Upgrading from a 9800PRO to a ???

I

Ice

Hi there

I am lost with the new ATI nomenclature of cards. Can someone
tell me (in an increasing order from the slowest to the faster)
ATI cards? (since the 9800Pro). I mean, there is the x700, x800,
x850 x1300, x1600 and others!

Is there a site that compares ALL of the new ATI cards against
the 9800?

Oh, I am so lost!

Thanks

Ice
 
F

farmuse

several of the cards you listed are PCI-E, and the 9800 was agp of
course. the X800 series is good and you can get one of those used for
about 200, get the 16 pipe version and 256 MB. what cpu do you have ?
 
W

William

I went from a 9800Pro to a x850pro for Christmas. I like to purchase the
'sweat spot' for my cards, that is, one back from the front runner. Since
ATI's new front line is the x1000 series, the x800 series are now the sweat
spot from my point of view.

It's also probably the last line from ATI that is AGP. Nvida does have a
new AGP available.

Right now I am running an ASUS K8VSE Deluxe mother board. Next year, I will
have to swap out my mother board, CPU, RAM, and GPU, to gain PCIE. What an
expense just to keep up.

William
 
D

Dr Teeth

I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when "William"
the x800 series are now the sweat
spot from my point of view.
Click to expand...

No, the **sweet** spot would be one down from the latest generation
(shader 3) models, ie the X1800. The x800 is a dead end.

--
Cheers,

Guy

** Stress - the condition brought about by having to
** resist the temptation to beat the living daylights
** out of someone who richly deserves it.
 
D

DDC

I went from a 9800Pro to a x850pro for Christmas. I like to purchase the
'sweat spot' for my cards, that is, one back from the front runner. Since
ATI's new front line is the x1000 series, the x800 series are now the sweat
spot from my point of view.

It's also probably the last line from ATI that is AGP. Nvida does have a
new AGP available.

Right now I am running an ASUS K8VSE Deluxe mother board. Next year, I will
have to swap out my mother board, CPU, RAM, and GPU, to gain PCIE. What an
expense just to keep up.

William
Click to expand...


True and the more u wait the less $$$ you will get from your agp
x850pro


I wander if the 7600gt xxx from xfx has the same ability to render
image quality good as the x1800xl?

On that web site it look like a pretty good card: the 7600gt xxx
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/312/6/

It beat the x1800xl in most game.

heres are some spec.
http://www.ati.com/products/RadeonX1800/specs.html
http://www.tech-byte.co.nz/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=633&category_id=&

Ho by the way there are some agp card for the X1000 series but it stop
at the x1800.

you can find agp x1800 card heres.
http://tw.giga-byte.com/Products/VGA/Products_List.aspx?VenderType=ATi&BUSType=AGP&BUSSpeed=8
 
M

Mike

Sweet spot refers to best bang for the buck. The x800/x850 can be bought
for good prices now and the couiple of features they lack aren't a big deal.
I'd say they are the card now if you stick with ATI unless you don't care
much about price.

Mike
 
K

KCB

Dr Teeth said:
I was just thinking how wonderful life was, when "William"


No, the **sweet** spot would be one down from the latest generation
(shader 3) models, ie the X1800. The x800 is a dead end.
Click to expand...

I think the decision may be based on him upgrading his motherboard to
PCI-E, or not. If he is sticking with the AGP motherboard then the
X800/X850 series could be the best performance he can get *at this
time*, *from ATI*. The X1600 comes in AGP flavor, but I don't remember
seeing any benchmarks comparing it to the X850. I think the X850 would
compare favorably, though.

If he's upgrading his motherboard to PCI-E, then the X1800 (or one of
the other X1xxx series) would be the way to go. I'm sure that he can
find more info with all the links from the first post. He must make
sure that whatever card he gets is compatible with the motherboard he
plans on using.
 
I

Ice

Sorry, I should have added that I have only a AGP MOBO and would
like not to upgrade the mobo for now (or for the next few years).
So AGP is what I am interested. Any option that represents a
significant speed upgrade?

Thanks
 
W

William

KCB said:
I think the decision may be based on him upgrading his motherboard to
PCI-E, or not. If he is sticking with the AGP motherboard then the
X800/X850 series could be the best performance he can get *at this time*,
*from ATI*. The X1600 comes in AGP flavor, but I don't remember seeing
any benchmarks comparing it to the X850. I think the X850 would compare
favorably, though.

If he's upgrading his motherboard to PCI-E, then the X1800 (or one of the
other X1xxx series) would be the way to go. I'm sure that he can find
more info with all the links from the first post. He must make sure that
whatever card he gets is compatible with the motherboard he plans on
using.
Click to expand...


When the x1600 first came out, it was priced so high, ExtremeTech told its
readers to stay away until the prices dropped. Their wasn't that much gain
for the buck. Maybe the prices are better now, but so are the x850 prices.
The market moves so fast, it changes week to week. Also, can you walk into
Fry's Electronics and find it on the shelf?

When the x850pro went on sale at Comp USA, for such a good deal, (~
$240.00) I couldn't pass it up, or so I told Santa. (I hate to think what
it goes for now!)

William
 
E

Ed Forsythe

Hi Ice,
I hate to sound like a heretic but after using nothing but ATI for years I
decided that my 9800 Pro was getting a little long in the tooth . After
exhaustive research I decided that the best alternative was the nVidia
7800GS. I bought the EVGA N507 model from NewEgg and I am enthusiastic
about the performance and video quality delta. To make a brief story
shorter <G> my 9800 Pro scored 680 on 3DMark06. The 7800GS scored 2746!!
3Dmark03 = 12721
3DMark05= 5218
The video quality is noticeably superior to the 9800Pro. I recommend the
7800GS highly and without reservation. Good luck -
Ed F.
 
