Price Guides, April 2005: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 23, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
GPU High End
Last month, we were excited to announce that the X800, X850XT and X800XL were showing on store shelves. Of course, we were originally promised a December/January ship date instead of a February/March ship date, but this is just business as usual for those of us accustomed to the hardware world. This month, the same cards from last month are on retail shelves, but now, in easy-to-upgrade AGP form. However, recommending a third generation Radeon X series repackaged into an AGP form is a difficult proposition for us. Although you may have upgraded your motherboard and CPU in the past, an AGP Radeon X800 only makes sense for those who have spent a lot of money on a relatively recent nForce3 or K8T800 setup, but only need to upgrade the graphics card now. A socket 462 based solution really would benefit more from a CPU/motherboard upgrade than from a high end GPU upgrade, although some overclockers among the crowd will always beg to differ. Further, considering that the X800 AGP cards carry a $30 premium over their PCIe brethren, we can't justify the extra cost. nForce4 boards are very easy to get under $100 for Socket 754 and Socket 939 [RTPE: nForce4]. By the way, if you really want an AGP video card, an ASUS 6800 GT might be the better way to go, but more on that in a second.Since March, the Sapphire X800 256MB [RTPE: 100107] fell almost $50, certainly impressive considering that we were promised an actual $250 MSRP on this product. Sapphire's X800XL 256MB [RTPE: 100105] also fell to the $299 MSRP, which was certainly welcomed as well. Take a look at how both of these products have behaved over the last three months.
Sapphire X800 256MB
Sapphire X800XL 256MB
We alluded to an LeadTek GeForce 6800 GT [RTPE: A400 GT TDH] earlier, and if you fall in that specific high-end AGP market, there really aren't many effective options. For those looking for the benchmark numbers, take a quick look at our benchmark summary from a few months ago. When talking about AGP video cards, these aren't apples-to-apples comparisons because of the bridge chips, but for all intents and purposes, there will not be much difference between those benchmarks and the AGP variants. Going the 6800GT route saves you $20 or so if you go with the 128MB version on AGP.
A bit of competition in this field would be nice. As we mentioned earlier, the bout for PCIe high end cards certainly go to ATI.
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semo - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link
it certainly does Kristopherthanks
the issue with x300se running doom3:
had no time to check the settings and i just played the firts 10mins of the game (just shot one worker) and it wasn't choppy. that impressed me because on my 7500 even the main menu was choppy (not talking about walking and jumping just changing control settings). while playing i saw some smoke and it did not look good so there was no eye candy but at least it run ok.
anyway, my friend is now playing painkiller (ragdolls and particles flying all over the screen) and he says there's no slowdown. my 7500 gave up on the 3rd level :( . (see why i'm looking for a radeon 9800)
dripgoss - Monday, April 25, 2005 - link
LOL on the Newegg reviews.. yeah I posted up a very thorough and honest 2/5 "egg testimonial" on an MSI 6600GT and they wouldn't post it. I bumped it up to 5/5 and it went through but when it finally goy posted to the site it came out as "Nice card" verbatim!! And then they turn around and post testimonials from people who either don't own the product or bought it elsewhere! If they hae to approve the reviews before posting, that's funny..spittledip - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
My apologies! I am used to scoping out all the prices almost daily through pricewatch, and they always have 9800 SEs listed as pros. That is one sweet sweet deal!LoneWolf15 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
I think there's an important thing to mention regarding the ASUS X800XL video card. The price is far higher than competitors, and yet some models of their X800XL cards use DDR RAM instead of GDDR3 like the others, and the RAM is clocked far lower. This makes it really hard to tell if you're getting a good card for your money. Should you get the lower clocked DDR-based card, you'll be paying a lot more for less performance. I'd recommend Built By ATI, Powercolor, or other brands of cards for this reason.ASUS card specs (for comparison)
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=Extreme%20AX80...
Powercolor card specs:
http://www.tul.com.tw/global/productlist.aspx?fold...
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
semo: The first 2 and the last one are definitely 256-bit, Radeon 9800 Pros. The 3rd one did not mention whether or not it was 128-bit or 256-bit, but I am pretty sure that particular SKU is 256-bit.Hope that helps,
Kristopher
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Vol2005: It's a borderline situation with that rig. I would say you would be OK, but anything less and you would be better off getting a PCIe motherboard and video card.Kristopher
toyota - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
#20 what are you talking about an x300se gets 10 fps in doom3 at 1024x768. even in 800x600 its only 14 fps. you must be playing the game while you are stoned if you call that smooth gameplay.Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Anybody could tell me, please...if I will upgrade my graphics to AGP X800XL,
would the power of my AXP2500@3200 be enough for it or am i gonna upgrade cpu/mb too
Vol2005 - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link