DIFFERENT X1800XT CARDS

CORRSA · 28 Feb 2006 at 09:47

hi im nearly ready to upgrade my rig ihave found many manufactures of card now and read that the ati x1800xt cards are a good buy i have found the following two cards but the price differ am i missing something ?

Club 3D X1800XT 512MB

PERFORMANCE:

* 625MHz ATI™ R520 GPU
* 1500MHz 256BIT memory
* 512MB GDDR3 memory
* 400MHz RAMDAC
* 16 DirectX® 9.0 pixel-pipelines
* x16 lane PCI Express™
* CrossFire™ Ready

Features:

* DirectX® 9.x compliant
* Shader Model 3 support
* High Dimension Floating-Point Textures
* Multiple Render Targets
* Up to 16x Anisotropic Filtering
* Up to 6x Multi Sampling Anti Aliasing
* Up to 12x Temporal Multi Sampling Anti Aliasing
* Full Screen Anti Aliasing Gamma Correction
* Avivo™
* Video Gamma Correction
* 3Dc™ Normal Map Compression
* Video in, Video Out

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)

- Powered by ATI Radeon R520XT GPU running at 625MHz
- Based on 0.09 micron manufacturing process
- 16 ultra efficient extreme pipelines
- 256MB GDDR3 Memory running at 1500MHz
- 256-Bit lightning fast memory interface
- 8 Vertex Shaders/Geometry Pipelines
- Memory Bandwidth - 48GB/sec
- Fill Rate - 10.00 billion pixels/sec
- Vertex and Pixel Shader Version 3.0
- 10-bit Native Display Quality for future LCD technology
- ATI® Crossfire™ Ready (Crossfire/Master Edition card required)
- 3Dc+ Technology
- AVIVO Technology - H.264 Support
- Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c Shader Model 3.0 support

i intend to game with card backed up with a gb of ram havent even looked into that yet will i see a big diffarence between the two ?

Bennah · 28 Feb 2006 at 09:59

Welcome to OcUK Forums

One being the 256MB and the other 512MB cards you will see a difference in frame rates at higher resolutions.

The extra 256MB on the 512MB card will come into play once you play your games @ 1280x1024 and higher with a good level of AA and AF.

What price are you looking at paying? What res do you play your games at ?

The Connect 3D 256MB X1800 XT is a great card for the price but if you can strech to £270 from the £234 price tag of the 256MB card you can get your self a Powercolour 512MB X1800 XT from this site.

smids · 28 Feb 2006 at 10:30

At lower res's, the 256MB is faster and the 512MB only gains at high res's. By high res I mean above 1280x1024. At 1280x1024 and below, the cards are virtually the same performance.

Kyo · 28 Feb 2006 at 10:50

How Much is the 3D club one going for anyway out of intrest?

CORRSA · 28 Feb 2006 at 14:07

£234.75
£275.84 inc VAT

LoadsaMoney · 28 Feb 2006 at 14:11

At 1280x1024 the 512mb XT is about 10fps faster than the 256mb, and the higher from that you go the greater the gap, at 1024x768 and below the 256mb is faster.

Thats not a bad price £275, its only a fiver more than the Powercolor one on here, but they are expected in about 3 days.

Welcome to the forums btw.

Gibbo · 28 Feb 2006 at 14:43

CORRSA said:
£234.75
£275.84 inc VAT

PowerColor is cheaper from OcUK and also PowerColor is a Tier1 partner to ATI wheres Club3D are not an official partner and actually buy their chips from the Tier1 partners.

So Club3D ideally should be avoided!

smids · 28 Feb 2006 at 14:57

Gibbo said:
PowerColor is cheaper from OcUK and also PowerColor is a Tier1 partner to ATI wheres Club3D are not an official partner and actually buy their chips from the Tier1 partners.

So Club3D ideally should be avoided!

Well there you have it

- sometimes brands do matter! Also, doesn't the powercolor (as always) come with a bundled game?

sl33pyhead · 28 Feb 2006 at 14:58

Gibbo said:
PowerColor is cheaper from OcUK and also PowerColor is a Tier1 partner to ATI wheres Club3D are not an official partner and actually buy their chips from the Tier1 partners.

So Club3D ideally should be avoided!

Perhaps you should tell ATI that their website is wrong them.

smids · 28 Feb 2006 at 15:06

sl33pyhead said:
Perhaps you should tell ATI that their website is wrong them.

Perhaps they are official but not top tier? I know that certain brands get much larger allocations of cores than others, which is why we often see the main ones appear of the market immediately whilst the smaller brands don't get released till slightly later.

sl33pyhead · 28 Feb 2006 at 15:29

smids said:
Perhaps they are official but not top tier? I know that certain brands get much larger allocations of cores than others, which is why we often see the main ones appear of the market immediately whilst the smaller brands don't get released till slightly later.

