6800GT based on which one you can get at the best price.
 
^eMpTy^ said:
well it depends on how dicey the unlocking thing is...I doubt 100% of them unlock...has anyone heard different>
Click to expand...

According to the article, 100% of them should unlock, everyone they've test has, but only time will tell.
 
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