Going from 9800Pro to X800 or X850

The B.A. · 19 Mar 2006 at 14:36

Updating this week while the prices are good, long overdue...
Definitely settled on an AMD 3800 x2
Will also go for 2 gig memory but not sure what yet, that will be the subject of another post in the memory area later :rolleyes:

Motherboard also still to be decided...
I thought I had settled the graphics card issue and was going for the PowerColor X850 XT 256MB which is on special offer this week... Then I read a post about noisy coolers on the 850XT's which started me digging a bit deeper and I came across a post on the HIS Excalibur X800 GTO ICEQII TURBO 256MB which can apparently be chipped and clocked to give similar performance to an 850XT PE!!! To make it even more appealing the HIS is around 30 squid cheaper...
What do you reckon, is the money saving worth the hassle and also the possibility of buggering up the HIS card when doing the mod, your thoughts would be appreciated and also any feedback on 850XT cooler noise .

Cheers...

dale1uk · 19 Mar 2006 at 15:41

The noise on my Asus x850xt is fine but it depends on what you class as fine. If you've got water cooling and a near silent rig the yes you'll hear the fan but if like me with a few case fans, cpu heatsink and psu giving off some noise then it will blend in fine. I use Ati tray tools to set the fan speeds myself so on idle is quite but when running games its speeds up and is louder but not so much to hear it over my speakers.
As for clocking I'm not sure on the HIS x800 but will say its prob 50-50 on unlocking and giving x850xt pe speeds with the added risk of screwing it up but with the x850xt I'd say all will easily clock to at least xt pe speeds, with mine going easily going more, (see sig) on stock cooler with max temps of 60'c under heavy load.

The B.A. · 19 Mar 2006 at 18:37

Hmm ok, Have to admit I am a little dubious about flashing and modding a brand new HIS 800XT but still concerned over the noise level on the X850 XT... My rig is not particularly quiet, CPU & PSU fans whirring away so another fan won't be a big issue - but the fact that you have to change the fan speed when its idle makes me think that maybe it is a little noisy? If you left it to its own devices (so to speak) would it be to noisy on idle? My set up is in a quiet smallish room so I don’t want it to stand out from a noise point of view....

dale1uk · 19 Mar 2006 at 18:50

Nah, actually speeded it up a little on idle!! Reason for changing the fan settings was that at stock on most x850's the fan is ony set at 14% untill it hits 85'c then speeds up,so left to its own can make them heat up quite quickly. So now I set it up that on idle the fan noise blends in with the rest of my set up which is about 30%, then as it heats up I've set the fan to slowly get quicker. the max it spins up at is 60%, and the max temps are 60'c and thats with the clock speeds in sig.
If you did find it too load, which I wouldn't of thought you would, you could always gat a different cooler, ie Zalman or AC.

Pipe & Slippers · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:23

Loud is always a subjective thing - I've just changed the cooler on my X850XT 'cos it was driving me up the wall (I have an Asus like dale1uk)....it's now virtually silent (subjective again :eek:

) with an arctic cooler

CurlyWhirly · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:29

Pipe & Slippers said:
Loud is always a subjective thing - I've just changed the cooler on my X850XT 'cos it was driving me up the wall

I have a Powercolor X850 XT and I don't find it loud :confused:

The only time I find the cooler loud is when I first boot my PC and then it whirrs away for a few seconds before quietening down again.

LoadsaMoney · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:32

Why not get the Sapphire x800 GTO2 and turn it into an x850 XT PE, its cheaper.

Welcome to the forums btw.

Street · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:53

LoadsaMoney said:
Why not get the Sapphire x800 GTO2 and turn it into an x850 XT PE, its cheaper.

Welcome to the forums btw.

Not all of them are moddable so you might be stuck with the x800 GTO2...

My housemate bought one a month back and it was the R430 core with 16 pipelines... Couldn't be flashed to the X850XT.

I would say go for the PoweColour X850XT. I've got one in my PC flashed to the PE its great. I upgraded from my old 9800Pro like you've got and this thing is so much better

The stock cooler wasn't that loud, but I swapped mine for the Zalman cooler not long after I'd bought it anyway.

CurlyWhirly · 20 Mar 2006 at 10:13

Street said:
I would say go for the PowerColour X850XT. I've got one in my PC flashed to the PE its great.

