Keep Or Return New X800 Pro?

[Rotwang]

Hello, I'm looking for some quick opinions on whether I should keep or
return a new ATi-brand X800 Pro that I just bought at Fry's. It was
on sale for $350, and I bought it as kind of an impulse. Even Newegg
has it for $400. Right now I'm using an MSI FX5900XT, and until Far
Cry and Doom3 came along, I was satisfied with it.

The thing is, I don't really _need_ a new card, and I know the ATi
X800 Pro is only a middling card compared to the some of the other
x800 flavors available. I know about the 12-pipeline thing and the
slower memory and other stuff.

I'm not interested in the Nvidia 6800 cards right now for reasons that
I won't go into here.

My system is an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo, AMD XP3200 CPU, 1-gig RAM,
WD "Raptor" SATA hard drive (non-RAID). Some of the other "hotrod"
X800 cards cost as much as $150-$200 more than the X800 Pro; would my
system be able to take advantage of the extra pipelines and faster
memory, etc? Will the X800 Pro more-or-less double the performance of
my FX9500XT in games like Far Cry and D3?

I'm reading reviews on Tom's Hardware and all the other sites I can
find, but I wanted some input from informed people here as well.
Anyway, the card is still boxed and shrinkwrapped, but I know I'll
only be able to resist ripping it open and plugging it in for so
long...

 

[Glitch]

My system is an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo, AMD XP3200 CPU, 1-gig RAM,
WD "Raptor" SATA hard drive (non-RAID). Some of the other "hotrod"
X800 cards cost as much as $150-$200 more than the X800 Pro; would my
system be able to take advantage of the extra pipelines and faster
memory, etc? Will the X800 Pro more-or-less double the performance of
my FX9500XT in games like Far Cry and D3?

I'd recommend buying a X800 PRO(any brand,but Sapphire is prefered) with
VIVO.
VIVO cards have unlockable pipelines(via BIOS update).

btw.the card you have is pretty powerfull,but your system would benefit from
more pipelines and faster memory

 

[Guest]

Where do you get the bios update from?
Thanks Shane

 

[Glitch]

Where do you get the bios update from?

Basically you need to find a site that has X800 XT PE BIOS and flash your
X800 PRO VIVO with that BIOS.Each manufacturer has BIOS on their site.

btw.there's no guarantee that the card will work because you're OCing it
just by flashing the BIOS.You have to see that it's capable of running at XT
speeds or you will need to underclock it after flashing.Don't try this with
the normal cooling.Buy a VGA silencer or some other good card cooling.

 

[Guest]

thanks

Basically you need to find a site that has X800 XT PE BIOS and flash your
X800 PRO VIVO with that BIOS.Each manufacturer has BIOS on their site.

btw.there's no guarantee that the card will work because you're OCing it
just by flashing the BIOS.You have to see that it's capable of running at
XT
speeds or you will need to underclock it after flashing.Don't try this
with
the normal cooling.Buy a VGA silencer or some other good card cooling.

 

[Rotwang]

I'd recommend buying a X800 PRO(any brand,but Sapphire is prefered) with
VIVO.
VIVO cards have unlockable pipelines(via BIOS update).

btw.the card you have is pretty powerfull,but your system would benefit from
more pipelines and faster memory

Thanks for the reply, Glitch. I can't tell for certain whether this
X800 Pro card supports VIVO. There's a sticker on the side of the box
that reads "Radeon X800 Pro 256MB V/VO/D." On ATi's website there's
no mention of a VIVO version of the card, are those only available
from ATi's "partners," like Sapphire?

 

[Glitch]

On ATi's website there's

no mention of a VIVO version of the card, are those only available
from ATi's "partners," like Sapphire?

Yes,the only VIVO cards are from ATI's partners like
Sapphire,ASUS,Gigabyte...
ATI doesn't make VIVO cards but they make the All-In-Wonder packs.