X1950Pro -> 2900xt?

[locky28]

Hi Guys,

I been thinking a lot lately about whether I would be crazy to upgrade my GFX card to a 2900XT in the coming weeks. I have the money, and though it's not burning a hole in my pocket theres not really anything else I'm saving for in the short-medium term so it's keeping it warm. I play BF2142, C&C3, and Rainbow 6: Vegas quite a bit online and although medium settings play smoothly, I would love to go all out and have some High AA to boot. I start Uni part time second semester of this year so I don't think I'd be able to justify getting a high end card once I start that.

I know the G80 cards are better/better value but I'm a big fan of the technology in this card and I think it will get better in time and be a good investment. I'm a bit of a silence freak with my PC and I get frustrated by the amount of noise my X1950Pro makes atm so that's somewhat of an issue but I could deal with it, and I'm sure any G80 would make more noise anyway. My PSU doesn't have an 8 pin connector so that's another downside as I won't be able to O/C unless theres an adaptor.

Don't care much about E-Peen of having the best and greatest as long as it does what I want, this card will be overkill for my 19" LCD for quite a while anyway.

So if anyone wants to give an opinion your welcome, I'm already leaning in favor of buying it but I'd like to hear some other opinions.

Thanks,

 

[The_Abyss]

As you don't need to upgrade for performance, spend $40 and upgrade for sound.

 

[locky28]

The things is, nobody "needs" an upgrade in performance usually, but I 'want' and upgrade in performance, and I'm quite happy with my Audigy 2 ZS (I suppose that's because I don't know better in that I haven't tried another card).

I could always do both

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Sapphire is supposed to release a water cooled 2900, dont know the release date yet

 

[locky28]

Yeah but I'm not really up for waiting for anything else to be released, was considering waiting for the R600 refresh but that's going to be quite a while.

 

[erocker]

Yeah, I'm an ATi fan too. I was going to get one but now I just can't justify buying one at the moment due to the fact that the refresh cards just have way too much more to offer. Less power and less heat are the things I want. If I would want performance now, and not get Nvidia, I would deffinately look into that new Powecolor 1950xt or the sapphire version. Both can be found on Newegg. Just my two cents, I kinda think that buying any 8800 series is a waste if you plan on using DX10. They are however the king of DX9. The same kinda goes for the current 2900xt as well, though I have a feeling it'll end up doing better with DX10 than anything Nvidia has out now. I really don't think that we will achive great DX10 performance untill the R700 and G90's come out. But if you got the cash to spare I would get the 2900xt just on coolness factor alone.

 

[Gh0stDrag0n]

Yeah, I'm an ATi fan too. I was going to get one but now I just can't justify buying one at the moment due to the fact that the refresh cards just have way too much more to offer. Less power and less heat are the things I want. If I would want performance now, and not get Nvidia, I would deffinately look into that new Powecolor 1950xt or the sapphire version. Both can be found on Newegg. Just my two cents, I kinda think that buying any 8800 series is a waste if you plan on using DX10. They are however the king of DX9. The same kinda goes for the current 2900xt as well, though I have a feeling it'll end up doing better with DX10 than anything Nvidia has out now. I really don't think that we will achive great DX10 performance untill the R700 and G90's come out. But if you got the cash to spare I would get the 2900xt just on coolness factor alone.

And what DX10 game are you comparing the performance to?

 

[TonyStark]

Yeah, I'm an ATi fan too. I was going to get one but now I just can't justify buying one at the moment due to the fact that the refresh cards just have way too much more to offer. Less power and less heat are the things I want. If I would want performance now, and not get Nvidia, I would deffinately look into that new Powecolor 1950xt or the sapphire version. Both can be found on Newegg. Just my two cents, I kinda think that buying any 8800 series is a waste if you plan on using DX10. They are however the king of DX9. The same kinda goes for the current 2900xt as well, though I have a feeling it'll end up doing better with DX10 than anything Nvidia has out now. I really don't think that we will achive great DX10 performance untill the R700 and G90's come out. But if you got the cash to spare I would get the 2900xt just on coolness factor alone.

I thought you said you were leaving this forum, for good.

You also said that you own a HD2900XT.

