HD 3650 > X800XL?

[Jeff9]

My X800XL is acting a little funny lately- I want to replace it with a HD 3650. I know that this is not an "upgrade", I'm just looking for slightly better performance at a budget price. Am I right in thinking that the 3650 will out-perform the X800XL in Flight Simulator 2004? Currently my settings are pegged at ultra-high at 1280x1024x16.

Jeff

 

[bctaaka]

I have the Sapphire 3650 512 mb ddr3...and it does a lot better than I would have originally thought.

Your upgrade really depends on your price range?? what is it?

 

[Jeff9]

Well I have AGP so I'm pretty limited. I was planning to built a new system around Christmas so I'm trying to keep things under 100. The 3650 I was looking at was 83 at newegg whereas the next competitor was the 3850 which was 140. I really like my current system, but it is getting phased out.

 

[sarwar_r87]

it will be of the same range.....slightly more or slightly less.
but if u r planing to build new rig in 5months time, i suggest u hang on 2 ur current x800 and build ur new rig wen u can. because if u spent that money now, not only u will get lil if any improvement, moreover u wont be able to take ur new card and add it in ur new system wen u get it since it is agp.
inversting $100 for 5mnths isnt very wise....i might add

 

[Jeff9]

If I bought the new card I would hold off on the new system. I'm still trying to figure out if a new PSU and GPU will fix my current weird problems. My system crashes and blames it on the ati driver, sometimes won't recognize my monitor (when it is plugged into the X800XL), and my FPS took a 50% drop. Additionally I have tried 3 different drivers and reinstalls to no avail.

 

[dirtmountain]

Did you recently update your driver ? You might try downloading and using previous drivers to see if that will help. ATI kinda screwed AGP users with some of their new catalyst drivers.
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/radeonxprevious-xp.html
These are for an XP OS

 

[Jeff9]

I tried those- the weird part is that this all started from reinstalling XP. To fix it I tried various drivers, reinstalled again- I've pretty much done everything to my knowledge, but nothiing works. My hunch is that the video card is failing on me, but it could also be my PSU because it only offers 14A on each +12V rail (and the X800XL only takes from one rail). Any ideas? I've posted on hardware forums, flight simulation forums, the list goes on lol.

 

[eklipz330]

ok take out your card, and grab a compressed air can... clean the ducts out, cleaning your video card does wonders

my bro has an x800xl, and a few times a year, fps drops, it freezes and crashes... i take out the video card, clean the fan and the ducts with the compressed air, and it works perfectly for months after

 

[abasoufiane]

make sure that you have installed AGP gart driver , this usually comes with your motherboard chipset drivers or try to download it, this is extremly important and i'll say this is most likely your problem.

since you said problems came after reinstaling windows then hardware problems should be discarded (unless if it's a really bad coincidence) and the only thing i see is you forgetting to install agp gart which does excatly the problems you mentioned if it hasn't been installed.

install it and let me know

 

[hairycat101]

try replacing your graphics card with a lighted M80. I would do that outside...

 

[Jeff9]

I feel like taking an M80 to it, really. I know for sure the chipset drivers are installed properly, as well as all of the other drivers. I've installed XP various times in the past and I've never any issues. I'll try the compressed air and hope for the best.

 

[customisbetter]

You could use the canned air in place of the m80. But you would have to be a bit closer for that...