I have a X1950XTX... time to upgrade?

I think my signature has it, but anyway I have an ATI Radeon X1950XTX 512MB GDDR4 graphics card. This thing cost me $488.44 (which was a bargain at the time) and I bought it only days after it hit the market. On average, people are getting about $250 for this on eBay. I haven't come across a benchmark which pits the 8800GT and the X1950XTX against each other, but I'm certain the 8800GT would out-perform it. The question I have is, "By how much?"

The 8800GT on Newegg right now is $289.99, so I could easily sell my card and, without spending much more cash, get an 8800GT. But I need the insight of other wiser people here who are on top of the market and the performance points. Would it be worth it? I believe my system specs are in my signature, and my LCD resolution is 1280x1024, so I prefer to play at that resolution for gaming.

The only DX10 game I own is Bioshock, and I'm probably not going to be buying Crysis anytime soon (didn't care for the demo). But, I've kept this system for over a year now (built September '06) and its age is starting to catch up with it. The only other game I'm thinking about buying is Call of Duty 4, which I don't know if its DX10 capable or not.

So with all that information, would you think it'd be worth the time/cash to upgrade my card to a 8800GT? If you know of any benchmarks which include my video card and the recent line of DX10's, please share!
Thanks in advance.

i personally would not upgrade quite yet, it looks good
the 8800gt is a good deal/card though

You got a kickass card, I'd say wait until something even better comes along or at least until the dust settles with the Ati cards.

Don't sell until the succesor to the GTX comes out, your card is nearly top-line.

Don't you think that with new middle-ends like 8800GT the X1950XTX price will quickly start decreasing? The best choice is to sell what is available now, wait a few months and then purchase smth like refreshed 8800GTS.

Well, I'm not really an enthusiast at this point, so I figured I'd just upgrade my card and keep it for another year, then buy whatever's good a year from now. The X1950XTX's value is really declining as I've been keeping up with eBay listings for a couple months now, so I think that the more I wait, the less I'll end up getting for it.

So what do you guys think? Should an 8800GT tie me over for another year? 1280x1024 and I usually play with 4X AA.

Even with ATI's new series, their recent track record shows they're REALLY behind NVIDIA's progress. And I have a hard time believing a mid-range 3x00 series card would out-perform the 8800GT in addition to being cheaper ($289). 3D Mark scores don't impress me, just plain old FPS numbers.

And thanks for the responses so far.

I'm sticking to my x1950 pro for ages yet, although I can't even use it until I get a working PC

So what games etc are you having problems with at the min then? if the answer is none really and you are just worried about the resale value of your currant card and are looking for the best deal then i think you should at least wait and see what the ATI card can do when it comes out in a few days time. Its quite rare these days to be able to get what will be essentially a free upgrade so best of luck to you with what ever decision you make personally i think its a no brainer really free upgrade to the latest hardware yes please
Mactronix

I'm surprised that so many people recommend keeping the x1950xtx. Yes, it 's a great card, and yes it's still able to handle most games properly. But, if you can find an idiot to buy it from you for enough money to buy an 8800GT, do it. The 8800GT is better than the x1950xtx, so if you can switch for only the cost of shipping I'd say do it. Plus, if you switch an old card without warranty for a brand new one with warranty, that can't be bad either.

I don't have benchmarks for 8800GT vs x1950XTX, but there are plenty of benchmarks showing that
8800GT > 8800 GTS 640MB and others showing that
8800 GTS 640MB > X1950XTX
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] i=3140&p=7
http://www23.tomshardware.com/grap [...] &chart=297

Get the 8800GT - it is extremely good value for money. It is also superior to the X1950XTX, so if you can get it for a similar price, why not?

I absolutely agree with aevm.

If you can find an idiot who would pay $250 for your X1950XTX then what are you waiting for!!??

Gotta say though - I see no way that you can get that kind of money for a used video card. Chances are you'll get a maximum of $100 or so for it and in that case I see no real reason for you to upgrade at this point. What you have is still pretty high-end so wait another 6 months or so.

If your upgrading specifically for Direct x 10 then my advice would be that it's not worth it. DX10 games presently don't look that much better than if they were played in Direct X 9.
I believe DX10 is a marketing tactic by MS to sell more copies of Vista because there would be little else worthwhile to ditch XP otherwise

The 1950 XTX is a great card. Because of my involvement with the graphics card industry, I was able to upgrade from a 1950XTX to a 2900XT, at no cost. I was disappointed by the lack of noticeable differences between the two cards. Crysis still sucks on the 2900XT. Had I actually paid money for this card, I would have been even more disappointed. Since there isn't any card out there that's able to take on Crysis at a decent frame rate at high resolutions (and some AA), I would hold off on purchasing a new GPU. Otherwise, if you are purchasing now, you are essentially buying obsolete hardware.

Normally i would agree with you 100% but if as the op says the cost can be virtually eliminated by the sale of the existing card then you would have to be mad not to do it just to get the newest hardware for free no?
However upgrading for a specific title big no no first system that i actually spec-ed myself was spec-ed around Far cry and while it served the components left me with a very limited upgrade path.
But we all live and learn
Mactronix

Well, if we made that argument a month ago he would have upgraded to an 8800 GTS/2900 XT and missed the 8800 GT... and still, for future games he doesn't play yet.

Whose to say in 6 months - when a game comes out he actually needs a new card for - there won't be another kick ass card available for cheaper? Or at the very least, that the 8800 GT won't devalue by the same amount his X1950 XT has?

The tech is moving too fast to ever upgrade for the future, IMHO.

If there are games he's currently playing that he's not happy with, that's another story. Then he's crazy not to upgrade it...

I have an X1900XTX and it seems that if you can manage even $200 for it then I would go for it. $80 for a video card of 8800GT standards is amazing. Also, if you can manage to get an EVGA then you can just step up the the 8800GTS refresh when it comes out or you could sell your 8800GT and get the new ATI card if it turns out to be better and once again you wouldnt be losing alot of green. I would do it, in fact im considering looking into it! lol, I mean real $50 - $80 for an 8800GT...even if you keep that thing for 2 months it was a great deal! imo, hope this helps!

Best,

3Ball

Hey 3Ball! You're running my rig, heheh...
Except I have Corsair, and X1900XT (512MB).

@ArbY
Lots of life in the 1900XTX still, LoL - but I see you are looking at this from an investment point of view..
The trick will be to sell your vidcard for $250 (or even ~$200 bucks). Good luck.
Sure the 8800GT is a great deal... I need one too! (Hey, who doesn't?)
Regards

I say we just go back to onboard Video Cards WOOOOOOOO Quake 1 !!!!!!!!

Quite amazing to re-run this game with the OpenGL patch that makes it run under Windows! Excellent, and any old rig with ancient GeForce or Radeon can run it fantastic.
Oh man, I used to play that online in the 1990s (I selected my ISP because of their Quake server) and somewhere here I still have all the stuff, my favourite skins etc...
It was great.

seel the 1950 for 250...who ever buys thats should burn in hell...its a pre used card thats also out of date...if you get 150 your lucky....thats all I'm saying