Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

I think, while the AGP is a limit of performance, it's not the primary reason why that card was so slow - I think architecturally they messed up with that card. I'm willing to bet the PCIe X1950XT is faster than my card.

 

I dunno, I think that my old one put out some alright 3dmarks, on the max o/c it was 2300 on SM2 and 2600 SM3, about 6000 total with a 2.1ghz cpu clock. That's pretty damn good for an AGP part, and we know that Sam's 3dmark scales at .75 points for each Mhz on the cpu. It had slow memory tho compared to the rest of the high end X19xx series, and only 256Mb of it. It think that was the main thing holding it back - that and the old P4s and A64s that people put them with. If I still had it I'd put it in my old AGP board with my dad's E2160 clocked up to 2.6 and I bet it would give yours a run for it's money at least!

 

Sam,

Thanks for the pictures with the circled highlights - yeah the boards don't look very good I agree!

Yeah, Abuzar, I know you're hitting almost 11000 now - you and MaccerM ....... "fanboy" -- just kidding.

You guys with all your high-powered equipment - I've decided to skip the gecube and go straight to a new machine when I can afford it.

So, Waymon, you never answered my question - WHAT DID YOU SPEND??

Rich

 

Haha, not to much. My parents wanted me to buy a whole new pc from Dell, or Alienware etc, but I had to tell them that I *wanted* to build my own pc and that it would be way cheaper. I had to pay for half, they paid the rest (for christmas). A bit below 2k

 

Some interesting facts for you. When I first had my PC built in its original incarnation, it had:

X2 4200+: £225
2GB PC3200: £125
X1900XT: £330

Now, you can buy TWO HD3870s for £290, 2GB of PC6400 for £40, and a Q6600 for £170.
Is that depressing or what?

 

Haha sucks to be you Sam. That's why I always sell my computers quickly.

 

On the plus-side though, I've had my GPU for over 18 months now. I've not had to worry about changing it or doing anything to it, save when I put the HR-03 on it.

 

Has anyone ran the Crysis bench tool yet? I did a few times, and its weird. With CF disable I get the same fps, and with it enabled I get about the same FPS as well. However, when I am in the game (fullscreen), CF is definetly working because if I play it in windowed mode (CF is off when you do this, as it only gets turned on in full screen) I get about a 10-15fps loss... Weird. I hope those 8.1 drivers will fix some more issues, and maybe ATi wont half-ass them this time.

I dont see why the 8800GT is faster (in some benches, not all lol) than the 3870, even know it has faster everything! More stream processors, GDDR4 ram, higher clocks, etc. What gives?

 

Well, the 9600 pro had a huge memory and core clock, it's not all about the specs on paper, it's about the efficiency of the internal architecture.

 

ATi better start making better chips then. I guess when ATi was bought by AMD, the bad (or worser) architecture design carried over from the CPUs to the GPUs.

ATi should've been bought by Intel. Then they would have some kickass products!

 

It didn't - or if it did it hasn't yet. The HD3850 is based on the R600 architecture. The R600 (the big flop that the 2900XT turned out to be) was an entirely ATi development up until its release. It just so happens that AMD bought ATI at a bad time. Unfortunately, the combined flop of AMD's R&D and ATI's R600 means that the research budget for ATI has been cut and they may be playing absolute second fiddle in the performance sector of the market for years. Unless this changes, ATi will withdraw from the high end sector of the market - unfortunate, since this leaves that sector to a monopoly, so don't expect cheap top end graphics cards for quite some time. (Or fast ones, for that matter)
As for the Intel comment, Intel have resigned themselves to their niche market of making the world's cheapest graphics chips. They make more money than ATi make on 3800s making £4 a time GMA chips, simply because there's so many of them.

 

Yes Intel makes more money on their GPU then AMD and Nvidia combined just because of all those built in graphics on their motherboards.

 

Hey harv, back again! Yep, total fanboy! Lol, had everything since before the 3dfx voodoo3 even, Matrox, ATi and Nvidia so yeah - it's Nvidia all the way - fanning it right up! (we all know who's the real fanboy!)
We also know the efficiencies logic. As soon as the P4 came out and AMD started it's rating system we had to contend with that one so why the surprise?
G9x is more efficient. Sam is right about Amd's fortunes, their share price has fallen like a fat kid off a cliff that hasn't got a parachute. There in it big style so don't expect any high performance high quality products from them in the next few years - which yes is a great shame because it means that I'll have an unequivocal reson for being a Nvid fan man! But seriously it's in everyones interest for ATi to be making great cards too. Let's hope they do it.

 

Hey all Kardson Back again,

Making the leap friday.

Current Specs: all going to my 4yr old son
p4 550 (3.4ghz) overclocked to 3.5
Gecube X1950xt 256mb
2gig DDR 400
DFI Lanparty 875P-T

New Specs:
C2Q Q6600 (2.4ghz).. plan to OC to 3.2
MSI HD 3870 512mb (might settle for 3850 512mb depending on my funds)
2gig DDR 800 Crucial Ballistix Tracer.. and 2 gig more next check
DFI INFINITY P965-S

can't flippin wait.

 

I wouldn't buy the Q6600 if I were you. The new Quad core is coming out in a week or so and it's faster and has more cache for the same price. Also it makes less heat.

 

A 965 chipset board? A very outdated chipset for a new build... Can I not recommend something along the lines of a P35-DS3R instead?

 

I've already exceeded my price limit.

doing that would force me to get a different motherboard because is a different die size.. and to find one with the features and a brand I just at the price I need would be absolutely impossible.

The Q6600 is setting me back $260.00

 

I would have thought a Gigabyte board would probably be cheaper than one from DFI...

 

It seems the DFI board is 80.

 

Fair enough. Old tech DFI boards never seemed to come down in price, but that one obviously has. NF4 Ultra Ds are still worth loads over here.