Agp upgrade: x1950pro or 7950gt?

[Lord of Shadows]

I'm a bit torn,

I could go for the xfx 7950gt which is a little faster, has a great warranty, better opengl support, (etqw ftw) but requires hacked up drivers and does not use a reference design: http://i111.photobucket.com/al...dugn/DSC01352Large.jpg -- I have a water cooling system and this might become a problem later when I put a water block on it. (dont feel like trying to force my old mcw50-t on it right after I buy it.)

I could go for the sapphire x1950pro which is a little cheaper, has a crappy warranty, (seems like all ati cards have crappy warranties) and definitely wont play nice with compiz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w (But I may have the same driver problems with this xfx card in linux so this point may be moot. Just like how ugly I think that freaking robot is)

 

[VinDSL]

7950 GT is the hands down winner, between these two!

The 7950 GT AGP is the fastest AGP card money can buy!!!

 

[Aeros]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
7950 GT is the hands down winner, between these two!

The 7950 GT AGP is the fastest AGP card money can buy!!!

No it is not...

The X1950XT is the fastest.

I happen to have the same waterblock on it also, and it is a breeze to install and remove.

 

[Noema]

Plus the X1950XT has better IQ, from what I've read.

 

[evolucion8]

If you want to get the fastest AGP card get the Gecube Radeon X1950XT, I bough that card and I haven't got any problems at all, runs cool and never exceeds the 65C under max load, the first I received came defective but this one works like a charm.

The X1950PRO trade blows with the 7950GT, giving the sligh edge to the X1950PRO when heavy pixel shaders and FSAA are used like Oblivion and can do HDR with FSAA with higher AF quality, the 7950GT outperforms the X1950PRO slighly in heavy textures games like Prey or F.E.A.R. Is a matter of games and tastes. I would recommend the X1950XT or PRO.

 

[GEOrifle]

Yes, with 1950PRO you are alone after couple years and if it fails you got 00000000.
Diferent story with 7950GT-they all got LIFETIME warranty which means if it fails after 3-4.. year or more company MUST replace it even by better and expencive one if they don't have in stock same model, or even will give to you credit to by another one.

Chances are ATI 10% vs nVidia 90%, doesnt mather how better ATI works.
By myself i like ATI more but.... their warranty SU*KS.
I'll wait until new Dx 10 AGP arrive-l end of thise year i guess.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: GEOrifle
Yes, with 1950PRO you are alone after couple years and if it fails you got 00000000.
Diferent story with 7950GT-they all got LIFETIME warranty which means if it fails after 3-4.. year or more company MUST replace it even by better and expencive one if they don't have in stock same model, or even will give to you credit to by another one.

Chances are ATI 10% vs nVidia 90%, doesnt mather how better ATI works.
By myself i like ATI more but.... their warranty SU*KS.
I'll wait until new Dx 10 AGP arrive-l end of thise year i guess.

2 years is plenty ... especially since x1900 and 7900 series won't be able to run DX10 ... and DX10 games are pretty near

i feel my card is an antique long before the warranty is up ... i have x1950p AGP/512MB that i just upgraded to HD2900xt ... letsee, i had x1950p since December and it is already in FS/T

however, be aware, Sapphire charges you a $15 RMA "Processing fee" THEN you pay the usual postage and insurance to ship it to them.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
7950 GT is the hands down winner, between these two!

The 7950 GT AGP is the fastest AGP card money can buy!!!

Originally posted by: Aeros
No it is not...

The X1950XT is the fastest.

I suggest you go check the fill rates...

Um...

You know what 'fill rate' means, right?

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
7950 GT is the hands down winner, between these two!

The 7950 GT AGP is the fastest AGP card money can buy!!!</end quote></div>
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Aeros
No it is not...

The X1950XT is the fastest.</end quote></div>
I suggest you go check the fill rates...

Um...

You know what 'fill rate' means, right?

