Pixel Pipelines vs clock speed: x850pro or x800xl?

[Jordanforce]

Hello all,

Once before, I consulted these forums when deciding on buying a new processor and motherboard. I'm hoping someone's god-like knowledge can once again help me make a tough decision.

The next generation of games are coming out shortly, and I want to ensure that my computer will be prepared to run them, and run them well. I'm looking into the future specifically at games such as TES Oblivion, UT2k7, NFSMW: all of which will need a very decent system if they are to run at what I like to call "beautiful" settings.

Right now, my system specs are as follows...

-Asus A8V deluxe
-AMD64 3200+ S939
-1024MB Kingston DDR400 (dual channel mode)
-IDE 80GB hard drive 7200rpm
-Radeon 9600

As you might have noticed, my video card appears to be the newest bottleneck in my system, and the source of my question. In order to prepare for these upcoming games, I've saved about 400 dollars. I've done a lot of research on prices and have come to a choice between the x850pro and x800xl. Should I buy the x850pro with 12 pixel pipelines with an x850 core, or the x800xl with 16 pixel pipelines but slower clockspeeds?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jordanforce

 

[knownalien]

it really depends on your monitor and desired playing resolution. If you stay around 1280 X 1024 then you will be able to play OB . . .which I am awaiting too! lol

But since you are not buying a new mobo, I would get the 850. I mean, it's prices should fall so much that you can get a gig stick of ram with what you save.

K8T NeoFIS2R
Athlon 64bit 3400
2X1024 OCZ DDR400
Maxtor 40, 120
Western Digital Raptor 74 Gig
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
NEC LCD Monitor 1760NX
Antec Tru Power 550
Windows XP

 

[Jordanforce]

My monitor isn't anything special: a 17" CRT, but it does it's job well enough. Maybe in the long run I'll buy a used 19" LCD for a couple hundred, but now I'm just getting off topic.

Exactly how much are prices going to fall? I know that the new X1K series will drop the prices of older cards, but if they drop significantly I might get lucky with a sale on an 850xt. Another gig of ram has never hurt anyone either .

I'm getting the impression that having more pixel pipelines will do me better in the long run than a faster gpu?
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Jordanforce on 10/08/05 07:22 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[knownalien]

the 850 is just a faster card. but I would give it 1 month. anyway, oblivion ain't coming out in that time!!!

In a month, when the X1xx come out in full supply, you will see the prices drop. Not too much maybe because it is PCI-e vs. AGP and ATI (and other OEM's/vendors) know that those that want faster cards but wish to stick with AGP really still have no choice so they might still attempt to keep the prices. Still, the argument won't make sense for the PCI-e versions of 850. The PCI-e versions HAVE to drop, and it would be odd to see the PCI-e version much cheaper than the AGP version.

K8T NeoFIS2R
Athlon 64bit 3400
2X1024 OCZ DDR400
Maxtor 40, 120
Western Digital Raptor 74 Gig
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
NEC LCD Monitor 1760NX
Antec Tru Power 550
Windows XP

 

[pauldh]

The X800XL is a little faster at stock speeds than the X850 pro. To step up from the XL, look for a X800XT, X800XTpe, X850XT, or X850XTpe. If those doallars are USD, then any of these cards are in your range. Canadian dollars, I'm not sure. Only two other options in AGP would be the 6800GT (about = to X800XL) or 6800 Ultra (about = X800XT-X850XT non platinum).

It depends on the game, but my personal AGP ranking list starting at the best is:

X850XTpe
X800XTpe
X850XT/GF6800U
X800XT
6800GT/X800XL
X850 pro
X800 pro
etc.


<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>

 

[pauldh]

What X850 are you talking about? (At stock speeds) the 12-pipe X850 pro is not faster than a X800XL, the 16 pipe XT's obviously are. The X850pro competes in some games/settings, but falls behind the XL in others. ATI including VIVO for the pro doesn't make up for the slight performance hit and $50 original list price premium. If street pricing of the pro saves some money it would still be a good choice as it does come close to X800XL and 6800GT.

Just to ad, I think the X850 pro for the consumer, wasn't worth releasing. It didn't make sense with the cheaper XL besting it. Just a way for ATI to get rid of X850's that all 16 pipes didn't work, plus gives the nooobs a X850 to buy.


<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Pauldh on 10/08/05 11:27 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Jordanforce]

That is in Canadian dollars. The x850xt is at a base price of 499.99 right now, but if the price goes down, I may be able to get it for 400 or less as futureshop frequently puts good sale prices on their ATI video cards. The x800xl is on for a real good deal of 299.99 canadian as well.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I guess I'll wait around, see where prices go, and forget about the x850pro. Heck, if I get the x800xl sells for 299.99, I could buy another gig of ram with it too. Perhaps that will be the way to go.

Thanks again,
Jordanforce

 

[mozzartusm]

TigerDirect has the X850 PE for $339.00 which is the best price ive seen on this card.

ASUS P5WD2 Premium
Intel 3.73 EE @ 5.6Ghz
XMS2 DDR2 @ 1180Mhz

<A HREF="http://valid.x86-secret.com/records.php?PHPSESSID=792e8f49d5d9b8a4d1ad6f40ca029756" target="_new">#2 CPUZ</A>
SuperPI 25secs

 

[Crashman]

I'd ditch the board and get a Chaintech VNF4 Ultra and an X800 XL PCI-Express.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Jordanforce]

Is it really worth buying a completely new motherboard to switch to a pci-express motherboard? I just got the A8V deluxe this summer, and I'm not sure if I'd get that much performance gain by buying an nforce 4 motherboard and an equivalent video card. I think that a new AGP video card and another gig of RAM would probably give me the "beautiful" performance I want for at least another year. If that's not enough, I'll save up for a new processor, but I'm not convinced that switching my mb for pciE will give me enough performance gain to justify the cost.

Keep in mind that I'm on a limited budget here. I'm lucky enough that I can afford to spend 400 dollars (Canadian) on my computer right now.

 

[Crashman]

The best prices on video cards appiles to PCI-Express cards. In fact, the AGP version of some cards can cost up to $100 more. That X850 XT PE is an example of such.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Jordanforce]

Looking back, I agree with you on that. I just checked bcom computers, and they have a sapphire radeon x800xl pcie equivalent to the agp x800xl version selling for 355.35 canadian. However, futureshop has the agp x800xl on sale for 299.99, so maybe I will jump on that deal. That way, I can afford an additional two sticks of 512 ram on top of the video card.

Right now, buying a new motherboard and a pcie would be a little over my budget. Once the new system runs out of juice, then I'll switch to a PCIE mobo.

Thanks for the advice crashman.

 

[pickxx]

Well i know you may not want to hear this but SAVE.
Save your money and lower some settings for a while and when you have about 500 US(i dont know what that is for canadians...2million or somehting.). You should be able to buy a new Motherboard and a 7800GT. That will make everything sparkle for a while. You arn't far from it.

If you invest in your AGP board, you are just wasting money that could be saved to put into a PCIe board. The chaintech board is a great board and fairly cheap. And the 7800GT can be had for 350-400. Other options are the 6800GT, X800XL, and X850XT all which are between 270-350.

I would wait if i were you just a couple moneths, save up and buy a PCIe board and card.

__________________________________________
Chaintech VNF3-250/A64 2800+/1GB(512x2) OCZ VX GOLD 2-2-2-5/BFG 6800GT/Thermaltake 420W/WD 200GB/Maxtor 300GB