X1600pro released in AGP

[Project86]

http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product...&sid=XE37AWHNN9EM9L5AHFML2A3ADHMMFBT9#

It's going for $150, clocked at 500/800 as far as I can tell. Not the best card in the world, and if someone could spare the extra $50 a 6800GS would be a better choice. But if someone was strapped for cash and on AGP, this *MIGHT* be a decent choice.

I'd like to see some benches though.... I could be way wrong.

 

[MX2]

What happened to all that "AGP is dead" talk?

 

[Paratus]

If they didn't strip the Dual Link DVI thats an AGP card that can drive the new 30" Dell and Apple displays for $150. Not a bad deal. (Wouldn't want to game on it however)

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: MX2times
What happened to all that "AGP is dead" talk?

from all the PCIe fanboys, I guess..

I say AGP is nearing its death. A large installed base of AGP motherboards will keep AGP around a little longer.. probably not on the high end though..
I guess manufacturers are catoring just enough to milk a little more $$ out of the ones that are reluctant to upgrade to PCIe

 

[RussianSensation]

When people say AGP is dead, it is implied they are referring to High-end only. Also, microcenter is back with their deal on $200 X850XT. This is the one to grab until Jan 31st.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: Project86
http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product...&sid=XE37AWHNN9EM9L5AHFML2A3ADHMMFBT9#

It's going for $150, clocked at 500/800 as far as I can tell. Not the best card in the world, and if someone could spare the extra $50 a 6800GS would be a better choice. But if someone was strapped for cash and on AGP, this *MIGHT* be a decent choice.

I'd like to see some benches though.... I could be way wrong.

I am in the market for a ~$200 AGP card, this one seems a bit long in the tooth performance wise.

Why not go for the extra $50 and get the microcenter X850XT? At $150, the extra $50 buys a helluva lot of perfrmance. Where this card MIGHT be OK, is for the person who doesn't wantot worry about buying a new PSU, but really, c'mon.

 

[Project86]

Originally posted by: Greg04

Originally posted by: Project86
http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product...&sid=XE37AWHNN9EM9L5AHFML2A3ADHMMFBT9#

It's going for $150, clocked at 500/800 as far as I can tell. Not the best card in the world, and if someone could spare the extra $50 a 6800GS would be a better choice. But if someone was strapped for cash and on AGP, this *MIGHT* be a decent choice.

I'd like to see some benches though.... I could be way wrong.

I am in the market for a ~$200 AGP card, this one seems a bit long in the tooth performance wise.

Why not go for the extra $50 and get the microcenter X850XT? At $150, the extra $50 buys a helluva lot of perfrmance. Where this card MIGHT be OK, is for the person who doesn't wantot worry about buying a new PSU, but really, c'mon.

Well of course you are correct... My point is that there is ALWAYS a small amount of cash you can spend to jump up a level in performance (and with that X850 deal, it is a rather large jump, no doubt). But I still think there is a market for stuff like this. If you are stretching already just to reach the $150 mark, then $200 (more like $275 after tax/shipping, then wait for the $50 refund) is not really an option.

If this is indeed a halfway decent card, I'm glad to see that it was released at a fairly low price point. There always seems to be a big gap... The 6800NU and X800pro, and then from there it drops to crap like Radeon 9550, with not much in the middle (except for the 6600 series). I'm glad to see more stuff fill that void.

Once again, this opinion is based upon the reviews of the PCI-E version, and also assuming that prices will drop a tiny bit once a few more places start carrying it.

 

[shooterm]

And then there are the few of us who mildly game yet do lots of video encoding. So that is where the x1600 would kick the x850.
Personally I'm waiting for the x1700 for pci-e if it is the right price.
Avivo will help me out big time.

 

[v8envy]

Be real careful looking at reviews. Every review is the X1600XT, and just about every card I've seen retail is the X1600Pro. The memory bandwidth difference between the two is enormous.

Just because the 22.08 Gb/sec X1600XT edges out a 6600GT in some games doesn't mean the 12.48 Gb/sec Pro will do as nicely. The 90 mhz GPU clock difference is only a part of the picture.

