X800XL to X1650XT?

[kaotao]

I think no, but considering the price, and what I could e-bay my X800XL for...damn it's tempting.

I have to thank Pauldh for my dillemma... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161064

 

[TucsonPi]

I think no, but considering the price, and what I could e-bay my X800XL for...damn it's tempting.

There is so much more performance available in the 1950 pro for only about $30 more. It has much higher performance/price. I'd go with that.

 

[kaotao]

I don't want to upgrade my PSU. I'm on a tight budget (wife).

 

[pauldh]

Wasn't thinking you had the X800XL. I'd say stay with that looking at just performance alone, but you bring up a good point with ebay. I was searching ebay for X800XL's a couple weeks ago, amazed to see just what they are selling for. You may get back almost what you spend on the HIS AR. Then the small speed boost and more advanced features become more interesting.

I'm running the X1650XT benchmarks throughout this week, but started them last night. I can tell you that a couple hours into it, it's been completetly stable on an old Antec 400W smartpower with just a single 20Amp 12v rail. I was going to upgrade the PSU, but it had been stable with an X800XTpe, so I figured I let it have a shot with the X1650XT. It's running one dvd/cdrw combo drive, 1 hdd, an NF2 and XP3200+ clocked athlon XP, 1GB ram, sound card, and 5-80mm case fans. I lent my X800XL to a friend so can't add it to the comparison it for you, but I did run benchies on an X800XTpe and an X1650 pro so far. I want to work through all games at reference XT speeds, then do them again at HIS Turbo speeds.

Anyway, only did farcry so far on the XT, in which the reference clocked X1650XT was dead even (within 1 fps) with the X800XTpe running 12x10 4xaa/8xaf. Of course, can't compare HDR as the X800XTpe can't do that, but the X1650XT destroyed the X1650 pro running HDR at 12x10, and even 10x7. I'm looking forward to doing Oblivion, NFS:carbon, Fear and HL2 Lost Coast on this thing; curious to see exactly how it will stack up to the X800XTpe.

 

[cleeve]

Performance wouldn't be all that different, except for HDR features wouldn't be that different either.

The X1950 PRO would be a nice jump tho...

 

[kaotao]

To Pauldh and Cleeve,

Thanks, that's what I was thinking. I may just stick with what I have for now. Depending on what I could get for the X800XL, it's tempting to spend a little for sm3.0 and HDR. But I know that performance will probably suffer when utilizing them, compared to the X800XL not using those features. My PSU is plenty powerful enough for the X1650XT, but most likely not for the X1950pro, but haven't quite given up on that option either.

 

[TucsonPi]

To Pauldh and Cleeve,

Thanks, that's what I was thinking. I may just stick with what I have for now. Depending on what I could get for the X800XL, it's tempting to spend a little for sm3.0 and HDR. But I know that performance will probably suffer when utilizing them, compared to the X800XL not using those features. My PSU is plenty powerful enough for the X1650XT, but most likely not for the X1950pro, but haven't quite given up on that option either.

Keep in mind that there's a good chance both of those options will have a signifigant drop in price when the 8600 boards come out in 2-3 weeks. Since your performance is pretty good with the X800XL, it probably wouldn't hurt to wait. Maybe it would give you a chance to save up for the 1950Pro

 

[pauldh]

I bought the HIS to upgrade from an Artic Cooled 9800 pro in a quiet HTPC. We had been playing Oblivion on it quite a bit latelty and the 9800 pro was hurting big time. Had I been using a X800XL, forget it I would have stayed put. FSAA and Bloom is just fine for me in Oblivion, I honestly am more bothered by giving up FSAA than HDR in that game. But I tell ya $135 is a great price....cheaper than the identical PCI-e version even.

 

[pauldh]

Keep in mind that there's a good chance both of those options will have a signifigant drop in price when the 8600 boards come out in 2-3 weeks.

But he is talking AGP.

 

[reader850]

MyX800XL runs my current games well enough. I'm waiting 'till summer (August?) to upgrade everything at once. I'm hoping AMD will pleasantly surprise us by then with something worth the wait, both processors AND graphics.

 

[Anoobis]

So you did throw down on the X1650XT. Let us know how it goes.

 

[TucsonPi]

Keep in mind that there's a good chance both of those options will have a signifigant drop in price when the 8600 boards come out in 2-3 weeks.

But he is talking AGP.

Oh yeah... doh!!! That is a really good price for the AGP version.

 

[pauldh]

Yup, I did grab one back when it was $150 AR. I'm quite impressed with it so far. When I finish running it against a few cards it will find it's home in my HTPC. Right now it's in an OC/test rig that is so noisy I just can't tell how quite the HIS is compared to the other cards. :roll: