Very Good AGP Card at Nice Price

[BadSweetums]

Newegg has a Retail-Boxed PowerColor Radeon X800GTO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card for $155 + 4.89 three-day shipping. 12 pixel pipelines, no free games and no VIVO; but it looks like the most capable 256-bit memory bus AGP video card available for less than $200. No rebates, no price matching and hopefully no hassles.

They also have two different refurbished Sapphire Radeon X800GTO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Cards in stock and available for $152.68 and $133.00 + $1 three-day shipping but I wanted a guaranteed complete card and the PowerColor card also has a stock 475 MHz GPU clock vs both Sapphires 400 MHz core clocks.

DO NOT bother trying the $50 off "iloveati" promo code. It does not apply to cards priced under $300.

 

[IEC]

I think for about $30 less (-20%) you can get a Radeon X1600 Pro which also has 12 pixel pipelines and 500/800 clocks versus 475/900 on the X800GTO. It also is newer-gen and comes with AVIVO to boot. Only GDDR2, but for running at stock/mild OCing, it'll get the job done.

 

[cmetz]

What an X1600 Pro doesn't have is a 2D engine. If you're not running Windows, you will find that very painful. Even if you are running Windows, you will always be running the 3D engine, which means you're always using a much more complex code path and one less suited to 2D operations.

If what you mostly do is 2D (e.g., a desktop) the X1xxxx cards are inferior to their predecessors. It's only if you are mostly doing 3D or video that those boards shine.

Note that Microsoft has said that Vista's new shiny UI will be heavily 3D, and 3D only (at least, the shiny cool UI - there may be a fall-back UI). This is one of the reasons why ATI dropped the 2D core from their chip.

 

[Suture]

Originally posted by: ariafrost
I think for about $30 less (-20%) you can get a Radeon X1600 Pro which also has 12 pixel pipelines and 500/800 clocks versus 475/900 on the X800GTO. It also is newer-gen and comes with AVIVO to boot. Only GDDR2, but for running at stock/mild OCing, it'll get the job done.

Nice find. I'm going to pick one up for my younger brother's rig. I call it the "Oblivion upgrade."

 

[BadSweetums]

Uhh? I have not deeply researched the issue; but, the X1600 series has a 128-bit wide memory bus. Doesn't that mean that the 256MBs of memory is like putting an aero kit on a garden tractor? Kool to talk about but mostly useless.

So, I think the X800GTO is the better card.

 

[Adam8281]

will this beat the socks off my 6600gt agp?

 

[Suture]

Originally posted by: BadSweetums
Uhh? I have not deeply researched the issue; but, the X1600 series has a 128-bit wide memory bus. Doesn't that mean that the 256MBs of memory is like putting an aero kit on a garden tractor? Kool to talk about but mostly useless.

So, I think the X800GTO is the better card.

Whoa, I didn't even notice that. :thumbsup: Good looking out.

 

[cubeless]

it looks to be about 30% faster overall from a quick perusal of tom's charts...

 

[MichaelD]

Right now, I'm gaming on my old-tech system, which has a 9800 Pro. How much better is this card? Is it $160 better? Would it be a nice "life extending" upgrade to this rig?

Abit NF7-S (NForce2)
2.2GHz AthlonXP
1GB Ram
9800 Pro

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: BadSweetums
Uhh? I have not deeply researched the issue; but, the X1600 series has a 128-bit wide memory bus. Doesn't that mean that the 256MBs of memory is like putting an aero kit on a garden tractor? Kool to talk about but mostly useless.

So, I think the X800GTO is the better card.

That's what I'm thinking, unless someone can show some benchmarks that suggest otherwise.

 

[MichaelD]

I'm reading some reviews on the X800GTO, such as this one and the card looks like a real sleeper; capable of some nice overclocks in most cases.

What I'm looking for now are charts comparing the 9800 Pro to this card. $160 is about all I'd be willing to spend on an upgrade for this rig.

 

[CCityInstaller]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Right now, I'm gaming on my old-tech system, which has a 9800 Pro. How much better is this card? Is it $160 better? Would it be a nice "life extending" upgrade to this rig?

Abit NF7-S (NForce2)
2.2GHz AthlonXP
1GB Ram
9800 Pro

I think for the money it is a great upgrade, depending on what resolution you game at. I just upgraded from a 9800 PRO @XT speeds as well, and it really struggled at 1280x1024 in most newer games. If you aren't willing to upgrade to PCI-e yet, I don't think you can go wrong. Most of the X800GTO's really o/c well, which will give you a nice little speed boost. You can also sell your current 9800 PRO. I sold mine for $65 (which is dirt cheap) and it was sold in 5 minutes. If you sell yours that cheap, that means the X800GTO is a sub $100 upgrade, which makes it even better.

 

[Adam8281]

this actually has 16 pixel pipelines, not 12 as OP states

 

[Crono]

Thanks OP and ariafrost, I'll probably be buying up one of those cards next week.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: CCityInstaller

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Right now, I'm gaming on my old-tech system, which has a 9800 Pro. How much better is this card? Is it $160 better? Would it be a nice "life extending" upgrade to this rig?

Abit NF7-S (NForce2)
2.2GHz AthlonXP
1GB Ram
9800 Pro

I think for the money it is a great upgrade, depending on what resolution you game at. I just upgraded from a 9800 PRO @XT speeds as well, and it really struggled at 1280x1024 in most newer games. If you aren't willing to upgrade to PCI-e yet, I don't think you can go wrong. Most of the X800GTO's really o/c well, which will give you a nice little speed boost. You can also sell your current 9800 PRO. I sold mine for $65 (which is dirt cheap) and it was sold in 5 minutes. If you sell yours that cheap, that means the X800GTO is a sub $100 upgrade, which makes it even better.