That being said, I also have high hopes for the X1700. Looks like ATI will fix the 128 bit memory bus blunder, and if we're lucky, also the 4 texture unit/4 ROP bottleneck. At least an 8 pipe version of the 1600 would match the performance of the X800 series, but also provide SM 3.0 and the advanced video encoding/decoding features.

 

[Paratus]

Meh the 128bit thing (X1600XT) is overblown. It's the 4 ROPS & TMUs that kill it.

At 12x10 it's got more than enough BW.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: Paratus
Meh the 128bit thing (X1600XT) is overblown. It's the 4 ROPS & TMUs that kill it.

At 12x10 it's got more than enough BW.

I would agree with you, if this was a year ago. If you're shooting for 6600GT level performance, 12.48Gb/sec is good enough.

But this is 2006, and there's little point in releasing brand new tech that precisely matches a card with a common street price of $110, and hoping to get $150-200 for it.

More and bigger textures mean more memory bandwidth. This is pretty easy to determine. If we had someone with an X800 GTO @ 400/490 willing to downclock their ram to 245 mhz and run some benchmarks at 12x10 (or even 10x7), you would see that even today 12 Gb/sec is only enough for low end performance ( ~ 3500 3dmark05 )

The X1600 card is just so bottlenecked by 4 TU/ROPs that you never hit the second memory bandwidth bottleneck.

So there you are correct, I should hope ATI fixes the 4 pipe bottleneck first, and memory bandwidth second. Still, both are huge problems, and fixing only one won't do it.

 

[Project86]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: Paratus
Meh the 128bit thing (X1600XT) is overblown. It's the 4 ROPS & TMUs that kill it.

At 12x10 it's got more than enough BW.

I would agree with you, if this was a year ago. If you're shooting for 6600GT level performance, 12.48Gb/sec is good enough.

But this is 2006, and there's little point in releasing brand new tech that precisely matches a card with a common street price of $110, and hoping to get $150-200 for it.

More and bigger textures mean more memory bandwidth. This is pretty easy to determine. If we had someone with an X800 GTO @ 400/490 willing to downclock their ram to 245 mhz and run some benchmarks at 12x10 (or even 10x7), you would see that even today 12 Gb/sec is only enough for low end performance ( ~ 3500 3dmark05 )

The X1600 card is just so bottlenecked by 4 TU/ROPs that you never hit the second memory bandwidth bottleneck.

So there you are correct, I should hope ATI fixes the 4 pipe bottleneck first, and memory bandwidth second. Still, both are huge problems, and fixing only one won't do it.

Good post. For AGP though, the 6600GT is still commanding prices closer to $150. Sometimes lower by a few $, or down to $130ish with a rebate. Hopefully as more places sell these in AGP, they might drop a bit as well.

Anyone have info on the X1700 line coming out in AGP?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Paratus
Meh the 128bit thing (X1600XT) is overblown. It's the 4 ROPS & TMUs that kill it.

At 12x10 it's got more than enough BW.

wasn't there an "improved" x1600xt with 256bit memory?

256-bit Yule polishing

f you're wondering why we keep using the NEW in front of every X1600, there wouldn't be a bit of a difference if there wasn't a small quote hidden inside the press release:

"The new Radeon X1600 XT also features 256-bit ring-bus memory controller and support for up to 512 MB of RAM."

it's already new and improved

 

[hooflung]

115 is how much a 6600GT cost at newegg after rebate ( eVGA ) although a 6800XT AGP ( basically a NU ) is same price and a 6800XT PCI-E is 119 after rebates. These cards are far superior value.

 

[v8envy]

AGP product pricing is weird and strange, and will only get stranger as inventories dry up. It's a fair bet that anyone with an AGP rig who wants 6600GT level performance already has it, and is not going to do a whole heaping helping of research to get a new 6600GT-level AGP card for $150 mid 2006. God only knows if a 6600GT will still be acceptable low end then.