A

Adam Parkin

Ed said:
Hi Ice,
I hate to sound like a heretic but after using nothing but ATI for years I
decided that my 9800 Pro was getting a little long in the tooth . After
exhaustive research I decided that the best alternative was the nVidia
7800GS. I bought the EVGA N507 model from NewEgg and I am enthusiastic
about the performance and video quality delta. To make a brief story
shorter <G> my 9800 Pro scored 680 on 3DMark06. The 7800GS scored 2746!!
3Dmark03 = 12721
3DMark05= 5218
The video quality is noticeably superior to the 9800Pro. I recommend the
7800GS highly and without reservation. Good luck -
Ed F.
Click to expand...
Just curious, how's the noise level on the GS? I got my hands on an
x850 Pro a little while back and found them rather loud (that big-ass
fan is a killer), just wondering if the 7800gs was just as loud, louder,
or quieter?

Adam
 
E

Enos Nivek

Just curious, how's the noise level on the GS? I got my hands on an
x850 Pro a little while back and found them rather loud (that big-ass
fan is a killer), just wondering if the 7800gs was just as loud, louder,
or quieter?

Adam
Click to expand...

The stock 7800 and 7900 fans are quieter than what ATI uses but you
can make any video card quiet by using an aftermarket Zalman cooler. I
use the Zalman 700cu on my X800XL and it's very quiet now. That
person that you responded to posted that the 7800GS has better image
quality. I would treat that comment as the placebo effect because
every article I have ever read has always said the ATI cards have
better IQ. But it is a minor difference and you will only notice it
under close examination.
 
W

William

Ed Forsythe said:
Hi Ice,
I hate to sound like a heretic but after using nothing but ATI for years I
decided that my 9800 Pro was getting a little long in the tooth . After
exhaustive research I decided that the best alternative was the nVidia
7800GS. I bought the EVGA N507 model from NewEgg and I am enthusiastic
about the performance and video quality delta. To make a brief story
shorter <G> my 9800 Pro scored 680 on 3DMark06. The 7800GS scored 2746!!
3Dmark03 = 12721
3DMark05= 5218
The video quality is noticeably superior to the 9800Pro. I recommend the
7800GS highly and without reservation. Good luck -
Ed F.
Click to expand...

I've read good things about the 7800GS. If I'm not getting my boards mixed
up, that is the most recent AGP card produced by nVidia or ATI. And one of
the last AGP's to be made by either.

ATI's latest AGP the 1600 (if memory serves me correctly), uses an on-board
translator to go between the GPU's native PCIE to get to AGP, taking a hit
in performance. It was over priced for what it gave the user in
performance.

I hope nVidia or ATI might still produce some reasonably prices new AGP
cards in the future. Maybe I can get one more year out of my motherboard
before going PCIE.

DIGRESSION:

One of the things I don't like about all of these PCIE's, is the current
design of the mother boards. Like everybody has $1,200 laying around to go
out and buy 2 top end GPU's. I also think the manufacturers of GPU's need
to find a way to keep the current and heat down so their chips can fit on a
single slot solution and offer top-of-the-line performance without making
foot-warmers cooking all the tantalum and electrolytic capacitors in the
box. Let alone all the thermal expansion and contraction cycles those
boards are putting everything around them through.

Hay, what do I know?

William
 
V

Villain

Snipped: Reply to OP
Just went from a Powercolor 256 9800 Pro (great card IMO) to a BFG
7800 GS OC.

BTW, not an NVidia fanboi, my 3 other machines and my g/f's (at my
insistence) all have ATI cards in them, and I like `em!

Now, I don't really care about 3Dmark or benchmarking, I'll leave that
to the tweaker dudes.

But I did run timedemo demo1 from Doom 3 and the internal system
"metering" tool from F.E.A.R. (results and sys specs below) out of
curiosity.

I can tell you that I can run *most* games at my monitors 1600x1200
native res with *most* eye candy at high with no problems, and newer
games just look and "feel" better.

Noise is comparable to the stock ATI cooler on the 9800, that is to
say, not really noticeable.

Video playback and desktop 2d? Not so much. Not as sharp, I feel. But,
who cares? I bought this card for gaming. Sort of a last ditch effort
before building my supercomputer.

To sum up, I'm very happy with it.

Villain

"A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend"- Willow Rosenberg


SYSTEM SPECS

Soyo Dragon 2 Ultra mobo

P4 HT Canterwood @3.0 ghz

2 Gigs Corsairs DDR RAM

Soundblaster Audigy 2

Dell 2001 FP Monitor

XP Pro SP 2
--------------------------------

Doom 3 time demo 1 (for some lame-ass reason I left the res
at1024x786) One test was with shadows on an the other with them off
being as Id says shadows are the biggest framerate hit in the game. No
AA or AI unless noted.

The figures are FPS as reported by the demo.

9800 1st run Shadows ON 30.4
9800 2nd run Shadows ON 33.0

7800 1st run Shadows ON 52.7
7800 2nd run Shadows ON 65.6

7800 2x AA and Shadows 2nd run 65.5
7800 4x AA and Shadows 2nd run 60.6
7800 8x AA and Shadows 2nd run 32.4


FEAR

1280x1024, 4xAA, all features High

9800

7% below 25 FPS
73% between 25 and 40 FPS
20% above 40 FPS

7800
0% below 25 FPS
50% between 25 and 40 FPS
50% above 40 FPS


End
 
E

Ed Forsythe

Hi Adam,
I don't hear a major difference in the noise level but I'm not too noise
sensitive.
 

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