Running x850 pro on 4x agp.. worth it?

QuickFade

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Hey guys.. hopefully someone can give me an answer, as I've not been able to just "google" it.

I've got a fairly old pc, and i'm looking for a cheap upgrade from my radeon 9800 pro. I saw the x850 pro agp on sale for around 230.00 and I was wondering if it would be worth the purchase. My main concern is that it's an 8xagp card and I only have 4x agp on my main board. I know that they're all backwards compatible.. but how much performance am I sacrificing? I don't want to spend any money if I'm only going to experience small gains.

Thanks in advance. =)
 

diamatron

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I was also thiking of upgrading my 5700utra to this x850pro AGP.

I have a 8X Ait AI7. How much do you lose with the 12 vs 16 pipelines?
 
Going from a 9800 Pro [Default not OC'd = 5866] to an X850 Pro [Default not OC'd = 10,390] in 3D Mark 2003, I'll say you'll see some major difference, those were my changes and my scores.

Some games like FarCry I constantly had problems with freezing and crashes to blue screens with no explanations or errors as to why with the 9800 Pro, those problems completely disappeared with the x850 Pro!

In my opinion its a great card you won't regret acquiring for an AGP slot M/B!
 
OK in regards to the 8X vs 4X AGP question I decided to best answer you by running 3D Mark 2003 with the X850 Pro in 8X AGP mode the score was as previously stated 10390, in 4X AGP mode the score was 10333, so for sure between the 9800 Pros score even in 4X AGP slot M/B you'll see close to a 4500 point increase with the X850 Pro.

I hope that helped answer your questions. Ryan
 

shata

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You will lose proformace but its a realy nice card. If you ever get a new pc with a agp slot then you can throw that x850 in there and have a pretty kewl pc
 

Crashman

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The difference between 4x and 8x isn't noticeable. 8x will never be needed, because nobody will ever release an AGP card that can exceed 4x bandwidth for more than a fraction of a second at a time.

What happened is 8x was released simply to impress people with new technology. Graphics card and motherboard makers were already planning the conversion to PCI-Express when they released AGP 8x products. 8x wasn't needed at its release, and because AGP is going away slowly, the fastest cards to be introduced this year won't have AGP versions.
 

timechange01

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I actually had this same question in mind. Im looking to upgrade from 9800 to an x850. I also have AGP4x. My specs are:

Pentium4 2.0ghz
512DDR Ram
80GB harddrive
WindowsXP Home
ATI Radeon 9800XT (On AGP 4X)

I understand that you ran those tests on 3dMark03 but what is the comparison of AGP4x and AGP8x of the X850 in 3dMark05?

-Thanks alot
-Sam
 

the_guru

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99% of the time the videocards doesn't use anything more than AGP x4. The difference in 3Dmark05 will be as small as in 3Dmark 2003.
 

timechange01

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Im not sure. Its a Compaq I bought 3 years ago. Its been running like new cuz Ive been taking extremely good care of it.

So since the difference between AGP8x and AGP4x wont be that much, will I be able to run Quake 4 with no problem?

Cuz with my 9800 I ran Quake 4 it looks pretty good but the fps is like around 30-40 which is not that good. I know for sure I cant run BF2 and FEAR properly even with the x850 because my RAM is extremely low.

PS. Im planning on building a new computer around Fall 2006 with PCI-E. So will the x850 last me through new games until then?

My friend just bought a new computer last week thats 3.0ghz, 2gb RAM, 300GB harddrive with a Geforce 6200 and I want better gaming performance than him. Will the x850 deliver?

-sorry if i sounds kinda stupid
 

the_guru

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So since the difference between AGP8x and AGP4x wont be that much, will I be able to run Quake 4 with no problem?

PS. Im planning on building a new computer around Fall 2006 with PCI-E. So will the x850 last me through new games until then?

My best friend just bought a new computer last week thats 3.0ghz, 2gb RAM, 300GB harddrive with a Geforce 6200 and I want better gaming performance than him. Will the x850 deliver?

-sorry if i sounds kinda stupid
Well, you have only 512MBs of RAM. If you take a look at the second graph on this page:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/13/how_much_ram_do_you_really_need/page4.html
You will see that 512MB will be a huge bottleneck for Quake4.

But you will probably get a good performance increase compared to your current system.

A x850 will keep up with all games released until fall 2006. But your RAM and CPU might not. Especially not the RAM.

And your friend bought himself a lousy gaming system. First a Pentium which is a poor choice compared to AMD64. Secondly a Geforce 6200. For a gamingsystem a 6600GT is minimum.

Your computer will probably outperform your friends computer. I will most certainly do it if you add another 512MB of RAM.
 

timechange01

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Alright so if I just purchase an x850 and a 1gb single stick (along with 1 of my 256mb RAM cards resulting in 1280mb RAM), I should be good for at least until fall of 2006 and beat my friends comp?
 

the_guru

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Alright so if I just purchase an x850 and a 1gb single stick (along with 1 of my 256mb RAM cards resulting in 1280mb RAM), I should be good for at least until fall of 2006 and beat my friends comp?
Yes you will, but only when it comes to gaming.
 

timechange01

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Oh alright cool. Gaming is pretty much all I care about with my PC. One question though, after I do the upgrades, will I be able to play FEAR or BF2? Or will my computer load like crazy during gameplay?

Also, is there a significant difference between X850 PRO and X850XT?
 

the_guru

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Oh alright cool. Gaming is pretty much all I care about with my PC. One question though, after I do the upgrades, will I be able to play FEAR or BF2? Or will my computer load like crazy during gameplay?

Also, is there a significant difference between X850 PRO and X850XT?
You can play both FEAR and BF2. Since you have more than 1GB of RAM your computer will not have to load that much. At start of new maps there could be some chopping but not after that.

The X850XT is a bit better than the X850Pro.
 

timechange01

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I have another question; does the X850 PRO have the temperature thermometer thing on the card for overdrive? or can that only be found on the XT?
 

the_guru

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The only differences I know of is that the Pro-version only has 12 Pixel Pixelines (instead of 16) and a slower core and memory clock. The 4 missing Pixel Pipelines is what affects performance mostly.