Need advice!!!!!!! Prolink FX5900XT

[g8wayrebel]

Have a friend who wants to sell me his FX5900XT after using it for 2 weeks. He is the definition of gamer and is buying a better card for himself. He bought this one for his better half who turned out to be the bitter half and got the boot. I can't find much about PROLINK as a manufacturer other than their own propoganda. The card seems ok from what I can tell.What do you all think? It is the gold version for 155.00 negotiable. I was thinking of offering him a little less.

 

[Concillian]

You can get better for that price.

For whatever reason, GeForce cards hold their value better than comparable ATi cards, even if the ATi cards are faster. Look in FS/FT for a 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro, either is faster than a 5900XT for most games. How do I know? I own a 5900XT and a Radeon 9700 that I run at pro speeds, the 9700 is definitely faster at the games I play, and it was significantly cheaper.

 

[d2arcturus]

agreed with concillian, stay away from the fx series
if you can, wait a while and go with a 6600gt agp in a month or so, ~$200 best card for the money IMO

 

[Bateluer]

With the 6600 GTs on the market now, I wouldn't touch an FX card with a 10 foot pole.

 

[g8wayrebel]

Well,alrighty then. Thanks for the advice.
That's exactly why I joined this forum.No BS and a good troll dectector(or 200)...lol

 

[RussianSensation]

It's funny how all those pro-5900 series users suddenly disappeared off the forums, when those cards were basically known to suck in PS2.0 the day they came out and ppl still said they are better than 9700/9800 cards....welcome to DX8.1 HL2

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
It's funny how all those pro-5900 series users suddenly disappeared off the forums, when those cards were basically known to suck in PS2.0 the day they came out and ppl still said they are better than 9700/9800 cards....welcome to DX8.1 HL2

We haven't disappeared. The differences AT showed for DX9 HL2 vs DX 8.1 HL2 weren't exactly Earth shattering, and the 5900s play HL2 just as well as the 9800 series when they're in DX 8.1.

I don't own a nV3x series card anymore, but if I did, I'd have a whole two DX9 PS2 games- HL2 and Far Cry. Woot- huge PS2 factor going on in my house.

As far as the 6600GT vs any 5900 goes- I bet there are many AA/AF settings a 5900U/5950 can beat a 6600GT at. (so I wouldn't be lamenting my 5900 purchase if I had one)

BTW- Russian Sensation- what PS2 games were the 5900s sucking at the day they came out? How many in the first year they were out? 3? 4?

 

[RussianSensation]

I am just saying that multiple reviews were hinting at them lacking in shader intensive applications. As soon as Halo, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia and all the PS2.0 games started coming out, 5900 was officially proven to be slow. Before it was just a hypothesis partly due to 3dmark03 nature test and some other shader intensive games, maybe not necessarily DX9.0 games.

Either way 9800Pro is significantly faster in HL2. I am saying imagine you spent $200+ US on 5900 series cards, only to find out that come HL2 (and I am assuming future games) the cards will be useless for DX9.0. Yes, 9800pro runs DX9 games slow, but it's still playable with the eye candy and those cards cost $200 as well.

I remember massive 2003 Xbitlabs review concluded that 5900 cards will be inadequate in the future, much more so than ATI cards, which became a reality. This information was "known" 1.5 years ago, but people kept buying 5900 cards for no reason.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
I am just saying that multiple reviews were hinting at them lacking in shader intensive applications. As soon as Halo, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia and all the PS2.0 games started coming out, 5900 was officially proven to be slow. Before it was just a hypothesis partly due to 3dmark03 nature test and some other shader intensive games, maybe not necessarily DX9.0 games.

Errr, disagree. 1. 5900s played Halo for PC as well as anything. 2. Nobody played Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider. You could just as easily say "The 5900 Ultra proved the 9800 Pro to be slow at Jedi Knight 2 and RTCW" - point being a couple games does not an overall picture of a card make. (and DX9 PS2 still, over a year and a half later, has barely been seen.

Either way 9800Pro is significantly faster in HL2. I am saying imagine you spent $200+ US on 5900 series cards, only to find out that come HL2 (and I am assuming future games) the cards will be useless for DX9.0. Yes, 9800pro runs DX9 games slow, but it's still playable with the eye candy and those cards cost $200 as well.

Irrelevant to me, I've never owned a card a year and the 5900 came out a year and a half ago. HL2 came out a week ago. I could have owned a 5900 Ultra the whole year and a half and my only downside would have been DX8.1 Far Cry. (oh, and missing the splendor of "Prince of Persia"- I didn't even know that was on anything but PS, that's how far off the radar PoP is)

I remember massive 2003 Xbitlabs review concluded that 5900 cards will be inadequate in the future, much more so than ATI cards, which became a reality. This information was "known" 1.5 years ago, but people kept buying 5900 cards for no reason.

