Upgrage from X1800XT for £200

fish99 · 1 Nov 2006 at 21:26

Just a quickie (hopefully).

Got an X1800XT 256 mb at the moment (running at 688/792 /w VF900 fitted) and noticed quite a framerate drop from running Oblivion (0xAA 8xAF) on my new Dell 20" widescreen TFT. I'd like to claw that back and have £200 to spend. See sig for full specs.

Not really sure how the new batch of cards compare to my X1800 XT. Stuff like -

- Saphire X1950 XT 256 mb (£187.99)
- Saphie X1950 Pro 256 mb (£135.11)
- GeCube X1950 Pro 512 mb (£193.86)
- Connect3D X1900 XT 256mb (£170.36)
- Leadtek 7950 GT 512 mb (£199.74)

So, not looking for best value but biggest performance increase over an X1800 XT for £200. From the little I know I think they should all be faster, but by enough to be worth the outlay?

Cheers :cool:

Richdog · 1 Nov 2006 at 21:27

Probably an X1900XTX (used) or a new 7900 GTO and OC the shizz out of it. Either are fantastic cards in their own right.

Tute · 1 Nov 2006 at 21:53

I'd recommend one of two things.

- Sell the X1800XT, you'll get around £100 for it, and drop the whole £300 on a 7950GX2.

- Upgrade to the DFI Crossfire board (it's about £35) and pick up an X1800 Crossfire Edition

You're not going to see much of a difference going to any of those cards you listed, well not enough to warrant the cost

melbourne720 · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:00

Tute said:
I'd recommend one of two things.

- Sell the X1800XT, you'll get around £100 for it, and drop the whole £300 on a 7950GX2.

- Upgrade to the DFI Crossfire board (it's about £35) and pick up an X1800 Crossfire Edition

You're not going to see much of a difference going to any of those cards you listed, well not enough to warrant the cost

Agreed, this is the sort of scenario that crossfire/SLi was designed for. Got a great card, want to spend the same again and get up to double the performance.

Saying that, if you do the first option, when it comes time to upgrade to DX10 then you'll have one excellent card to sell rather than 2 good/average cards [ducks behind chair]

Tute · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:04

melbourne720 said:
Agreed, this is the sort of scenario that crossfire/SLi was designed for. Got a great card, want to spend the same again and get up to double the performance.

Saying that, if you do the first option, when it comes time to upgrade to DX10 then you'll have one excellent card to sell rather than 2 good/average cards [ducks behind chair]

He could always get the EVGA one! I hear there's a step-up option to next-gen!

No.... wait...

melbourne720 · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:09

Tute said:
He could always get the EVGA one! I hear there's a step-up option to next-gen!

No.... wait...

ROFL!!

"You can upgrade to the next card and only pay the difference!!"
"No, sorry, you can't upgrade to that card"
"No, not that one either"
"No, that one is next gen, that's excluded"
"No, er, I'm afraid that one is the wrong colour"
"No, I promised my Brother that one"
...
..
etc

LoadsaMoney · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:09

Tute said:
- Sell the X1800XT, you'll get around £100 for it, and drop the whole £300 on a 7950GX2.

I wouldn't spend £300 on a DX9 card now, not with new gens 7 days away, for a bit more he could get the 8800 GTS.

melbourne720 · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:11

LoadsaMoney said:
I wouldn't spend £300 on a DX9 card now, not with new gens 7 days away, for a bit more he could get the 8800 GTS.

really?

fish99 · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:11

Is there gonna be any X1800XT Crossfire Edition cards left now though? I reckon they could be seriously hard to find even used. Plus I'm not mad on that sort of power consumption (206W) from crossfire, and a single card upgrade means my brother can have my X1800 XT (hence selling the X1800XT isn't an option I'm considering)

How come I'm seeing no review/benchmarks for X1950XT 256 mb anywhere? It's in stock so it must be released.

Tute · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:13

fish99 said:
Is there gonna be any X1800XT Crossfire Edition cards left now though? I reckon they could be seriously hard to find even used. Plus I'm not mad on that sort of power consumption (206W) from crossfire, and a single card upgrade means my brother can have my X1800 XT (hence selling the X1800XT isn't an option I'm considering)

How come I'm seeing no review/benchmarks for X1950XT 256 mb anywhere? It's in stock so it must be released.

Er... no such thing.

X1950 PRO 256MB

or

X1950XT 512MB

LoadsaMoney · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:15

melbourne720 said:
really?

Yup, 8800 GTS is going to be about the same price as what the GX2 is now, so if hes got £300, then the GTS is not that much more, GX2 is only £370

Theres plenty of x1800 master cards left as well.

Tute · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:17

LoadsaMoney said:
Yup, 8800 GTS is going to be about the same price as what the GX2 is now.

Theres plenty of x1800 master cards left.

Looking on the site, all the GX2 seem to have ballooned to nearly £400.

I change my opinion, go for the 8800GTS.

Darkwave · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:18

fish99 said:
So, not looking for best value but biggest performance increase over an X1800 XT for £200. From the little I know I think they should all be faster, but by enough to be worth the outlay?

If you want a different point of view then here it is: -

No card you listed will give you enough of a performance boost in Oblivion to justify spending the money. It's a fact that Oblivion runs significantly slower on Nvidia hardware than on equivalent ATI hardware, which means your best option is the X1900XT 512MB at £205 on the clearance page.

