Help figuring out ATI Cards

[Larkspeed]

I recently upgraded my machine to a motherboard that uses PCIe

This board came with a geforce 6150 onboard and although it seems like a decent little card I prefer not to use onboard graphics as they are stealing part of my ram.

Looking at what was cheap around here (I live in the netherlands) the ATI cards seemed more reasonably priced but I have only ever used Nvidia so now I am finding the numbering system of ATI very confusing.

With NV cards the higher the number the better the card, this does not seem to be the case with ATI.

Can anyone give me some sort of guideline to go by when searching for a new card?

 

[Willis]

A guide of the of the Radeon series cards with the latest first


HD 2900 *** NEW *** PCI Express and DX10

Most of these are PCI Express but some do come in AGP slot and are DX9

X1950 Best
X1900
X1800
X1650
X1600
X1550
X1300
X1050
X850
X800
X700
X600
X550
X300 Worst

AGP Slot

9800
9700
9600
9550

 

[Larkspeed]

ok cheers for that I was a bit confused by the pricing as it did not seem to match the numbering for instance a local shop to us prices the Asus EAX300SE-X/TD/128 more expensive than the Asus EAX1300/HM/512/128M

So going by your guide the second and cheaper one is the better card?

 

[Crowze]

Yes. Be aware that AGP cards tend to be more expensive than PCI-E because of limited demand, also stores sometimes have a habit of forgetting about previous generation cards completely even if they have them in stock, so the prices can get a bit skewed.

 

[Larkspeed]

both of those cards were PCIe as thats what this system uses so ruled AGP out of the search

 

[Willis]

ok cheers for that I was a bit confused by the pricing as it did not seem to match the numbering for instance a local shop to us prices the Asus EAX300SE-X/TD/128 more expensive than the Asus EAX1300/HM/512/128M

So going by your guide the second and cheaper one is the better card?

Well i'm not 100% sure because in some case a X850XT PE is going to be better than a X1050, can anyone confirm this

 

[FreeStream]

Well i'm not 100% sure because in some case a X850XT PE is going to be better than a X1050, can anyone confirm this

Im pretty sure the X850XT PE is better.

X1050 is budget budget!

Edit:

A guide of the of the Radeon series cards with the latest first


HD 2900 *** NEW *** PCI Express and DX10

Most of these are PCI Express but some do come in AGP slot and are DX9

X1950 Best
X1900
X1800
X1650
X1600
X1550
X1300
X1050
X850
X800
X700
X600
X550
X300 Worst

AGP Slot

9800
9700
9600
9550

^^ that is wrong.
HD 2900XT
X1900 (IMO they are better G-DDR3 > G-DDR4) Best
X1950
X1800
X850
X800
X1650
X700
X1600
X600
X1550
X1300
X550
X1050
X300 Worst


Something along those lines

 

[steve258]

Well i'm not 100% sure because in some case a X850XT PE is going to be better than a X1050, can anyone confirm this

Of course the X850XT PE is going to be miles better you are comparing a top end card with a next gen low end card, it's like asking if 6800Ultra is giong to be faster than a 7100GS...

To the OP - the Asus EAX1300/HM/512/128M is the Hyper Memory version which will "borrow" spaces from your system RAM if it needs to, which is no better than your current onboard GFX, get a cheap 1300pro/XT or 7300GT without Hyper Memory or Turbo Cache.

IMO:

HD2900XT
X1950XTX
X1900XTX
X1950XT
X1900XT
X1800XT > or < 1950pro depends what game
X1900GT
X1800XL
X1800GTO
X1650XT
X1650pro = X1600XT
X1600pro
X1300XT
X1300pro
X1300HM
X1250
X1150
X1050

 

[lay-z-boy]

ok cheers for that I was a bit confused by the pricing as it did not seem to match the numbering for instance a local shop to us prices the Asus EAX300SE-X/TD/128 more expensive than the Asus EAX1300/HM/512/128M

So going by your guide the second and cheaper one is the better card?

That is because the second one makes use of a feature called hypermemory, it steals system ram and uses it as video ram, this is considerably slower than memory on a video card, it allows them to make them for nothing and sell them slightly lower, advertising as having loads of ram '512mb ram!!!!1111one' when that's the amount it will steal.

Feature wise, the x1xxx series are miles above the x3-850 as they have support for sm3, avivo, etc.

Depending upon your budget the older x cards have more raw power but are lacking in features.

i.e x800xt slaps an x1300 for fps output, silly but the 1300 has better features

 

[Larkspeed]

ok guys thanks for your help i'll keep digging around here on whats available and hopefully make the right choice

 

[Darg]

How much do you have to spend? OCUK ship to the Netherlands

 

[Larkspeed]

they do but i've already spoken to them ages ago reguarding payment options from here and since I don't have a CC there is nothing available for me to pay.

Shame too cus when I lived in the UK they were my place of choice.

Plus couple that with by the time exchange to euro and postage is paid I can get nearly everything cheaper localy

 

[Darg]

No shop here sells for anywhere near the price I get things off OCUK for.

It will be atleast a year until the 2900XT even approaches the highstreet shops in galway. Most of them are still trying to flog off X800s as the best of the best.