Video Card Upgrade help for Newbie gamer on a budget

[Vesh007]

Hey everyone, I've been lurking on these forums for a while. I'm looking for an AGP upgrade in the 150 dollar range.

I've gathered from the forums that my choices are the 6600GT and 6800GS from nvidia, and the x1600pro and x800gto from ATI

I'm leaning towards ATI right now since 6800GS AGP seems to have disappeared, and 6600GT seems a little old.

I'm attracted to the ~$110 x1600pro for its multimedia abilities (I plan to hook it up to an HDTV) and it's price.

Iam also attracted to the x800gto since it seems to clean house on the benchmarks and in almost every game I can conceive of playing. (I'd like to play Half Life 2) My current GeForce FX5200 just isnt cutting it anymore. I can also get it ~150

My question is if the extra 40 dollars is worth it for the x800gto, and even though I've searched the forums, there's been no clear answer as to whether shader model 3.0 is important enough of a feature to not buy an x800gto.

Plz Help, any advice would be appreciated.

 

[RussianSensation]

SM3.0 is not important since any of the cards you'd be able to buy in your price range will be too slow in sm3.0 games.

X800GTO is the best value in AGP on Newegg. I do not think it will work with HDTV though. I was under the impression only X1600,x1800,x1900 and x1300 support HDTV.

X800 series - Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution
It does say "YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays?" but
* This feature is supported by the asic and can be specified by PC manufacturers for its add-in-boards. This feature is not typically enabled on stand alone cards

However, for X1600 series it says the same thing. Even if any ATI chipset supports HDTV, ** Currently there is no commercially available HDCP content. ATI's Radeon® X and Radeon® 9550 series of GPUs are capable of processing HDCP signals ("HDCP ready"), however ATI does not presently manufacture any graphics cards which are HDCP ready. Some third parties manufacture graphics cards containing ATI GPUs -- you can inquire of them which models, if any, -- are HDCP ready." - Source

So I'd probably get X800GTO for gaming and forget about HD content for now. If you want to play games on HDTV, I'd rather get an Xbox360.

 

[Vesh007]

Thanks for the reply Russian,

I'm almost sold on the x800GTO, just one last question. Does anyone know if "avivo" technology will make a difference between the cards or is it some marketing gimmick?

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Vesh007
Thanks for the reply Russian,

I'm almost sold on the x800GTO, just one last question. Does anyone know if "avivo" technology will make a difference between the cards or is it some marketing gimmick?

Avivo technology simply allows for better playback in windows media player and hardware acceleration for H.264 HDTV video codec. It's also supposed to make the cards HDTV compatible. From the info I read on their site and what I linked to you still shows that you need a special cable or something along those lines.

If you do really need HDTV support and it's important to you, I'd strongly advise posting a new thread in Video and ask something like: Can I play on an HDTV with X1600Pro/XT series? X800(GTO) series? You should have more in-depth helpful advice from users who actually have used these cards for your specific purpose. Sorry I am not too knowledgeable on HDTV aspect.

If you care about benchmarks in games I was able to find this X1600XT vs. X800GTO (regular 12 pipe) and X800GTO 16 pipe
Start Review Here

So X800GTO should be faster than X1600pro. Check for the games you play. If the difference is a not a lot, just save $40. Keep in mind that X1600Pro has 500gpu vs. 590gpu for X1600XT, BUT only 128-bit 800mhz clock speeds vs. 128-bit 1380 for XT version. That's a severe decrease in mem speed. X800GTO has 256-bit 980mhz memory. If you overclock X800GTO to 500mhz or so it'll for sure outperform X1600XT.