How Does Radeon X850XT Stand Up Today ?

[Midnight Rambler]

Gonna be building a quad core system next month but I want to wait on ATI's X2950 vid card. As I don't have any old PCI-E vid cards in my bin of spare parts, I am looking to pick up a cheap PCI-E card until the 2950 comes out. I can get an X850XT Plat. Ed. for a good price and wonder how it would stack up against other cards that are a couple gens old ?

 

[Extelleron]

It's around the speed of a 7600GT; the 8600GT will be a bit faster.

It's a good card, but the fact it doesn't support Shader Model 3 is beginning to limit its usefulness in modern games - certain ones such as Rainbow Six Vegas and Lost Planet require SM3 cards.

 

[geokilla]

I have the X850XT at 540/1140. It's an excellent card and was an upgrade from my X800XL (RMAed the X800XL). It can handle old games like Counter-Strike fine, but not too well with F.E.A.R at 1152X864. It's still playable, but I think the CPU is somewhat bottlenecking the GPU.

BTW, I'm running F.E.A.R. with everything from medium to max settings with FSAA 2X. Hope this helps.

 

[wwswimming]

the X850XT and the 7600GT are about the same speed. (i have one of each.)

the 7600 GT consumes a lot less electricity.

the drivers for both of them are very mature.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130062

the "615" version of the 7600GT. $100 before rebate.

 

[evolucion8]

It's a nice card, I used to have it's older brother the X800XT PE and I was able to run F.E.A.R. with everything maxed at 1024x768 and 4x FSAA and no problems with it, also I was able to run Oblivion at the same resolution with everything on high and 4x FSAA too, it always ran between 30 and 65fps, the only game that strangled my card a bit was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and was because of trying to play the game on high with only 1GB of RAM. This card may be is not able to play at high resolution, but still able to play any game today on high with FSAA on standard resolutions like 1024x768 or some less eye candy at 1280x1024, it's a feat of a 3 years old card based on a 5 years old architecture.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

it'll stack up quite well actually.. i'd say it can keep up with x1900xt's depending on the resolution/games u play

 

[imported_BadKarma]

Well, how much do you want to spend and how much can you get the X850XT Plat. Ed. for?
I'm just gonna throw in the Connect3D Radeon X1900 GT 256MB found in the hotdeal forum for $105 Dollar shipped, courtesy of CrazyHorse, for you to consider. The X1900 GT is quite faster than the X850XT and it will allow you to run current games at a higher resolution and with more sfx turned on. The only caveat is that the card only comes with 30 days warranty.

 

[Modular]

Originally posted by: BadKarma
The only caveat is that the card only comes with 30 days warranty.

Plus it needs at least 30amps on the 12v line.

 

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: Modular
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: BadKarma
The only caveat is that the card only comes with 30 days warranty.</end quote></div>

Plus it needs at least 30amps on the 12v line.

I believe his powersupply will be good enough, if he's building quad core system from ground up

 

[sandorski]

My x800XL still works decently, though I don't buy a lot of games. As a temporary solution that card should suffice, but it also depends on what you're paying. If you are getting a lot of new games a SM3 card would be a better choice for sure.

 

[Borealis7]

On its hind legs! 'cause its a work horse!

 

[Fenixgoon]

i have an x850xt.. still workin hard, though it's struggling a bit. i really wish it had SM3 (damn you ATI, damn you! ) but otherwise it's been a great card so far.

 

[mruffin75]

Originally posted by: BadKarma
Well, how much do you want to spend and how much can you get the X850XT Plat. Ed. for?
I'm just gonna throw in the Connect3D Radeon X1900 GT 256MB found in the hotdeal forum for $105 Dollar shipped, courtesy of CrazyHorse, for you to consider. The X1900 GT is quite faster than the X850XT and it will allow you to run current games at a higher resolution and with more sfx turned on. The only caveat is that the card only comes with 30 days warranty.

Didn't Connect3D go under? I wouldn't be buying a card from a company that isn't around anymore...?

 

[wbynum]

Instead of that x1900gt I'd go with the Sapphire x1950pro from Newegg for ~$113 shipped after $20 rebate. While Sapphire rebates suck atleast the company is still around.

 

[wazzledoozle]

Still a great card. I play Supreme Commander at medium detail 1440x900 at a solid 60 fps. X2 3800 @ 2.4 and 2gb of DDR480

Some new (badly made) games like Lost Planet and Rainbow Six Vegas require SM 3.0, but those games are crap anyways. The GRAW 2 demo runs great =)

 

[NicColt]

Originally posted by: sandorski
My x800XL still works decently

Sandorski you still alive

I thought I was the only one left on the planet with an X800XL AGP, heck I play(ed) FEAR, Stalker, X3 but mostly play ET now, it's not perfect but it's very ok.

