ATI 9800 vs X300SE/X550

[blitz16v]

From all the review's I have read, and all the benchmark's the 9800 blows the X300/X550 away, the X300/550 are PCI express though?

Which is a better card for gaming and why?

 

[Erasertone]

the R 9800 is definitely better that is because of its 8 pixel pipeline architecture, X300/5500 only has 4.

 

[Wentelteefje]

Originally posted by: Erasertone
the R 9800 is definitely better that is because of its 8 pixel pipeline architecture, X300/5500 only has 4.

QFT...

Why do you make the choice between AGP and PCIe? Unless you have a mobo that has both, it's either AGP or PCIe... A 6600GT would be a much better choice, costing around $ 100 (about the price of a Radeon 9800Pro as well)...

 

[blitz16v]

So even with the PCI express X550, it still pales in comparison to the 9800 AGP 8X?

 

[Wentelteefje]

Definately... It's not a fair fight... Are you planning on buying, or do you have these lying around maybe?

 

[blitz16v]

I am building a machine, I really wanted to go PCI express and maybe get an X550.. but it seems this 9800 is alot better, which really makes me think twice. I like the fact that in the future, PCI Xpress will mature alot, leaving me a nice way to upgrade down the road, doesn't AGP 8X potentail alot less than PCI express?

AGP 8X maxes at like 2.0 GB/S
With up to 4 GB/s of peak bandwidth for the PCI EXPRESS makes it more appealing future wise

I know right now there are cards that still don't even satisfy a full AGP 8X speed and vice versa for PCI-E

 

[Wentelteefje]

BTW Welcome to the forums!

You're right, PCI-Express (PCI-E/PCI-e/PCIe, not to be confused with PCI-X) IS the future... We're still dealing with version 1.0 of it today, but 2.0 will come eventually, and that one will be providing even more bandwidth...

If you're building a gaming system these days, there is an efficient way to go with both the power the 9800 delivers, and the potential of upgrading to PCIe... That way would be the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2...

It has a true AGP8x slot, and a full PCIe 16x slot as well... It's very cheap too, so really thé motherboard to pick when you're in a situation like yours...

You could, however, take a faster PCIe graphics card right away... How much do you want to spend on your computer...?

 

[mwmorph]

why are you comparing a $90(used) card with a $50 (new) card?

 

[Wentelteefje]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
why are you comparing a $90(used) card with a $50 (new) card?

Better would be to take a ~ $ 110 6600GT with PCIe right away, indeed... It packs more power than the 9800 and supports more features... It is more future orientated as well...

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Wentelteefje

Originally posted by: mwmorph
why are you comparing a $90(used) card with a $50 (new) card?

Better would be to take a ~ $ 110 6600GT with PCIe right away, indeed... It packs more power than the 9800 and supports more features... It is more future orientated as well...

eh, i'd take a $110 x800gto or for under $100, a 6600DDR2.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102644
andi if i felt i realyl neede a 256mb card for cheap,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102602

the 6600gt is dated now, and so is the gto, but pipes>>mhz.

 

[Wentelteefje]

Originally posted by: mwmorph

Originally posted by: Wentelteefje

Originally posted by: mwmorph
why are you comparing a $90(used) card with a $50 (new) card?

Better would be to take a ~ $ 110 6600GT with PCIe right away, indeed... It packs more power than the 9800 and supports more features... It is more future orientated as well...

eh, i'd take a $110 x800gto or for under $100, a 6600DDR2.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102644
andi if i felt i realyl neede a 256mb card for cheap,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102602

the 6600gt is dated now, and so is the gto, but pipes>>mhz.

You have a point there... BTW I don't really know all the US prices by heart, sorry for that... The GTO is a faster choice indeed... It lacks some features, but overall it's indeed better...

 

[evolucion8]

They pretty much perform the same, but about the more future orientated state is questionable, the 6600GT doesn't have enough power to runs all the SM 3.0 features that could be implemented in the future, particularly dynamic branching. Which one you should choose? A videocard with SM 3.0 and not enough performance to run it or a videocard with SM 2.0/2.0b but enough performance to run all it's supported effects (And Higher quality video)? After all there's no SM 3.0 effect that SM 2.0, 2.0b cannot do. And the AGP 8x vs PCI-E comparison is quite stupid, even if the PCI-E is faster, these videocards are not powerful enough to saturate even an AGP 4x BUS. But anyways both are quite slow, swapping data to a 4GB/s PCI-E compared to a much more faster On-Board VRAM (Ranging from 9GB/s to up to 48GB/s, depends on the On-Board VRAM Speed). I'd rather prefer a 512MB AGP Card than a 256MB PCI-E card. (Beeing both the same card of course).

 

[IlllI]

9800 by far.