That doesn't mean anything, todays games are not fillrate bound, that may happen in fixed function pipelines based games, but todays games which uses lots of geometry, pixel shaders, vertex shaders at high resolutions with lots of anti aliasing are not gonna be fillrate limited. Todays and future games will rely more on pixel shaders than on textures because todays cards are so programable that is far more easy create a pixel shader program to simulate a material which will look far more realistical than using a texture to do it making it look like a PS2 game. Even though the 7900GTX has 33% higher texture fillrate than the X1950XTX, the Radeon X1950XTX is faster in most games particularly with eye candy on. The Radeon X1950XTX has twice the pixel shader power of the 7900GTX and both has the same pixel fillrate and vertex shader fillrate.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_...hp?card1=383&card2=442

http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/386/1/

We took a look at the 512MB model and that definitely has an advantage over the 256MB models but still, the X1950 Pro manages to position itself above the GeForce 7900 GS and even is darn close and sometimes faster than the GeForce 7950 GT. The difference can be explained by the 36 Pixel shader cores on the Radeon card, obviously the more shader intensive games will benefit from it greatly which most games these days are. So that is very impressive performance.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
7950 GT is the hands down winner, between these two!

The 7950 GT AGP is the fastest AGP card money can buy!!!</end quote></div>
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Aeros
No it is not...

The X1950XT is the fastest.</end quote></div>
I suggest you go check the fill rates...

Um...

You know what 'fill rate' means, right?

yes .. in this case very little ... the pro is generally a faster performer

You know what 'faster performer' means, right?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

damn... voted wrong, i meant to vote for the x1950pro, better image quality, better when turning up eye candy (unless u like playing games with jaggies). what do u mean u get 0 after a couple of years. i never use my video cards after 2 years or so. and if the video card is good past the first year.. it'll likely last you for the next few. video card's just don't randomly go bad.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: apoppin
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
7950 GT is the hands down winner, between these two!

The 7950 GT AGP is the fastest AGP card money can buy!!!</end quote></div>
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Aeros
No it is not...

The X1950XT is the fastest.</end quote></div>
I suggest you go check the fill rates...

Um...

You know what 'fill rate' means, right?</end quote></div>

yes .. in this case very little ... the pro is generally a faster performer

You know what 'faster performer' means, right?

lol that's all I can say lol

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: apoppin
yes .. in this case very little ... the pro is generally a faster performer

You know what 'faster performer' means, right?

Sure, but your claim is bogus according to GPUReview.com so I'm calling B.S. on it!

You know what 'B.S.' means, right?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: VinDSL

Originally posted by: apoppin
yes .. in this case very little ... the pro is generally a faster performer

You know what 'faster performer' means, right?

Sure, but your claim is bogus according to GPUReview.com so I'm calling B.S. on it!

You know what 'B.S.' means, right?

sure ... it would mean that GPUReview.com is "full of it"
--you do know what "full of it" means, right?

it also clearly says "upper midrange AGP card" and mentions PRICE as criteria ... clearly it is out of date ... much like some old guys that like ancient HW and still tout it as the "best"

the ATi card would be "top AGP card"
--you do know what "top" means, right?

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: apoppin
the ATi card would be "top AGP card"
--you do know what "top" means, right?

Okay, you sold me!

I'll give you $100 shipped...

 

[apoppin]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: apoppin
the ATi card would be "top AGP card"
--you do know what "top" means, right?</end quote></div>
Okay, you sold me!

I'll give you $100 shipped... </end quote></div>

which half of the card do you want?


and after i hit 3105 with my e4300 OC and scored 10700 in 3DMark06, i got over my old EE and APG card
... of course, i am about 1,000 dollars poorer .. but richer for the experiences

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: apoppin
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: apoppin
the ATi card would be "top AGP card"
--you do know what "top" means, right?</end quote></div>
Okay, you sold me!

I'll give you $100 shipped... </end quote></div>

which half of the card do you want?


and after i hit 3105 with my e4300 OC and scored 10700 in 3DMark06, i got over my old EE and APG card
... of course, i am about 1,000 dollars poorer .. but richer for the experiences

LMAO you're gonna kill me! For real, even though you paid more than 200 bucks for that card, 100 bucks is too cheap, and 200 is too expensive cause that same card can be found on Newegg brand new at 180 without shipping. For the half of the card, I would choose the half that has the chip.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: apoppin
which half of the card do you want?


and after i hit 3105 with my e4300 OC and scored 10700 in 3DMark06, i got over my old EE and APG card
... of course, i am about 1,000 dollars poorer .. but richer for the experiences

Ah, okay! I get it now...

I'm not a betting man but I'd wager that GeForce 7950 GTs would be #1 if you had one in FS/T, yes?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: apoppin
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: VinDSL
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: apoppin
the ATi card would be "top AGP card"
--you do know what "top" means, right?</end quote></div>
Okay, you sold me!

I'll give you $100 shipped... </end quote></div>

which half of the card do you want?


and after i hit 3105 with my e4300 OC and scored 10700 in 3DMark06, i got over my old EE and APG card
... of course, i am about 1,000 dollars poorer .. but richer for the experiences
</end quote></div>

LMAO you're gonna kill me! For real, even though you paid more than 200 bucks for that card, 100 bucks is too cheap, and 200 is too expensive cause that same card can be found on Newegg brand new at 180 without shipping. For the half of the card, I would choose the half that has the chip.

either way ... it ain't much use in half

i have it for $155 shipped ... that NewEgg one costs most of us tax and shipping

I'm not a betting man but I'd wager that GeForce 7950 GTs would be #1 if you had one in FS/T, yes?

of course not, i had the sense to get a x1950p .... if was getting the "Best" AGP card - today - it's be a x1950xt ... the gt would be down the list where it belongs

otoh, things are not so clear about my HD2900xt vs GTS ... so i ordered a 8800GTS 640M OC which will be delivered this Friday

After this coming weekend i will be able to tell you for sure which card is the better performaf

 

[SolMiester]

Dont forget to incl the $$ for the new PSU to power the pro\xt!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SolMiester
Dont forget to incl the $$ for the new PSU to power the pro\xt!

i dunno .. the OP has a water cooled setup ... i hope he is not running a 3.0Ghz Prescott and a 300w PS

but ... nice catch ... no one even mentioned the steeper PS requirements of the x1900p/xt in their haste to recommend performance
--450w minimum with 30a on the 12v rail recommended

but then that wouldn't bother you or i and i tend to forget now
... the HD2900xt evidently approaches 400w when OC'd under full load
:Q

 

[Lord of Shadows]

I have an op650 so I'm alright power wise. I really like the 7950gt for reasons I cant pin down and am fighting hard to find something that justifies getting it, but I think the greater shader performance of the x1950pro is the final nail in the coffin.

I'm bidding on the 7950gt that bjorn3d reviewed on ebay, (cheaper than the $235 I was willing to pay at buy.com) assuming that falls through (and it will, he added a reserve towards the end) I'll pickup a sapphire x1950 pro for $160 ar @ newegg. -- Now the question is what free ubisoft game should I choose with my order, splinter cell or rainbow 6 vegas. Right now I'm thinking vegas cause I heard it's unreal engine 3.

Thanks for the input all. ;o)

 

[GEOrifle]

In July will arrive ATI HD 2600XT AGP Dx10, shuld i say more?

 

[apoppin]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: GEOrifle
In July will arrive ATI HD 2600XT AGP Dx10, shuld i say more?</end quote></div>

no ... stop while you are way behind ...

you always advise people to wait ...

excuse me, but Screw Waiting ... NONE of them will play DX10 titles very well ... including that underpowered 2600xt which probably can't even keep up in today's games - UNlike the GT or Pro

 

[Matt2]

2600XT isn't going to be better than either of these cards, so why wait?