Can't decide on what card to buy!!

[TGC]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently looking at upgrading my graphics card. At the moment I'm running a Gainward 5700 Ultra GS on an MSI nforce 2 mobo AGP with XP2800 and 1gb ram.

My budget is around £120 (I'm in the UK), approx $200. My options at the moment are the 6600GT or X800GTO. At a push I could possibly stretch to a 6800GS.

My main question is what would be my best upgrade option for AGP card? I quite like the look of the X800GTO but I'm not sure how difference not having SM3 is going to make??

Any help would be much appreciated

 

[Snorkius]

Some people might disagree, but I don't think SM3 is worth it for cards of that caliber: yes, the effects are nice but they require more power than those cards have and games that require SM3 are years away and wont work on today's hardware anyway.

The X800GTO is a very good choice.

 

[TGC]

Cheers!!

I can get an X800GTO AGP (128mb) for about £110 (less than $200) whereas the 6800GS is around £160 ($285).

To be honest at this stage I'd rather save the money, buy the ATI card and make the rest of my system last for another couple of years before upgrading to PCI-E.

Thanks for the advice about SM3. I asked elsewhere about this and they said get a 6600GT because it has SM3 and the X800 doesn't. They also said I wouldn't be able to play Oblivion without SM3 which I thought was a bit of an exagerration.

 

[sleepdeprived82]

LOL SM3 would cripple the 6600gt if you turned it on.

Yep the x800gto is a nice card and has plenty of room for overclocking

 

[sleepdeprived82]

true so very true

 

[TGC]

The one downside is that the X800GTO available here only comes with 128mb of ram instead of the 256mb in many US stores.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=17366224947&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=97827

So, not really sure. The price is pretty for UK. The same retailer is selling a 512mb 6800 for £125 ($220) and a 6800GS for £160 ($280).

 

[Miles]

How about this card?

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=107115

I'm sure that's worth the £125 price tag.

It'd be nice if someone gave their view 'cause i'm considering buying one of those

 

[sleepdeprived82]

PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB DDR3 £129.19 pre order or

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) £135
in stock

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/AGP.html

or better than all of them:

Connect3d X850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 DVI £150

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=17367453723&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=101494

Dont touch the 6800 512mb it has been crippled with a 128bit interface and 512mb of ram is a waste on this card. The extra ram is just marketing.

 

[malphadour]

Guys, stop it with the SM3.0 will kill the card rubbish.

If you look at the benchmarks where SM3.0 is used you will see that quite often there is an improvement in performance!! In the very worst scenarios using the SM3 code instead of sm2 gives about an 8% performance hit and only in spectacular scenes. SM3.0 is also an optimisation of code as well as a visually superior standard and on average reders at about the same framerate.

However, the X800GTO does kick the 6600GT all over the show.

It may be worth looking at te X1600pro 512mb as these are available for £115 (just checked dabs). This outperforms the X800GTO and on some of the newer games matches the X800XL. It is also SM3 compliant which is why its performance is superior in some of the newer games.

 

[sleepdeprived82]

Point of View 6800GS AGP £160
for that price I would get the
PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB DDR3 for £10 more.

But we are now talking way over his £120 budget

 

[TGC]

I would possibly stretch to the X850 Pro or the 6800GS - which one??

I have noticed that Overclockers.co.uk have some good prices but I heard too many bad reports about them. Never used them before unlike Ebuyer, who I've found really good up to now.

edit - is the X1600 THAT good, didn't think it was up to much?

 

[sleepdeprived82]

Its a close call, maybe just down to your preferance ATI or Nvidia

I would say the x850 pro has a slight edge in performance terms but does lack SM3.

I personaly would get either the x800gto 256 from overclockers and overclock it or try and find a little extra for the x850xt as that is a very decent card and will last for a good while.

SM3 is not used in many games and SM4 which will be more widely used IMO is out soon, so i dont feel its that important.

Overclockers is fine, no prob here i use both suppliers.

 

[malphadour]

Overclockers have some great prices but I specifically did not mention them as at this very moment my faulty X1800XT card is at there warehouse and has been there since last monday and they still haven't tested it!! Currently I am working my way up the food chain at their offices tearing people increasingly bigger arseholes until they sort it out. They are without doubt the worst company in the country to deal with if there is anything wrong with their products. I bought two things off them a few years bac and this is the first time I have used them since, new I would regret it!! As long as what they sell you works there is no prob, it just their aftersale support that is truly appalling.