:!: :!: :!:

 

[erocker]

I'm not. Call it a hunch, based on video cards throughout Direct X history.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Id look to the 2600-2400 65nm, as to how well they perform/oclock as I think the 2900 refresh at 65 will be pushed hard

 

[Heyyou27]

Yeah, I'm an ATi fan too. I was going to get one but now I just can't justify buying one at the moment due to the fact that the refresh cards just have way too much more to offer. Less power and less heat are the things I want. If I would want performance now, and not get Nvidia, I would deffinately look into that new Powecolor 1950xt or the sapphire version. Both can be found on Newegg. Just my two cents, I kinda think that buying any 8800 series is a waste if you plan on using DX10. They are however the king of DX9. The same kinda goes for the current 2900xt as well, though I have a feeling it'll end up doing better with DX10 than anything Nvidia has out now. I really don't think that we will achive great DX10 performance untill the R700 and G90's come out. But if you got the cash to spare I would get the 2900xt just on coolness factor alone.

The 8800GTX outperformed the HD 2900XT in the Direct X10 version of Call of Juarez and it's an ATI sponsored game/demo.

The 8800GTX is also a pretty quiet card, despite the size of it's heatsink/fan but both the HD 2900XT and 8800s would likely serve the OP's needs well.

 

[locky28]

Thanks for the inputs guys, I'm not buying this for DX10 but I'd like to know that it'll handle it and I think once DX10 get's serious the 2900XT will show it's colors, maybe not overtake the GTX but still be seen as a serious card.

Anyone got an ETA on 65nm?

 

[TonyStark]

Q3 is the rumor, which probably means you'll see them by May next year :lol:

 

[Dade_0182]

Yeah, if we are going on AMD's current release rate, I'll agree that next year may seems likely. hehe

Would be nice if they could stick by their word for once...

 

[locky28]

Mmk, we'll I'll consider it until pay day on next Wednesday, tell the girlfriend and get harassed for spending so much money on something other than her, and then put an order in

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

IMO sell you X1950Pro for the best price, and roll that into a GF800GTS-320 or low low priced 640, save the money over the true high end or even XT, they're all rather pedestrian right now IMO.

If you've already got a 2ZS then don't bother with sound, it's pretty much a dead end for effects in Vista for now.

And while I wouldn't recommend the HD2900XT for your money right now (they're still at launch price I rarely recommend 'value' for anything at launch prices), you can still easily overclock the XT without the 8pin connector, you just aren't given the easy Overdrive overclocking for n00bs. You can still push well into 800mhz without issue as shown by any true overclocking review. It's beyond about 825 that things get harry and the extra juice helps. Think of the 8pin connector as a safety catch, if you don't know how to get around it, it's probably best you don't overclock yet, until you research more. :twisted:

I love the idea of the 65nm refreshes but those are later June early Jully timeframes.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The 8800GTX outperformed the HD 2900XT in the Direct X10 version of Call of Juarez and it's an ATI sponsored game/demo.

While I don't agree with erocker's ambitions, because I know more now about the early so called DX10 games than we did before, something to remember is that Call of Juarez is an nVidia sponsored game and Demo.
Just look on Techland's COJ main page, you might recognize a logo at the bottom left, and it's not AMD/ATi's. :twisted:

The COJ fiasco is more complex than you think.

So here's a yarn and tell me what you think (PS you can check the facts in a few reviews on optimizing benchies for Lost Planet and COJ). nV had already optimized for the thing they complained about Techland's demo breaking in DX10 and had the latest updated version and drivers, while Techland hand't informed ATi that they had changed their code due to this breach of D3D specs, ATi send the demo out to reviewers, and at te same time nV et early input reviews, and mentions thes issues to reviewers telling them to update and to contact Techland and ATi, leaving ATi to acknowledge the code was contrary to spec and seems to have been replace, but also leaving them with little time to play with the new version nor even a new version to suply reviewers with (reviewers we graciously told by nV to contact Techland who would be more than happy to supply an updated version). Pretty much leaving ATi in the same position they were in with Lost Planet. So I wouldn't say those early demos say much about DX10 in either way other than it's a big dissapointment as to what little they've done.

