New vid card for a mate needed.

[pieman109]

Bit of a quandry here, do I go for an X800 seris of card for about £130 ish, or go for X1600XT for about the same. What advantages, features, optimizations, etc, does the X1600 range have over the X800 range.
I'd assume the X1600 range would do HDR rendering, etc (ala far cry) but theres cards available in both series,for the same dosh.
Any suggestions, opinions, appreciated.

 

[ryansm]

x1600 cards support new technologies such as HDR SM3.0 etc

I belive the x1600xt is about the fastest in this series, however it seems to struggle up against the x800xl as it has 16pipelines. The x1600xt is a good buy for future gaming if you can get it for the right price and looks good in benchmarks. It can be had for about £117 if you look. However it does struggle with framerates at higer resolutions and with AA and AF in real time games - not benchmarks. Prob because it only has a 128bit memory controller.

The best value card at the moment in that price bracket seems to be the 6800GS. Seems to be better in games and only priced at £130! - thats for PCI-E aswell! It has a 256bit memory controller i think which is where you see the difference. Its also a good overclocker.

EDIT - also the 7600 NVidia based card should be out really soon too - could be a good buy! This week is it not?

 

[smids]

X800 series would totally flatten the X1600 series (about 6600GT level, slightly faster though). Though it doesn't support SM3.0, the X850XT is the fastest. If you need SM3.0, then a 6800GS of some sort would be good. Wait for a week though for the release of the 7900 series as this might herald some small price drops.

 

[Explicit]

Don't buy the X1600 - its bottlenecked with the 128bit memory. The X800 series have 256bit memory, which is much better.

For your £130 budget, this card is good:
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-055-PC) £123.32

 

[pieman109]

Whats the difference between the X800 GTO16 and the X800XL? Looking at the specs they appear to be identical and similar in price.

 

[LeperousDust]

If you can try and get a second hand original R480 GTO^2 as they're going for £100 - £120 on the MM now, just picked one up for £105 that i know for a fact will clock faster than an x850XT PE, for around £100 i don' think you can choose a better card, but i could be wrong (dont tell me that now i've already paid the guy ).

 

[Explicit]

Whats the difference between the X800 GTO16 and the X800XL? Looking at the specs they appear to be identical and similar in price.

My guess would be that they have different cores? I'm not sure to be honest.

 

[smids]

My guess would be that they have different cores? I'm not sure to be honest.

Yep, I'm pretty sure about that. The R480 core is in the GTO2's and the XT's but I believe the XL's have a different core (unlike the X1800's IIRC). Your best bet is keep an eye on the MM for X850's (always a few) or get a GTO2 or a 6800GS.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Whats the difference between the X800 GTO16 and the X800XL? Looking at the specs they appear to be identical and similar in price.

they may be exactly the same cores even.

ATI used the faster GTO with 12 pipes to boost midrange sales (against the 6600GT).
When the X1800 series was released thay decided to allow GTO (GTO2 / GTO16) cards to be sold with 16 pipes to be more attractive to consumers.
GTO2 cards were exclusively R480 (X850) core now they can be either that or 430 (X800)
At stock a GTO16 & X800XL are the same.