X800 to x1800 Upgrade Advice

[thumper]

Hi all,
I'm hoping someone can help me out here as I currently find myself in a bit of a quandary regarding my existing gaming rig's graphics card.
I'm running a dual core P4 2.8GHz in an Intel board with 2 GB of DDR2 (please no flames - I was AMD thru & thru - but these were competition prizes and as such a free upgrade from my amd rig)
I currently have a PCI-E sapphire X800 GTO2 - which clocks to near XT PE speeds - but I have now been given the option of upgrading to an X1800 XL for about ~£60 on top of my existing card.

Is this a worthwhile upgrade? - I have read that the 2 cards offer similar performance but the 1800

a. can be clocked to XT speeds,
b. supports the SM 3.0,
c. may be better at AA & AF,
d. offers HDR Support

I play most of my games (at the mo - oblivion / condemned demo / GTA SA / Fear / HL2) on my 27" LCD @ 1280 x 768 with AA turned up as high as it will go without dropping below 30fps (which is usually only x2 AA) - bearing this in mind would you say this would be a worthwhile upgrade, I appreciate that I may only get a slight jump in performance - but my new card may be worth more money further down the line as its only 1 generation old rather than 2.
On a side note although i'd love 1 I can't afford an x1900xt, maybe I should just sell the Intel bits and buy AMD again or an XBOX 360 even - i just don't know....
apologies for the stream of conciousness as you can see i'm getting a little confused


Any advice muchos appreciated
d

 

[oweneades]

For SM3.0 games it would be an upgrade but overall the X1800XL was a bit of a dissapointment performance wise.

I doubt it will overclock to XT speeds (especially not on the core) although you will get some more performance from it.

A better option would be to sell your X800GTO2 and get a X1800XT 256 or 7900GT both would offer better performance than the X1800XL and have all of the advantages.

 

[Agemo]

I am thinking of upgrading from my X800 XL to the 7900 GT. Will be a worthwile upgrade and meets your requiermants.

 

[ACESHIGH]

The X1800XL will be an improvement over your current card for the list of reasons you mentioned. The X1800XL is quicker at stock & in games like FEAR / QUAKE4 / DOOM3 the gap is quite large, between the two. But as stated if you can stretch to the X1800XT 256MB that would be even quicker.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Id go for the XT 256mb if you can stretch, its only an extra £25, but the XL's are fantasitc clockers, a few ppl on here got em to, and past XT speeds.