Maybe, but the point is they are an official AIB partner at least. Besides the chipset is still utlimately produced by ATI themselves - the AIB partners (and only some of them at that) only assemble and brand the boards anyway.

Isn't the main reason you see some brands to market quicker because they are using "Built By ATI" cards?

Gibbo · 28 Feb 2006 at 15:31

sl33pyhead said:
Maybe, but the point is they are an official AIB partner at least. Besides the chipset is still utlimately produced by ATI themselves - the AIB partners (and only some of them at that) only assemble and brand the boards anyway.

Isn't the main reason you see some brands to market quicker because they are using "Built By ATI" cards?

Wouldn't you preferre to buy from a established tier1 partner who is still going to be around in say a years or two time?

I would imagine you do which is damn good reason to stick with a Tier1 partner which is what the likes of Sapphire, Connect3D, HIS, TUL (PowerColor), Asus and MSI are.....Companies like Club3D are not and as such may not be around in the future......

oweneades · 28 Feb 2006 at 15:41

I have a club3d card here and I have had no problems with it at all.

I would have got my card from OCUK but unfortunately the price went back up before I make my purchase.

sl33pyhead · 28 Feb 2006 at 15:57

Gibbo said:
Wouldn't you preferre to buy from a established tier1 partner who is still going to be around in same a years or two time?

I would imagine you do which is damn good reason to stick with a Tier1 partner which is what the likes of Sapphire, Connect3D, HIS, TUL (PowerColor), Asus and MSI are.....Companies like Club3D are not and as such may not be around in the future......

Oh yeah. Not disputing that at all - I'd much rather buy from the likes of Powercolor (I just have

) or Sapphire etc. than most of the other me too brands but I imagine a major part of the decision for most folk comes down to either price or which bundle (or lack of) they prefer. On what are for the most part identical cards the brand itself probably does not matter to most people.

JonnyGLC · 28 Feb 2006 at 15:58

LoadsaMoney said:
At 1280x1024 the 512mb XT is about 10fps faster than the 256mb, and the higher from that you go the greater the gap, at 1024x768 and below the 256mb is faster.

Thats not a bad price £275, its only a fiver more than the Powercolor one on here, but they are expected in about 3 days.

Welcome to the forums btw.

At 1280x1024 i think you'll find there is virtually zero difference mate

I've ran a few tests and i honestly find no difference, with my 256mb version being barely 1-2fps behind

LoadsaMoney · 28 Feb 2006 at 16:03

A random name said:
At 1280x1024 i think you'll find there is virtually zero difference mate I've ran a few tests and i honestly find no difference, with my 256mb version being barely 1-2fps behind

Oh well, i got that info from Gibbo.

Yeah there you have it, he wants the sale anybody can see that, Powercolors not in stock here, wants him to hold off till it is and save a fiver, and he gets his sale.

Nox · 28 Feb 2006 at 16:39

I thought Club3d were ATI official partner too, and dont they use jap caps on all their cards? At least the high end allegedly. surely that makes them worth while thinking about?

Sumanji · 28 Feb 2006 at 18:10

Gibbo said:
Club3D are not an official partner and actually buy their chips from the Tier1 partners. So Club3D ideally should be avoided!

That's not really a good reason to avoid them though is it?

Club3D are a major supplier to OEM PC's manufacturers and they have a nice slice of the European market. From other forums the general concensus is that Club3D make pretty solid cards, and are one of the few manufacturers that make cards of all brands (ATi, nV, XGI and I think S3 as well), which probably explains why ATi don't class them as tier 1

Gibbo said:
Wouldn't you preferre to buy from a established tier1 partner who is still going to be around in say a years or two time?

I highly doubt they are going anywhere in the forseeable future...! And even if they did suddenly disappear tomorrow, warranty is still with the retailer no? So shouldn't be a problem. Do Powercolor or C3D offer an extended warranty btw Gibbo?

Nox said:
I thought Club3d were ATI official partner too, and dont they use jap caps on all their cards? At least the high end allegedly. surely that makes them worth while thinking about?

Yeah they make solid cards mate, but afaik most of the "brand name" AIB partners make reliable cards!

LoadsaMoney · 28 Feb 2006 at 18:17

It is a good reason if you don't sell Club 3D cards, come on.

DaveP3@ · 28 Feb 2006 at 18:20

LoadsaMoney said:
Thats not a bad price £275, its only a fiver more than the Powercolor one on here, but they are expected in about 3 days.

My fault, ordered one this morning

Welcome to the forums CORRSA by the way

Regards,

Dave.