As far as the 256 bit X1600XT, yeah, it's a 22.some Gb/sec card, benchmarks fairly well. Not very available retail: that channel is flooded with the 128 bit Pros. I keep having to warn people looking at XT benchmarks that the Pro is not the same card.

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Paratus
Meh the 128bit thing (X1600XT) is overblown. It's the 4 ROPS & TMUs that kill it.

At 12x10 it's got more than enough BW.

wasn't there an "improved" x1600xt with 256bit memory?

256-bit Yule polishing

f you're wondering why we keep using the NEW in front of every X1600, there wouldn't be a bit of a difference if there wasn't a small quote hidden inside the press release:

"The new Radeon X1600 XT also features 256-bit ring-bus memory controller and support for up to 512 MB of RAM."

it's already new and improved

Not quite unfortunately.

The X1600 series has an internal 256 bit ring bus but only an 128 bit external interface to the memory.

Just like the X1800 series has an internal 512 bit ring bus but only a 256 bit external interface to the memory.

The ring bus basically lets the GPU access the correct memory locations very quickly compared to other methods.



I also agree that the X1600Pro lacks bandwidth. The XT though has as much as the 6800NU or 9800XT which is good for a mainstream card.


posted via Palm Life Drive

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Paratus

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Paratus
Meh the 128bit thing (X1600XT) is overblown. It's the 4 ROPS & TMUs that kill it.

At 12x10 it's got more than enough BW.

wasn't there an "improved" x1600xt with 256bit memory?

256-bit Yule polishing

f you're wondering why we keep using the NEW in front of every X1600, there wouldn't be a bit of a difference if there wasn't a small quote hidden inside the press release:

"The new Radeon X1600 XT also features 256-bit ring-bus memory controller and support for up to 512 MB of RAM."

it's already new and improved

Not quite unfortunately.

The X1600 series has an internal 256 bit ring bus but only an 128 bit external interface to the memory.

Just like the X1800 series has an internal 512 bit ring bus but only a 256 bit external interface to the memory.

The ring bus basically lets the GPU access the correct memory locations very quickly compared to other methods.



I also agree that the X1600Pro lacks bandwidth. The XT though has as much as the 6800NU or 9800XT which is good for a mainstream card.


posted via Palm Life Drive

so theInq got it wrong?

"The new Radeon X1600 XT also features 256-bit ring-bus memory controller and support for up to 512 MB of RAM."

So folks, if you have bought the 128-bit Radeon X1600 product, you're free to yank like a donkey. Altough, this scenario is exactly what we have written several times ever since the introduction of X1600. The product got smackered down in tests and ATi did a "Santa, I've been a good boy this year" spin. Which surely, raised performance by a mile? We're expecting a review sample, if ATI can spare one.

 

[v8envy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...048+70001583&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=48

Note how some cards list a 128 bit memory interface, others 256 bit. GG ati, confuse the consumer FTW!

All of those cards have 128 bit interfaces, but apparently the ring architecture consists of two unidirectional rings (logical), 128 bits in each direction. This does not offer the same bandwidth as a true 256 bit interface. Same as always. There are no 256 bit cards, the Inq (and I) had it wrong.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: v8envy
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...048+70001583&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=48

Note how some cards list a 128 bit memory interface, others 256 bit. GG ati, confuse the consumer FTW!

All of those cards have 128 bit interfaces, but apparently the ring architecture consists of two unidirectional rings (logical), 128 bits in each direction. This does not offer the same bandwidth as a true 256 bit interface. Same as always. There are no 256 bit cards, the Inq (and I) had it wrong.

are you SURE?

i can't find any reviews that really go into in but:

SAPPHIRE 100145L Radeon X1600PRO 512MB 256-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

512MB 256-bit GDDR2?

and MSI RX1600PRO-TD256E Radeon X1600PRO 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

256MB 128-bit GDDR2

i see a difference . .. maybe i'm just tired

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: apoppin


are you SURE?

i can't find any reviews that really go into in but:

SAPPHIRE 100145L Radeon X1600PRO 512MB 256-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

512MB 256-bit GDDR2?

and MSI RX1600PRO-TD256E Radeon X1600PRO 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

256MB 128-bit GDDR2

i see a difference . .. maybe i'm just tired

I'm pretty darn sure, from the bit of research done lately. The only reference to a 256 bit external bus comes from that one Inq article being quoted over and over.