Well, you are the "Russian" Sensation, but here in the states a lot of us have some questions about Xbits methods and motives. They're a good site, but some of their benches don't seem to agree with their peers. I also question the settings and drivers they use, sometimes it looks like they're trying to show nVidia in a negative light?

Read AT and Firing Squad's reviews of 5900 Ultras and you'll get a different story, wonder why?

 

[Pete]

FYI, PoP:SoT plays better on nVidia than ATI cards. Maybe you were thinking of Tron 2.0, RS?

PoP:SoT was supposed to be a good game, good enough to warrant a sequel. Try the demo, Rollo.

 

[PrayForDeath]

PoP: SOT is one of my favorite 3rd Person adventure games (and its sequel is coming Nov 29th by the way) but it doesn't use PS2.0, just PS1.1/1.5
The FX series had proven to be an "Unfutureproof" purchase due to its limited (weak) DX9.0 support, so I recommend for the OP to get a used 9800/9700Pro instead unless your buddy lowers the price to 100-120$ since its going around 160-170$ new ATM.
And Rollo, I disagree with you on what you said about X-bit labs, I don't think they're biased and their scores look fair to me just like FS, AT and Tom's, and I like their wide benchmarking gaming set.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
PoP: SOT is one of my favorite 3rd Person adventure games (and its sequel is coming Nov 29th by the way) but it doesn't use PS2.0, just PS1.1/1.5
The FX series had proven to be an "Unfutureproof" purchase due to its limited (weak) DX9.0 support, so I recommend for the OP to get a used 9800/9700Pro instead unless your buddy lowers the price to 100-120$ since its going around 160-170$ new ATM.
And Rollo, I disagree with you on what you said about X-bit labs, I don't think they're biased and their scores look fair to me just like FS, AT and Tom's, and I like their wide benchmarking gaming set.

I don't know if PoP is a good game or not, my point was I didn't even know it was a PC game so I'm guessing it wasn't a big seller. (therefore not a huge factor on card choice)

NO card is future proof, usually they get trumped pretty soundly within a year to year and a half. (so IMO buying a card on longevity doesn't make sense)

As far as XBit goes, they have a nice site and certainly put a ton of work into benchmarking, and seem to know their stuff. However, it seems to me they sometimes benchmark to pointless extremes? For the same reason I don't care how 178 cards run a game at 10X7 0X0X, I also don't care about 6X16X and 8X16X? IIRC, aren't they pretty regularly setting the detail levels outside the norm 4X8X for benching, even when the cards clearly can't handle those settings at playable levels?

If I'm wrong, my apologies to Xbit.

 

[g8wayrebel]

Wow, lookie what I started. For the record the guy wanted 155.00 for the 5900XT and someone gave it to him. It wasn't an ultra just an XT gold series. In either case I put my card in the better halfs machine to make sure it would work and am now stuck with a 7200 in mine.It really blows for anything but surfing. Glad you all got this out of your system. It was enlightening and entertaining all at once. Thanks for the input.
BTW I still need an AGP card.

 

[Todd33]

You can get a new 9700 pro via "buy now" on eBay for $137+shipping. See if he lets you have it for $140, that's a good deal.

 

[quikah]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Either way 9800Pro is significantly faster in HL2. I am saying imagine you spent $200+ US on 5900 series cards, only to find out that come HL2 (and I am assuming future games) the cards will be useless for DX9.0. Yes, 9800pro runs DX9 games slow, but it's still playable with the eye candy and those cards cost $200 as well.

I remember massive 2003 Xbitlabs review concluded that 5900 cards will be inadequate in the future, much more so than ATI cards, which became a reality. This information was "known" 1.5 years ago, but people kept buying 5900 cards for no reason.

9800 Pros were not $200 a year ago, the 5900 were. I think 9800pro were more like $300, 9800 nonpro were $250 I believe. I bought a 5900 for <$200. Had they both been the same price I would have bought a 9800. Today, I don't see any reason to buy a 5900.

I don't see myself buying a new card for a while, mainly because I will be playing WoW almost exclusively which runs great on my card.

 

[ponyo]

I bought my BFG FX5900 new for $172~ last year. Radeon 9800pro was going for around $225-250 at the time. Considering I could flash the FX5900 to FX5950 Ultra since it used the same 2.2ns ram, it was a better buy for me. Plus my FX5900 came with Call of Duty which I was planning to buy anyways. That saved me another $40. So I effectively paid $132 for my FX5900. I have no regrets about my purchase even though I knew FX5900 was slower in PS 2.0.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Naustica
I bought my BFG FX5900 new for $172~ last year. Radeon 9800pro was going for around $225-250 at the time. Considering I could flash the FX5900 to FX5950 Ultra since it used the same 2.2ns ram, it was a better buy for me. Plus my FX5900 came with Call of Duty which I was planning to buy anyways. That saved me another $40. So I effectively paid $132 for my FX5900. I have no regrets about my purchase even though I knew FX5900 was slower in PS 2.0.

Call of Duty angers me. It won't let me shoot the drill instructors.