Hold up though, because I am not suggesting you buy one. See, I went from an X1800XT to an X1900XT because my X1800XT died and I needed a replacement (X1800XT was £199 when I bought it, so since the X1900XT was £199 when it died I thought why not.) When it comes to Oblivion though, the only difference was that it allowed me to turn on all the shadows while keeping the same framerate I had on my X1800XT.

It was only when I upgraded to Core 2 Duo that I noticed a very significant improvement.

My finishing advice and bottom line would be this: -

Don't listen to anybody here, most miss the basic issues like this and just want to suggest their pet product. I am of the opinion that what you should do is soldier on with your current card until prices drop and your £200 budget will get you something with a performance increase that is actually significant.

Until then you can make your Oblivion gaming experience a little more pleasant by turning a couple of settings down (I am of the opinion that turning specular distance and object fade distance down doesn't ruin the atmosphere but pays back a lot of frames per second.)

I hope that this helps in any way at all.

Steedie · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:27

Tute said:
Er... no such thing.

X1950 PRO 256MB

or

X1950XT 512MB

Actually there is an X1950XT 256

Tute · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:29

Steedie said:
Actually there is an X1950XT 256

*Beats self in face*

Yes... my mistake, that'll teach me to USE MY EYES

fish99 · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:31

Tute said:
Er... no such thing.
X1950 PRO 256MB
or
X1950XT 512MB

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 XT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-135-SP)

Looks suspiciously like a X1900 XT 256 mb though.

Ulfhedjinn said:
If you want a different point of view then here it is: -

No card you listed will give you enough of a performance boost in Oblivion to justify spending the money. It's a fact that Oblivion runs significantly slower on Nvidia hardware than on equivalent ATI hardware, which means your best option is the X1900XT 512MB at £205 on the clearance page.

Hold up though, because I am not suggesting you buy one. See, I went from an X1800XT to an X1900XT because my X1800XT died and I needed a replacement (X1800XT was £199 when I bought it, so since the X1900XT was £199 when it died I thought why not.) When it comes to Oblivion though, the only difference was that it allowed me to turn on all the shadows while keeping the same framerate I had on my X1800XT.

It was only when I upgraded to Core 2 Duo that I noticed a very significant improvement.

My finishing advice and bottom line would be this: -

Don't listen to anybody here, most miss the basic issues like this and just want to suggest their pet product. I am of the opinion that what you should do is soldier on with your current card until prices drop and your £200 budget will get you something with a performance increase that is actually significant.

Until then you can make your Oblivion gaming experience a little more pleasant by turning a couple of settings down (I am of the opinion that turning specular distance and object fade distance down doesn't ruin the atmosphere but pays back a lot of frames per second.)

I hope that this helps in any way at all.

Thanks, I suspect this is very good advice. Also nice to get a perspective from someone who has done the X1800XT to X1900XT upgrade. I think I'll have a play with the Oblivion settings and see what I can achieve. It is just Oblivion my system struggles with, everything else is fine. Probably not worth laying out £200 for 5-8 fps extra.

Darkwave · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:33

fish99 said:
Thanks, I suspect this is very good advice. Also nice to get a perspective from someone who has done the X1800XT to X1900XT upgrade. I think I'll have a play with the Oblivion settings and see what I can achieve. It is just Oblivion my system struggles with, everything else is fine. Probably not worth laying out £200 for 5-8 fps extra.

You're welcome. It's probably not the news you wanted to hear, and I'm sorry if I had to be a kill joy, but a 5-10fps boost is pretty much all you would get and I'd hate to see someone spend £200 for that (especially for one game.)

Your best bet is just to fiddle with the settings like I said, and there are many .ini tweaks which really boost performance significantly. I'm sure that if you can hang on just a month or a couple of months, with new cards/architecture coming out and the whole Christmas and New Years rush, then things will drop in price and something really good will fall into your price bracket.

melbourne720 · 1 Nov 2006 at 22:39

It's all about the diminishing returns of upgrading though, isn't it? With graphics cards, if in a game the first £100 on a gfx card (for sake of arguement) will get you 60fps, then the next £100 spent will get you up to 90fps, and then the next £100 will get you to 115fps, etc... As you get closer to the cutting edge of technology the returns don't justify the outlay as much as they used to.

Darkwave · 1 Nov 2006 at 23:09

melbourne720 said:
It's all about the diminishing returns of upgrading though, isn't it? With graphics cards, if in a game the first £100 on a gfx card (for sake of arguement) will get you 60fps, then the next £100 spent will get you up to 90fps, and then the next £100 will get you to 115fps, etc... As you get closer to the cutting edge of technology the returns don't justify the outlay as much as they used to.

Yeah but here we're talking more about him spending £200 to go from say 30fps to 35fps, it's just not worth it whatsoever.

Especially so since it's the only game he's having trouble with.

fish99 · 2 Nov 2006 at 00:47

Been playing Oblivion for an hour or so and tweaking some settings. Outdoors is fine most of the time, it's when you're using a light spell in dungeons that the framerate drops below what I'd consider 'smooth'. I'm using 1280*800 btw which is 16:10 ratio, same as the screen. None of the settings really help for indoor framerates though (tried shadows and specular distance) so I didn't really achieve much. It must be doing an extra texture pass or something when you're using light spells.

For under £200 I could replace my A64 with an X2 of some sort, and I believe Oblivion benefits from dual-core. Dunno if that's gonna be worth it though. If the game is fill rate limited, or pixel shader performance limited, in dungeons then it probably wouldn't help much.