Speaking of which sofar these so called DX10 games are just DX9 with DX10 sprinkled on top. And the sad thing is it doesn't look to be the end of that.

Compare all this DX10 to ATi's "Toyshop" X1K/DX9 Demo and then let me know how advanced that DX10 in Juarez and Lost Planet are. Heck they didn't even make the DX10 path more efficient, let alone impressive. :roll:

I'm done prognosticating about DX10 performance, because it looks like developers just aren't fully realizing the expectations and statements they made about DX10 previously.

The way things are going now, DX10 games as we were told to expect won't be a relity until these high end cards are starting to compete with the midrange cards anyways. :x

 

[locky28]

I was joking about the sound card, my Audigy 2 ZS still serves me well and unless Vista has better support for sound cards eventually I'll probably never upgrade.

When do you think prices will start to drop a bit? I don't wish to keep waiting because I wanna get this before I start studying.

And you can't judge DX10 performance on CoJ and LP, they're DX9 games with DX10 coding thrown in. Performance under DX10 won't be properly measured until real DX10 games come out, ones that are DX10 games with DX9 coding thrown in.

 

[yakyb]

And you can't judge DX10 performance on CoJ and LP, they're DX9 games with DX10 coding thrown in. Performance under DX10 won't be properly measured until real DX10 games come out, ones that are DX10 games with DX9 coding thrown in.

i opened this thread because i was thinking the exact same thing 1950 pro > 2900xt

and it would seem that youve pretty much said what i think above until a real DX10 game comes out its not worth the money im happy playing medium atm hell the 1950 can handle full on C&C3 so i beleive that upgrading now would be a waste

i just started another thread stating that the g90 could be out for christmas and with the 650 out in Q3 also, im going to hold out a little longer then do a full rig upgrade. along with Agena and Penryn (whichevers best )

 

[Dr_asik]

For some reason I have a feeling DX10 will not live as long as DX9, it's gonna be more a transition version like DX7, and that the true innovation in graphics will be in DX11 or even later. Well I have actually some reasons for thinking this, the first being that its implementation in games is very slow, it will have been a year between the G80 and the first DX10 game, and I'm not sure it's true DX10 or DX9 with some DX10 eye-candy on top as Ape explained. The other is that DX9 can do pretty much anything you can do in DX10, just less efficiently, so it doesn't really matter to game developpers, for instance a major game title like Starcraft II that should be released in late 2008 (or later) will still be completely in DX9 and it'll look positively great.

I've seen DX9 cause great hype with Doom 3 and HL2 that fully revealed its potential, and it lasted 3 generations of GPU, arguably 4 given that the G80 is, in practice, just a faster DX9 card, by the time DX10 games are out it will be superceded by a refresh or a new design. I'm not seeing half of that "wtf have you seen the graphics it's insaaaaane!" with Crysis and UT3, they look great but not a major leap ahead.

 

[jay2tall]

I guess I can throw in my 2 cents now. I am an ATI fan, although not totally loyal because I rather get better performance for what I pay for rather than being brand loyal. The 2900xt in my opinion is a good card. It beats the GTS 640 but not the GTX which is what? $200 more? So for the price, its a good deal, and will probably go down after time. However with the refresh at 65nm on the horizon.... as the world turn in the opossite direction so the sun has to catch up which means it's a delayed horizon as all ATI has show lately.. haha.. Anyways.

Honestly TheGreatGrapeApe hit the nail on the head. Sell your 1950pro and get an 8800gts 320mb. You have a 19" lcd, which means you arent running high resolutions and the 8800gts 320 is the best price for performance card out there. You can't beat it at all. This way you are still on a dx10 card that plays dx9 games awesome. And you are right. NO on knows what DX10 will do. OR if the DX10 cards right now well do THAT great on these new games. My opinion is to get a card to tide you over for now and then wait for some solid benches on new dx10 games to come out and then next time you upgrade get a card thats at the top of the list.

My opinion for right now... Buy the best DX9, DX10 card for a good price. We all play dx9 games now so why get one that will eventually do well rather than one that does well now. If you need to upgrade later, then do it and you wouldn't have dropped $600 on a GTX