Bloody marketing. I hope video card makers start quoting memory bandwidth instead of these suddenly bogus memory bus width claims. Then who cares if it's a 1 bit 256 googlehz ring bus, or a 65536 bit 1337 hz pretzel bus. What matters is bandwidth and latency.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: apoppin


are you SURE?

i can't find any reviews that really go into in but:

SAPPHIRE 100145L Radeon X1600PRO 512MB 256-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

512MB 256-bit GDDR2?

and MSI RX1600PRO-TD256E Radeon X1600PRO 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

256MB 128-bit GDDR2

i see a difference . .. maybe i'm just tired

I'm pretty darn sure, from the bit of research done lately. The only reference to a 256 bit external bus comes from that one Inq article being quoted over and over.

Bloody marketing. I hope video card makers start quoting memory bandwidth instead of these suddenly bogus memory bus width claims. Then who cares if it's a 1 bit 256 googlehz ring bus, or a 65536 bit 1337 hz pretzel bus. What matters is bandwidth and latency.

i still ain't sure . . . you can well be right . . . theInq just seized on "the new" and ran with it . . . i can find no info either way. . . . and no 'follow up"

ANYway, with the x1700 to arrive shortly . . . who cares about the 1600 confusion . . . unless you need it 'now', the x850xt/6800gs walks all over it for $50 more and even the 6800std might be a better buy in the same price range [if you're into unlocking and o/c'ing]

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: apoppin

i still ain't sure . . . you can well be right . . . theInq just seized on "the new" and ran with it . . . i can find no info either way. . . . and no 'follow up"

ANYway, with the x1700 to arrive shortly . . . who cares about the 1600 confusion . . . unless you need it 'now', the x850xt/6800gs walks all over it for $50 more and even the 6800std might be a better buy in the same price range [if you're into unlocking and o/c'ing]

I'm very interested in the X1600 because I expect it to become a sub-$100 value card sooner rather than later. It's a psychological thing. I can't tell you how many people want a card that's $99.99 or less, and won't spring for a $120 card even if it's 2x better.

Fortified by my just-bought $125 sr1710nx with its all-owning X200 IGP, I'm not buying squat until Oblivion comes out. I'm once again reading up on video cards simply because xmas has come and gone, and lots of Little Johhnys I know have received games that won't run on the 'Geforce 4' integrated on their parents' Dells and hpaqs. And the parents' views on spending an additional > $200 to run said games are... not positive.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: apoppin

i still ain't sure . . . you can well be right . . . theInq just seized on "the new" and ran with it . . . i can find no info either way. . . . and no 'follow up"

ANYway, with the x1700 to arrive shortly . . . who cares about the 1600 confusion . . . unless you need it 'now', the x850xt/6800gs walks all over it for $50 more and even the 6800std might be a better buy in the same price range [if you're into unlocking and o/c'ing]

I'm very interested in the X1600 because I expect it to become a sub-$100 value card sooner rather than later. It's a psychological thing. I can't tell you how many people want a card that's $99.99 or less, and won't spring for a $120 card even if it's 2x better.

Fortified by my just-bought $125 sr1710nx with its all-owning X200 IGP, I'm not buying squat until Oblivion comes out. I'm once again reading up on video cards simply because xmas has come and gone, and lots of Little Johhnys I know have received games that won't run on the 'Geforce 4' integrated on their parents' Dells and hpaqs. And the parents' views on spending an additional > $200 to run said games are... not positive.

i would never buy a video card till a game is out . . . and there might be good news for you . . . your 'timing' could be 'right on':

Oblivion release date for XBox and PC: March 24th!

and

February Issue of PC gamer - OBLIVION!