Update on that, they now tell me they can't find my card. So now have given them delivery confirmation and 1 hour to give me an answer. Sorry, slightly off topic, but relevant to your purchasing decision.

Check the benchmarks on 1600 PRo, it is in fact quite good, depends on the game. On older games its ok, on new stuff it performs really well.

THe X800GTO at is a very good buy and most of them will let you overclock the s$$t out of them.

 

[yourbestfriend]

this will give you an idea of how much you need to spend to see an improvement

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/page16.html

I would hold off for DX10 cards

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6143883/p-4.html

 

[sleepdeprived82]

BUT

DX10 will only be on Vista, so if your sticking with XP there is no point in waiting for a DX10 card.

As his system is getting old I doubt he will be migrating to Vista.

 

[yourbestfriend]

very good point

 

[sleepdeprived82]

I reckon this:

How long do you want this computer to last?

If you want it to last a year maybe a bit more with decent graphics settings get the x800gto 256mb

If you want it to last longer get the x850xt if you can

AGP will evently die and it all depends on when you next plan to upgrade

Edit: also depends on if you are willing/can overclock then the GTO is a cracking card.

 

[TGC]

I may have to knock £30 or so off my budget. I think the sound card on my second machine has died. It was an AWE64 on and ISA slot but the sound on it has been really crackly recently and has now disappeared totally.

That would rule out the 6800GS and X850 Pro and probably the X800GTO 256. Is the GTO worth getting with only 128mb??

 

[sleepdeprived82]

I would stick to the 256mb gto, I think the 128mb will hurt performance in the card. (some one may correct me). I think 256mb is the current sweet spot for medium going to high cards especialy if your thinking of overclocking it.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The X800GTO will be slightly crippled by the 128MB (heck the GF6600GT is). But I have a feeling it'll still slightly outperform the X1600Pro, which will in turn outperform the GF6600GT. Just be sure that the X800GTO isn't crippled in other ways with slow memory and slow clocks.

And truely the GF6600GT can only consider most truely SM3.0 differences (compared to the X800's SM2.0B) as checkbox features only to be used as slideshow effects or very minor performance boosters (not enough to gain ground on X800GTO).

The X1600Pro would likely make slightly better use of SM3.0 effects, but even still it won't be very playable compared to the better cards which can truely benift most.

As for Oblivion, it's requires SM2.0, SM3.0 is an additional benifit, but on the GF6600GT it'll likely be somewhat unplayable, even on the X1600 you'd likely turn it on to see what it could look like at it's best, and then turn it off to get the best playability. And considering that I'd say you'll probably get the most out of an X800GTO since you'll likely be in SM2.0 mod for most situations; but really the wisest course of action is to wait for good benchmarks.

 

[sleepdeprived82]

Yep what he said :lol:

I knew some one would know about 128 v 256 round here,

 

[pauldh]

Forgive me if this was mentioned by you or someone else, but the only problem with comparing the 128MB GTO and the 256MB GTO is the 128MB ones usually have much slower memory speeds. The lower clocked 128MB GTO still beats a 6600GT, but a 256MB higher clocked one beats a 6800GS AGP.

This is No new info for you I totally realize, just thought the OP might want to look into clock speeds and I didn't notice on quick glance if anyone brought that up or not.

 

[sleepdeprived82]

Ah good point, the 128mb has Slooooooooooooooow memory as well

Gecube X800GTO 128MB 256 bit, 400mhz core/ 700mhz DDR memory

v

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB 256bit, 400mhz core/ 980mhz DDR3 memory.

 

[S7A88Y]

LOL SM3 would cripple the 6600gt if you turned it on.

Yep the x800gto is a nice card and has plenty of room for overclocking

I know *looks at burnt out card*.

 

[FITCamaro]

Don't bring the X1600 into the mix, especially with 512mb. It's a decision between X800GTO and 6800GS.

Yup, for like $10 more, a X850XT is much better than a 6800GS.

Why not bring up the X1600 if its in his budget and is a better performing card? He doesn't know what he wants to get and might not have thought of it.

I say if you can get a 512MB X1600 for a great price that'll outperform the X800GTO go for it. My question is I didn't think they made that in AGP.