I also have the PowerColor X850 XT.
What's the point in flashing it to the PE as overclocking it I can (more or less) reach the same memory and GPU speeds anyway :confused:

Street · 20 Mar 2006 at 11:46

I did have it clocked to PE, but then I thought I might as well flash it, wanted to see if it made any other changes like tightening the RAM timings etc not just clock it up.

Plus it makes my E-Penis bigger when people see it says x850xt PE on my PC

james.miller · 20 Mar 2006 at 11:48

Street said:
Not all of them are moddable so you might be stuck with the x800 GTO2...

My housemate bought one a month back and it was the R430 core with 16 pipelines... Couldn't be flashed to the X850XT.

I would say go for the PoweColour X850XT. I've got one in my PC flashed to the PE its great. I upgraded from my old 9800Pro like you've got and this thing is so much better.

you know what x850xt means? only that its 16pipes. If you have an r430 card @ 850xt speeds, you wont see any difference....

Street · 20 Mar 2006 at 12:05

But my housemates R430 core couldn't get anywhere near X850XT PE speeds...

I still say its better to buy the X850XT and be guaranteed of those speeds, than buying a card thats only £20 cheaper and hoping that it might get near those speeds.

james.miller · 20 Mar 2006 at 12:07

Street said:
But his R430 core couldn't get anywhere near X850XT PE speeds...

I still say its better to buy the X850XT and be guaranteed of those speeds, than buying a card thats only £20 cheaper and hoping that it might get near those speeds.

you talked about flashing it, not the speeds it could do lol. Not all of the r480 cores could do it either. Mine only just scraps past it.

Street · 20 Mar 2006 at 12:10

Sorry, didn't make it clear in my first post that I meant it couldn't reach anywhere near X850XT PE speeds at all, clocking or flashing.

Thats the chance you take though, and why I think its more beneficial to spend £20 more and get a card that can do the faster speeds guaranteed.

james.miller · 20 Mar 2006 at 12:14

well that's it really, the original gto2 were 12 pipe cards but since they are now 16 as standard, they are not actually gto2's. They are <insert a 16pipe card name here> and it just depends on how far you can push them. Like i said no all of the 16pipe cards did xt speeds either. they would still be very good VFM is the price of the real cards hadn't have dropped so much.

Then again when i bought my gto2, the xt's were still ~£220

Lanz · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:08

Personally I'd get a lower CPU (A3200?) and with the money saved, a better GPU. (X1900 or something) This pc would play games better than a X2 with an older GPU.

The B.A. · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:37

Lanz said:
Personally I'd get a lower CPU (A3200?) and with the money saved, a better GPU. (X1900 or something) This pc would play games better than a X2 with an older GPU.

Good point but I don't just play games (even though the wife thinks that’s all I've got the PC for

), I do a lot of multitasking and video encoding which locks my PC up or slows it down hideously - that was the main reason for going with the x2 really. Hopefully I will also see some gaming improvement with the x2 over my current 2500 XP.

LoadsaMoney said:
Why not get the Sapphire x800 GTO2 and turn it into an x850 XT PE, its cheaper.

Welcome to the forums btw.

Thanks for the welcome LoadsaMoney, is not the GTO2 dearer than the HIS this week (by around a tenner...), I have to say that the GTO2 was my first choice then I thought that for a little xtra the P-color 850XT was worth it, then I saw the HIS Excalibur X800 GTO ICEQII TURBO 256MB at £100 (saving around £35 against the 850XT) along with a thread saying it could be o-clocked to give 850XT PE speeds.... Keep going round in circles trying to compare :eek:

Think I need to put my head in a cold barrel of beer

Lanz · 20 Mar 2006 at 13:53

You could also look at the 7600GT in that price range. Apparently it runs cool and quiet and its no slouch performance wise.

ACESHIGH · 20 Mar 2006 at 14:24

Another card to look at is the PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-055-PC)
It only a fiver more & allready has Sixteen pixel pipelines unlocked.
Then just overclock to X850XT speeds.
Available This Week Only for just £89.95 +VAT.

[But the 7600GT is a lot more expensive though.]

wal2 · 20 Mar 2006 at 16:02

I bought the HIS X800 GTO ICEII on Friday and it should land tomorrow. I have spoken to the guy who was the OP on the post you saw (nice bloke, very helpful) and will try and flash it tomorrow night.

So if you haven't made your mind up by then i will post my success or not