Thanks, CCityInstaller. You make some good points.
I have an Arctic Cooling HSF on my 9800, which works well, but unfortunately didn't let me get any more FPS out of the card.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Adam8281
this actually has 16 pixel pipelines, not 12 as OP states

You sure about that? NE product description says 12 pipelines.

Text

 

[Adam8281]

Actually, I might have spoken too soon. If you scroll down farther, under features it says:

World's Most Advanced 3D Architecture
RADEON X800 graphics technology features SMARTSHADER HD , the most advanced pixel shader engine with up to 16 parallel pixel pipelines capable of an incredible 6 gigapixels/second fill rate in full precision! With six programmable vertex shader pipelines, capable of up to 700 million vertices per second and an overall capability of over 200 billion floating point operations per second(Giga FLOPS), RADEON X800 Graphics Technology delivers the most beautifully rendered high-definition 3D animation for the ultimate in intense, interactive game play.

I suppose since it says up to 16 that it might only have 12 - I believe it depends on whether this is R430 or R423; R430 has 16, R423 has 12. The card has been built with both, and I'm not certain which Powercolor is using. If it is R430, then there's a great chance of unlocking all 16.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Adam8281
Actually, I might have spoken too soon. If you scroll down farther, under features it says:

World's Most Advanced 3D Architecture
RADEON X800 graphics technology features SMARTSHADER HD , the most advanced pixel shader engine with up to 16 parallel pixel pipelines capable of an incredible 6 gigapixels/second fill rate in full precision! With six programmable vertex shader pipelines, capable of up to 700 million vertices per second and an overall capability of over 200 billion floating point operations per second(Giga FLOPS), RADEON X800 Graphics Technology delivers the most beautifully rendered high-definition 3D animation for the ultimate in intense, interactive game play.

I suppose since it says up to 16 that it might only have 12 - I believe it depends on whether this is R430 or R423; R430 has 16, R423 has 12. The card has been built with both, and I'm not certain which Powercolor is using. If it is R430, then there's a great chance of unlocking all 16.

To further the confusion, I'm finding out that the card has been built as AGP and PCI-E.

 

[hansmuff]

Controversial post of the day (for this thread, anyway):

I'm trying to find out how this does against a 9800 @380/640.

Both have a 256bit memory bus.

I have a weird idea to compare the power of those cards, and it may be off by some, but I'll share it anyway.

9800: 8 pipes at 380MHz (in my case. others are clocked differently)
x800: 12 pipes at 475MHz (i can't account overclocking here cause I don't have one)

9800: 8 * 380 = 3040 hansmuff-mips
x800: 12 * 475 = 5700 hansmuff-mips
Factor 1.9 diff

Memory clock:
9800: 640 MHz (again, in my case)
x800: 900 MHz
Factor 1.4 diff

So depending on the game, I guess you can expect at least 50% improvement, and up to 100% improvement. This isn't taking into account other architectural improvements in the x800, or the overclock possible.

THIS IS ALSO NOT A PROVEN METHOD, AND I'M NOT CLAIMING IT TO BE CORRECT.
But I think it's a good, rough assessment.

Looking at the VGA charts at tomshardware, my idea is not that far off, either.

To me personally, that improvement is not enough. 16 pipes and SM3.0 for roughly $200 would do the trick for me.

 

[brownzilla786]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Right now, I'm gaming on my old-tech system, which has a 9800 Pro. How much better is this card? Is it $160 better? Would it be a nice "life extending" upgrade to this rig?

Abit NF7-S (NForce2)
2.2GHz AthlonXP
1GB Ram
9800 Pro

9800 pro is almost a 6600gt. I presume you overclocked your 9800 pro so it should be roughly about the same performance as a 6600gt. Then just compare the 6600gt to the x800gto and that might help you choose

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: brownzilla786

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Right now, I'm gaming on my old-tech system, which has a 9800 Pro. How much better is this card? Is it $160 better? Would it be a nice "life extending" upgrade to this rig?

Abit NF7-S (NForce2)
2.2GHz AthlonXP
1GB Ram
9800 Pro

9800 pro is almost a 6600gt. I presume you overclocked your 9800 pro so it should be roughly about the same performance as a 6600gt. Then just compare the 6600gt to the x800gto and that might help you choose

9800Pro is still a dasm good general purpose card. Tell you what, the 9800's 2D graphics look better to me than the 6600 or even 6800 nVidia cards....I dunno why, but it just looks better IMO.

 

[hansmuff]

I agree that the venerable 9800 in my machine is still a decent card. Recent games, however, have to have a lot of detail reduced to run at 1024x768. Even then, it gets a little ugly here and there.
Then again, it's served me very well for 2 1/2 years, and was $200 back then.

I'm waiting for either the 7800GS to come down to $200, or until I can afford to jump on PCI-Express and AMD M2.

 

[MichaelD]

LOL! I vote to replace 3DMark with the new, BETTER, HANSMUFFMARK videocard benchmark! :thumbsup: It has no graphics yet, but the numbers rock. Hahah!

Seriously though; your logic seems to make sense to me.

My 9800 has been an awesome card. But it lags a bit on newer, fast shooters like Doom3 and Quake4...especially at 1280x1024.

I'll have to sleep on this one. I didn't want to spend any more money on this rig...but it would be a nice upgrade and make my remaining time spent gaming on this box that much more pleasurable....it's all about the pleasure, you know.

 

[navyac]

i bought a x1600 pro agp from newegg and it was a horrible card, i RMA'ed for a 6800gs which I unlocked with Rivatuner and it was like night and day. I suppose a GTO is comparable to a 6800 GS when unlocked so I would recommend a GTO over the 1600.

 

[cubeless]

tom's charts...