Graphics X800 XT... *DOnT even bring up nvidia in here*

X800 XT... *DOnT even bring up nvidia in here*

which one is better...?

*brands*

visiontek *Xtasy*
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=314837&pfp=SEARCH

Ati *Orig*
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=313032&pfp=SEARCH

Gigabyte

Asus

which brand is better...?

 

Well let's see. Visiontek is pretty much a no-no; Ati originals are made by sapphire, ASUS cards cost more but are known to have higher ram clocks and gigabytes have good packages and decent OCIng. I'd say gigabyte.

 

There's no such thing as any particular one being better imho... whichever offers you the bundle that you're interested in in my opinion...

 

just go with the cheapest one tbh, who needs all the games that companys need to get rid off and other what-not anyway . well other than a HL2 coupon (if they EVER EVER EVER! release it! )

 

HL2? Oh yeah those are the guys with the bullet hole in their foot, hello Doom III !

As covered, let price be the determining factor but do also consider bundle and warranty. There just isn't any significant diff between the brands. The only brand I'd avoid is Powercolor, well Sapphire too if you're buying a 9800 based card. Are you sure you don't want to go nVi ... only joking!

 

well if you did go with an nvidia... *runs*

 

Might I ask your reasoning behind the "ATI only"ness?

Either way, Asus and gigabyte are both very good choices, so yeah, go with what they have said.

 

what about Microstar International (MSI) all of my videocards i have owned have been MSI cards and i love them all i have 4.

Geforce 2MX
Geforce 3
Geforce 4 TI-4200
Ati RX9800

 

Yep I've heard very good things about MSI's gfx cards. Their GF4TI in particular were often a little mroe o/c'able than others, IIRC it's because their cooling was a tad noisier though. Still just like all the other big brands it's ideal but not truly necessary.

 

Nowt wrong with Powercolor, both my cards are by them and clock magnificently

 

Powercolor dont stick to refrence designs. They alter things and often make cards with lower clocks and they end up being advertised as the same things. Powercolor are lower quality, in that theres a chance you might get some pos not even capable of stock speeds of the reference design.

Sapphire are great. Anyway they make the cards in the first place. Well most of them. Powercolor cards are made by foxconn and I think asus ones might be too.. although I cant remember.

 

i agree with on the powercolor issue. i used to work for a store where we sold both power color and sapphire ati based cards. and basically it went like this low end raedons 9200 series were power color high end 9600 series and up were sapphire.

personally out of the 2 brand names they are both good brands, but i would put my money on a high end sapphire anyday vs a powercolor high end, but in the low end price market powercolor gives very good performance/cost ratio.

 

Unfortunately Powercolor are notorious for deviating with clock speeds, having average build quality and poor quality control. Of course you could buy loads of cards from them and never have a problem, after all many people get on fine with generic RAM and PSUs. From what I've heard over the years though, the chances of a POS are simply higher with Powercolor. Their higher class cards tend not to deviate and we should cut them SOME slack as almost all budget orientated cards deviate from the 'review cards'. Still I'd avoid them myself.

As for Sapphire they have had the rep of the best ATI partner for ages, but they dirtied themselves by quietly releasing cards branded as '9800Pro' which were really a variant of 9800SE due to having half the memory bandwidth (128bitDDR). I believe they have since changed the name to '9800' which is still mis-leading IMHO, but in fairness they have said anyone who bought a card not realising it had 128bitDDR can get a free 256bitDDR replacement from them. So if you're buying a 9800 series card I would avoid Sapphire, for any other Radeon they're great though.

 

connect 3d seem fine to me, fairly cheap, and they overclock fairly well, but thats just my opinion as all my ati cards have been connect3d and i only had one die on me(out of 4 cards)

 

FYI.. X800XT,PE .. dosen't exist in the regular market.

Just a FYI to the aurthor..

The ATI x800 xt, pe dosen't exist on the regular market ..

In less you want to spend 800$ on an ebay one .. or can somehow find an xt (good luck) .. pre-order of the XT,PE is a scam... and companies like Gateway have had the xt on "pre-order" for 3 months and then canceling .. and there is no near future you can count on getting these cards..

 

I do think ATI probably pushed the speeds a little too far with X800XT-PE, much like nVidia did with the 6800ultra and certainly the 6800ultra Extreme. AFAIK the RAM these super high-end cards use is also expensive and rare which won't help matters at all.

 

You can order the x800XT-PE from just about anywhere.... it's just never in stock because people order them so quick when they ARE in.

 

Hey, more than 1 person has hit 800MHz core on X800 cards.

Okay, so they're using phase change cooling...

 

They have a lot of overclocking potential... just not on stock cooling. That's why both the Pro and XT seem to cap out around the same level on the core... they have the same core cooling