Buying new card... <$200CDN

[jdkick]

I'm in the market for a new PCI-Express card. At the moment, the 6600GT and X1600XT are the choices as I want SM3.0 support. The X1600XT is winning out at the moment as it gives a slight performance gain in the games I play and features ATI's AVIVO technology. It also offers Crossfire support, so I can go this route down the road... tho I have no intention at the moment. I'm a casual gamer and use my PC for some light digital image/video editing work.

I've also looked at the 6800GS and X800GTO/GTO2. The 6800GS is a little out of my price range and it requires additional power. The X800GTO2 is also out of my price range. The X800GTO is priced in the same range as the 6600GT/X1600XT but it doesn't offer a consistent performance advantage and lacks SM3.0 support.

Anyway, those are my thoughts...

 

[n7]

Sounds like you've already found what is best in your price range

 

[SickBeast]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't an X800GTO Fireblade beat out an X1600XT quite easily? There is one for $219 at Filtech Computer in Toronto. $20 over budget, but really, how strict is the budget?

I also see X800GT cards for $169CDN; I wonder how they compare.

I have not heard good things about the X1600 cards.

 

[jdkick]

From my research, the X1600XT will out perform an X800GT. It struggles a little with a straight X800GTO, but it doesn't beat out the X1600XT on a consistent basis. I expect that the "FireBlade" version of the X800GTO (higher core/clock) would have a bit of an edge... but the X800 cards lack SM3.0 support.

What bad things have you heard about the X1600XT? I agree that it's performance is a little off the mark given the price range and the generation of Radeon GPU's to which it belongs, but it's still a very capable card in current/future games and includes AVIVO (decoding/transcoding appeals to me).

If I was going to spend the extra money and go above budget ($200CDN) i'd probably look to the 6800GS.