Current, High-Performance AGP8x Card?

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aetherium

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Jun 30, 2006
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I'm upgrading from a GeForce 6600GT and looking at everything that's on the table for an AGP8X system. I'm doing this mostly to *attempt* to run Oblivion at a decent framerate, or even Titan Quest for that matter. I have a 1600x1050 widescreen monitor, so I like to run games at that resolution whenever possible. What cards are out there that have the best bang for the buck (ATI or NVIDIA) and still support AGP8X? I'm looking to spend no more than $300... possibly even $200 if the performance gains are marginal. Any feedback would be awesome. I've been out of the hardware loop for a long time.

PS: I'm not okay with OC'ing unless it's fairly risk-free, doesn't involve a lot of modding, and won't damage my video card.
 
cleeve

cleeve

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Ati is selling X800 XL's on their site for $139, no SM 3.0 but they run Oblivion very well. In most games they're about 90% as fast as a 7800 GS (at stock clocks), but they're much cheaper. Something to consider.
 
A

aetherium

Distinguished
Jun 30, 2006
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Ati is selling X800 XL's on their site for $139, no SM 3.0 but they run Oblivion very well. In most games they're about 90% as fast as a 7800 GS (at stock clocks), but they're much cheaper. Something to consider.
Click to expand...

I had a friend of mine actually recommend getting an x800 with the vivo thing and unlocking the 16 pipes somehow... ATI tools? Anyway, can you do that with the XLs and is it safe to do?
 
A

aetherium

Distinguished
Jun 30, 2006
5
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18,510
Ati is selling X800 XL's on their site for $139, no SM 3.0 but they run Oblivion very well. In most games they're about 90% as fast as a 7800 GS (at stock clocks), but they're much cheaper. Something to consider.
Click to expand...

What's SM 3.0?
 
pauldh

pauldh

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Under $300 AGP you are looking at a 7800GS or X850XT. The X850XT would outperform the 7800GS in Oblivion using fsaa and bloom lighting. BUT, it can not do HDR in Oblivion, which looks great. That said, a 7800GS is going to struggle to run HDR at your native resolution. It will do it, you just have to tweak the settings (grass length, shadows, view distances, etc)

Anyway, despite the FSAA Oblivion performance advantage for the X850XT, priced the same or close , the 7800GS gets my vote for sure. Both are overpriced though compared to PCI-e cards.
 
cleeve

cleeve

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Mar 7, 2003
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The X800 XL has no pipes to unlock, it comes with the full 16 pipelines enabled.

SM 3.0 is the equivalent of DirectX 9c. The X800 XL has DirectX 9, and SM 2.0 capabilities.

In layman's terms, the X800 XL is slightly older technology than the newest Ati and Nvidia cards. But practically, the only place you'll see a difference is in the newest games that sport a particular feature called 'OpenEXR HDR'.

You'll still be able to play those games, you just won't be able to enable HDR (high dynamic range) lighting in them. You can use HDR in games like Half Life 2, which don't use the OpenEXR method of HDR, and they will still look very nice when you pley them.

IMHO, it's not worth the extra $100 to get a 7800 GS unless you're big into modding and overclocking. Then the 7800 GS will offer you alot more headroom than the X800 XL.
 
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