BTW here's what I think about bying a new vid card, (and since you were here back then...)

On November 25th 2003 I paid $525 Cdn for an AIW 9800 Pro
Two years later I paid $350 Cdn for an X800XL

The X800XL has 400 Mhz GPU clock and 500 Mhz Mem clock.
The 2600XT has 800 Mhz GPU clock and 700 Mhz Mem clock.
The 2600XT has AVIVO HD with UVD, DX10, 65nm process and SM4 for $139 Cdn.

For $139 I think that I will put 1 or 2 x 2600XT in my new system. I like the 2900XT but with no UVD and for that price I just cant do it. I think that this was ATI's 'mistake' card that they had to put out.

Like I said I'm going to put a 2600XT in the meantime and wait for the R680 with UVD, 65nm and less heat and power ect...

 

[m1ldslide1]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
It's a nice card, I used to have it's older brother the X800XT PE and I was able to run F.E.A.R. with everything maxed at 1024x768 and 4x FSAA and no problems with it, also I was able to run Oblivion at the same resolution with everything on high and 4x FSAA too, it always ran between 30 and 65fps, the only game that strangled my card a bit was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and was because of trying to play the game on high with only 1GB of RAM. This card may be is not able to play at high resolution, but still able to play any game today on high with FSAA on standard resolutions like 1024x768 or some less eye candy at 1280x1024, it's a feat of a 3 years old card based on a 5 years old architecture.

So you're saying you played Oblivion with all settings maxed at 4xAA with 1GB of RAM and an X800XT? If you said you got between 10-20FPS (or less) then I would believe you, but 30-65fps leads me to call SHENS. Even at 1024x768.

 

[NT78stonewobble]

Remember the x800 series won't do HDR which is a major performance hit...

 

[F1N3ST]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
it'll stack up quite well actually.. i'd say it can keep up with x1900xt's depending on the resolution/games u play

The X850XT is HALF the card a X1900XT is.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: NT78stonewobble
Remember the x800 series won't do HDR which is a major performance hit...

... try 'won't do HDR at all'

and some new games REQUIRE SM3.0 to run ... check to make sure it is not your favorite game

i would not get one now - unless you are paying $50 for it and don't mind or your resolution is less then 12x10
i got rid of mine back in December ... it was an awesome card

 

[JBird7986]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: NT78stonewobble
Remember the x800 series won't do HDR which is a major performance hit...

... try 'won't do HDR at all'

Not true...my old Radeon 9700 Pro (which I replaced three weeks ago) was able to do HDR. The difference is that its integer based HDR, which isn't nearly as precise in its calculations.

 

[apoppin]

sigh .. sure .. of course, you are right ... x800 *can* do the HDR in Lost Coast

.. and all it does is make you feel bad to know that you are REALLY *missing it* in Oblivion and games that look really good with it enabled

 

[evolucion8]

The Radeon X800 can do HDR, any good DX9 can do HDR using Int12 (4.12) (Except GeForce FX). The main problem is that it never was adopted. Even though the precision is lower than the FP16 based one, it's quite hard to spot the difference in a screen. Have you ever compared Far Cry HDR vs Half Life 2 HDR? Half Life 2 HDR looks better for me cause it has a more natural looking, what I don't like is that when it overbrights, the color and detail of the area tends to be lost, that's why we needed FP16 which doesn't have such problems. FP16 is nice too but sometimes makes the scenes a little too colorful for my tastes, but add a certain realism in dark places. Oblivion really looks beautiful with it on, I played on the X800XTPE with a mod that allowed me to use HDR through Pixel Shaders, and now I use the X1950XT with normal FP16 HDR, the only difference between them for me is that in the X800XT PE the low precision of the 96-Bit Pixel Shader created some color banding in the sky, (Seems that 96-Bit precision is good for anything else but HDR and Offline rendering) and in some places, the overbright is not that overbright, in the X1950XT, the HDR looks more convincent and with a wider gamma of colors in the HDR maps.

 

[f4phantom2500]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
any good DX9 can do HDR using Int12 (4.12) (Except GeForce FX).

isn't that kind of redundant? those cards sucked ass, they were never good!

 

[evolucion8]

Most transistors on the FX line was spent on DX8 functionality, they didn't even supported MRT and Floating Point Textures, sheesh, I would consider offensive somebody giving the FX card as a gift, probably I would slap the card in his/her face.