I just got an email from ATI advertising a sale of factory refurbished X800 Pro cards for $179 US or $229 Cdn. This price includes a 3 year warranty.

It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, but how much better are their X850 cards?

And will this thing make much of a difference on a 2.53 P4 Dell 8200 with 1 gig of RAM, that is currently running a 9700 Pro?

http://shop.ati.com/searchresults.asp?dept_id=39 USA link refurbished card

http://shopati.ca/searchresults.asp?dept_id=38 Canada link refurbished card

http://shop.ati.com/searchresults.asp?dept_id=17 New cards, USA

http://shopati.ca/searchresults.asp?dept_id=17 New cards, Canada

It appears that their top of the line card is the 850 XT 256MB AGP Platinum edition for a whopping $749 Cdn. What the hell extra do I get for another $520?

I don't know it same thing for
BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra OC 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card for $999

BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 PCI Graphics Card
for $399
That $600 more like nameless what u get for this?

I still havn't been able to get my ATI Radeon 9600XT Lite version to run on my 'puter. Works on my kids but not mine. ATI was little to no help. Last word from them is that with everyting I've tried it probable is not compatable to my computer. HP used three different mother boards for this series computer. They have new BIO's avalable for one of them. Havn't been able to tell which one I have It is my last and only hope of ever running the card (short of replacing the 'puter).

L8r, Skank

PS: ATI bite me!!!

Glider asked:

Yes, it is a nice deal. The 850 cards have 16 pipelines for faster performance and the 800 just has 12. Depending on the games that you play, this can make a difference.



Well. You ultimately have to answer that question. Are you getting acceptable framerates in the games that you currently play? It would not hurt, and would play games like Halflife 2 and Doom 3 faster, but if you do not play those, then why bother.
On the other hand, it seems that the high end graphics cards are only going to be available in PCi Express. It may be a good decision to upgrade your card if you plan on using that computer for a while.
Also, you can always upgrade your processor (well, until socket 478 is discontinued).
Again, the choice is yours.
What games do you play now?

Oh, and to answer your question, it will blow the doors off a 9700..

Will it? Okay, how many "pipelines" does my 9700 Pro have?

As to whether I need this card or not, the answer is NO not really.
It just has such a sweet price, and would be the only upgrade I'd ever make to this rig anyway.

I'll have to dust off that Half Life 2 demo I downloaded ages ago, and see how my rig handles it as it is now.

BTW, this card is also available in PCIE for the same price.

The 9700 Pro had 8 pixel pipes. That was the reason that it blew away any competition from Nvidia during that time. The new card has DDR3 memory and is just plain faster. For example, I moved from a 9700 Pro to a 6800GT. Pretty much comperable to a X800 Pro. The results were noticable and quite pleasing. I can really crank up the options now on the high end games and the resolution. Makes them look so sweet.
Hell, go ahead. I think you will be happy with the card, and at that price you can't go wrong.

Oh, and by the way. I hear that it is possible to unlock the extra 4 pipelines making the card an X800XT. If so, then you would surely be blown away by the performance. I am looking to see if I can find out how.

I read about unlocking these cards all of the time. People trying to make their 6600's into 6800's. It doesn't work there but it does work with a buying a low end 6800 and unlocking the pipes to make it a high end 6800. The magic number here is 6800. Just don't buy anything that has a 6 in the beginning and less than 800 at the end. Also, never buy a video card with the letters MX in the name expecially if it's a Nvidia card! Later! BTW, here are 2 of my most favaorite sites for me to get any info I ever need. I troll over both of them regularly and each is completely full of information to the gills!:

www.anandtech.com the forum section.

and

www. amdmb.com the forum section.

I also used to like www.sharkeyextreme.com the forum section but it is middle school compared to the first 2 sites I mentioned. Later!

It appears that they're already sold out. Oh well, that just means that I've saved over 200 bucks!

They're baaaaaacccckkk! ATI seems to have more of these beauties in stock again.
I just checked their "clearance center" link after getting an email telling me how wonderful their new X1800 series of cards are: Radeon X1800 cards

The links above in my first post still work to find the X800 that's on sale.



Hey Skank, if you still haven't been able to get that card to work, or any satisfaction from ATI, don't forget that their headquarters are only 45 minutes away from my place. If you're ever up this way, I can get you there so that you can confront them directly, if you'd like.