x850 pro upgrade?

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schapman

Gawd
Joined
Oct 23, 2003
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So.. the local best buy has an ATI x850pro (AGP) on sale for $299 (canadian). I'm thinking this may be a good price for a last upgrade to my agpness. I just picked up BF2 this week so i'm finally noticing the 9700pros age (WoW/COD/HL2 all ran flawlessly for me).


Worthy upgrade? I'm hoping this will hold me off until late this year when I'll do a mobo/proc/vid card massive upgrade.
 
It should do alright, I'm going to pickup an X800GTP AGP for a friend of mine at Canada Computers for about $249.99... Maybe I'll get the 850 instead
 
I think it is a good deal, However i would suggest getting an x800xl or x800xt instead, I think you can get them for around smae price, the reason I would suggest that is that x800xl/xt have 16 pipes compared to x850pro's 8. But it will last you at least 1 more year, I play newwest titles mostly maxed out.
 
Which is faster? the x800/xl w/ 16 pipes? or the x850 which i though was faster memory/clock speed wise?

Also.. what about the x800 gto?

or an nvidia 6800GS?
 
schapman said:
Which is faster? the x800/xl w/ 16 pipes? or the x850 which i though was faster memory/clock speed wise?

Also.. what about the x800 gto?
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i would say go with x800xl it is the best bang for the fbuck, x800GTO is slower then
x800xl. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=356&card2=52
X800xl will give you better IQ, you might get 3-4 more fps on x850pro though. I don't think it is worth it.
 
schapman said:
The only issue there is the cost. At www.ncix.com (who's usually the cheapest for me locally), the only x800xl is $444.00
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Wow, I guess I forgot how high Canadian Dollar is......
Yea looks like getting x850xt is your best choice, I am surprized that you will end up paying less for a newwer card.
 
Im not sure if it has come up yet, but at ncix users are saying that they have good results with the Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 card (I was reading the forum messages as Im considering picking up this card for roughly $260 canadian)

Seems it has 16 pipes out of the box now (or has 100% rate of unlocking all 16), with a R480 core and clocks up to 540/590 speeds (by user accounts) so it gives better performance at a cheaper price point.

I'll probably end up getting one myself unless I find something negative about it soon.
 
air2k5 said:
I think it is a good deal, However i would suggest getting an x800xl or x800xt instead, I think you can get them for around smae price, the reason I would suggest that is that x800xl/xt have 16 pipes compared to x850pro's 8. But it will last you at least 1 more year, I play newwest titles mostly maxed out.
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The x850 has 12pipes not 8 and it outperforms my brothers x800xl in identical systems. (both opty 144's at 2.8, K8N Neo2's with 1gig hyperx)

Since your getting an AGP card there's a good chance that a simple bios flash will unlock the extra 4pipes. I've done two localy and modded a dozen bios' for people over on the techpowerup forums. I paid $279 US from best buy and it runs at 540/590 all day with 16 pipes, not a bad price for what's essentialy an x850 xt pe.

Drop by the techpowerup forums and take a look around, lots of info on what card to buy, how to check if it's a modable card and if it's a card that will unlock I'll do a bios for you.
 
TurboGLH said:
The x850 has 12pipes not 8 and it outperforms my brothers x800xl in identical systems. (both opty 144's at 2.8, K8N Neo2's with 1gig hyperx)

Since your getting an AGP card there's a good chance that a simple bios flash will unlock the extra 4pipes. I've done two localy and modded a dozen bios' for people over on the techpowerup forums. I paid $279 US from best buy and it runs at 540/590 all day with 16 pipes, not a bad price for what's essentialy an x850 xt pe.

Drop by the techpowerup forums and take a look around, lots of info on what card to buy, how to check if it's a modable card and if it's a card that will unlock I'll do a bios for you.
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Not really I work at pc store part time, x850pro only got 5 more fps average in most games, IQ is better on x800xl, as for 12 pipesm yea I forgot for some reason I thought it had 8 :( .
 
air2k5 said:
I think it is a good deal, However i would suggest getting an x800xl or x800xt instead, I think you can get them for around smae price, the reason I would suggest that is that x800xl/xt have 16 pipes compared to x850pro's 8. But it will last you at least 1 more year, I play newwest titles mostly maxed out.
Click to expand...


the x850 PRO has 12 pipes I have one in this machine currently I wanted to get the x850xt but they are getting tough to find in agp.
 
schapman said:
Which is faster? the x800/xl w/ 16 pipes? or the x850 which i though was faster memory/clock speed wise?

Also.. what about the x800 gto?

or an nvidia 6800GS?
Click to expand...

The x850pro has 12 pipelines guys. Do not give this guy false information. Also, the x800xl is faster than the x850pro as well as the x800pro. I would suggest buying the x800xl online if you could from any store as it should be cheaper or the same price with a little more performance. Good luck.
 
air2k5 said:
Not really I work at pc store part time, x850pro only got 5 more fps average in most games, IQ is better on x800xl, as for 12 pipesm yea I forgot for some reason I thought it had 8 :( .
Click to expand...

I've got both sitting in front of me right now, and the IQ is not any better on the x800xl. Since the whole x8xx series is all closely related I don't know how you can even say that the IQ is better on one rather than the other. On the topic of FPS, yeah stock with 12p it's maybe 5fps faster, but 5 fps is still faster, and with an unlock to 16p it's quite a bit more, and the unlock rate for agp x850pros is somewhere north of 80%.

I would buy the x850pro, and try for an unlock. It's not guaranteed and it won't work on the pci-e versions, but as long as the card isn't hard locked (and most aren't) then you've got yourself a decently fast card for a decent price.
 
i bought an x850pro a month ago dirt cheap at frys on sale, and im very happy with it, havent tried to unlock it yet. i dont really think you can go wrong with getting one for a good price
 
Hey
Just so you know, over at redflagdeals.com there is a Canadian trading forum in which i've seen X800XL's go for $215. In fact there might still be one going for that exact price with warranty. Also, Futureshop and Bestbuy a while ago had a sale on for an x850xt for $299 or bestbuy had a family and friends discount so the x850xt was going for $269.99 + taxes. I saw the x850 pro going for $299 and I figured I would wait until the x850xts went on sale again. Up until about a week ago, bestbuy had the x850xts on sale for $349.99 CDN as well.
Good luck and happy hunting.
 
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