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Cheap AGP cards - x800 GT?

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Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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Hey there, know there are a lot of threads about cheap AGP cards on here but here goes anyway. At present I am running the following:

Athlon XP 3000+ (32 bit)
1.5 GB RAM at DDR 333Mhz (2x256 and 1x1024 and it thinks its running dual channel :?)
All-In-Wonder 9800SE

Motherboard does not support PCI-E, obviously.

The card is a bit of an odd one: 4 pipelines (I've tried unlocking the other 4, gets artifacts so I put it back), 128MB memory, 256-bit bus width, 378/297 GPU/memory bus according to ATI Tool. I've now got a separate digital TV tuner so wouldn't want another AIW, but would want S-Video in for my games consoles.

This time next year I'll probably build myself something flashy and new, but until that time I want to be able to run games smoothly. I don't mind lowering graphics settings, but have a 19" monitor at 1280x1024, and would like to run smoothly at native resolution. As of Darkstar One, my machine is no longer capable of this :(  . Obviously its an old thing and I don't want to spend too much money on it, but here are some cards I've been looking at:

I have an offer of an x800 GT (not the GTO, rather the most stripped down version of the series - 8 pipelines and 128 memory bus bandwidth?) for £20. Can probably pick up an x800 PRO for around £60-70, hopefully not too much more. On ebuyer there is an x1300 PRO for £60 and an x1600PRO for £90, which is really more than I'd be willing to pay.

At the moment I'm tempted by the sheer cheapness x800 GT, but would it actually give a significant performance advantage over my current card? Would I be wasting my money? What about the x800 PRO? Specs say it should probably be a far better card, but is it worth 3 times more money or even more?

Cheers,
Glenn

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Graphics card Expert

The X800 pro is better than the X800GT, but for the price, I'd grab the X800GT as it's as good or a little better than the 6600GT, X700 pro, 9800XT, and X1600 pro, which are all way above a 9800se. Check that, you have an AIW 9800SE? or Pro? The 9800 pro is close to the cards I mentioned, so not a huge leap going to the X800GT. But I've never heard of an AIW 9800se or a 9800 with 4 pipes. If that's truely the case, yes grab the X800GT.

With the prices of CPU's and PCI express video cards at an all time low I would upgrade. Go with the 939 platform. use your old memory, case, power supply, hard drive. Get a new cpu and mother board. Spend about 200 for a cpu, mother board and pci express gpu and you will be all set. If you dont have the cash I understand. Look at the 6600GT or the Vanilla 6800 My wifes computer has one with a 2500+ Barton cpu and it works great. The X800 GTO is a good card too but I would not spend more than 100 bucks for an AGP card on an aging system such as yours. Good luck! :D 
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Hmm, well that fell through - it turned out the card was PCI-E so I didn't order it.

However, I've now found a x800 XT at £70 including postage, but all the way from China, which seems a bit of a risk? Sound worth it?

I was going to jump for it, but have to ask is pixel shader 3.0 still not that much of a big deal? By which I mean, are there likely to be games that will not run without it in the next year or so? I ask because there are certainly current games that require pixel shader 2.
Graphics card Expert

Quote:
Hmm, well that fell through - it turned out the card was PCI-E so I didn't order it.

However, I've now found a x800 XT at £70 including postage, but all the way from China, which seems a bit of a risk? Sound worth it?

I was going to jump for it, but have to ask is pixel shader 3.0 still not that much of a big deal? By which I mean, are there likely to be games that will not run without it in the next year or so? I ask because there are certainly current games that require pixel shader 2.

I think most games will be backwards compatible with sm2 for a while to enhance compatability, Call of Jaurez (or however you spell it) is one of those games. You can select which one you want to use (unless you cant use sm3 and then its locked).
What you could do is flash your 9800SE to a 9800pro and increase its performance by unlocking its pixel pielines (not guaranteed to work tho). That will extend its life until you upgrade.
Graphics card Expert

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I tried unlocking it a while ago using the Omega drivers rather than a BIOS flash, but there were a lot of artifacts so I put it back down to 4.

You were smart to test b4 flashing. Yea like I said it doesnt always work since the reason theyre locked is usually coz theyre malfunctioning. They just disable them and sell it as a cheaper version. However, you cant just bank on having thousands of dodgy cards to sell so they sometimes disable perfectly fine pipes as well, its just the luck of the draw.
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