What Say Ye?

[Tonar]

Talking last night about a Upgrade to my video Card got me excited :shock:

I currently have:

System AMD 3000, 1G ram, Soundblaster Live, and an ATI 9600 AGP.

I have found a ATI X800 AGP for around $100. I am making an assumption from Benchmarks compairing to the 9700 that this will be a good step up from my 9600.

Am I fooling myself?

"Wanting More And Better Toys"

Von Tonar

[delta7]

the x800 and x850 series are a nice set of cards - you should see better image quality( be able to run at higher AA and AF) and get some fps increase with this upgrade

Quazi knows how to flash these cards if you are willing to risk this for inceased performance , but you would need to swop cooler if you wanted to do this.

wait for Quazi - hes the ATI king

[BBloke]

I'll second that. I went from a 9800XT to an X850 Pro (modded to X850 XTPE). I was literally blown away.. and still am. Hundred bucks is a steel. I paid £116 for mine

It is quite honestly a world of difference. I have a floppy pre done with the necessary files to quickly flash it. I stuck with the stock cooler but held the speeds back to X850 XT speeds.

My system is a P4 Northwood 2.4 @ 3.38 (189 FSB), 1gb Geil memory, SB Live 5.1 (wish I had an audigy 2)

I'm currently running:

Water=0

Effects=0

TypeClouds=1

2xAA, 4xAF. FPS AVG on Black Death 5secs to 1:10 secs 53 (V-sync on)

I ran Excellent before with only 2xAA. FPS AVG on Black Death 5secs to 1:10 secs 47 (V-Sync on)

I'm sure you will be more than pleasantly surprised.

You can always check the differences here: (posted to the links section)

Graphics card comparison - 9600 128Mb v X800 AGP

Check out the clock speed, memory bandwidth and fill rates as well as Fragment Pipelines (the more of these the better). It may also be worth doing a little research on possible unlocking of extra pipelines. Here's the difference between X850 Pro and X850 XT PE

X850 Pro AGP v X850 XT PE AGP

I'm waiting for my bosses card to turn up so I can fit it for him. He's running a 9800 Pro and wants to see the benefits. I'll post back my findings when he gets it!

[Waldo.Pepper]

9800pro here. Very satisfied. Worth 100 clams.

[Tonar]

Well I got a Bid in Ebay, We will see. I'll get an email telling me if I was out bid. no sence and watching it, it expires in 5 days.

Thanks guys,

I figured it would a nice upgrade for cheaper than I paid for the 9600

[Quazi]

The 5 days is up m8. Did you win the card?

[Tonar]

Nope, It went up to $170 + $25 shipping.

[Rattler]

Nope, It went up to $170 + $25 shipping.

[Tonar]

Or was that a "pipeline" dream?

[Tonar]

OK, Who wants to give me a hand in trying to open the extra 4 pipelines on my X800GTO?

[BBloke]

I'll give you a hand on it. I

[Tonar]

I have ATItool, and my fan set to 100% already cause I was fighting a temp problem.

[BBloke]

I'd go with 50/50 but as I mentioned if you have a PCI card then you can recover a bad BIOS flash.

[BBloke]

Found this:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2005/07/05/vg ... age13.html

[Tonar]

OK, you can pretty much count me out

the more I read the more it looks like I do not like the risk.

[BBloke]

No worries VT. Happy to Help.

[Pooka]

You are Wise VonTonar

Pooka

[Blairgowrie]

Wise decision VT.

[Quazi]

X800GTO's have the last 4 pipes laser cut in the upper right hand are of the gpu. I have carefully scraped away the PCB to unearth the very small wire and then used connective pen paint to reconnect them and opened the last 4 pipes up. But it is a very risky proposition. Dig to far and you have a dead card. If you happen upon any Sapphire X800GTO Squared's, you can flash these with an X850XT bios as Sapphire used the X850XT's PCB to market these cards. They just used a dumbed down bios. I have flashed and sold two of these on ebay way back in the day. They ran beautifully after the flash.

[Tonar]

Thanks Quazi,

I'm to chickenshit to go down that road, and she seems to be running well and cool since the Silencer5 I added and I got some new drivers from ATI. (I think). I'll wait a while and Upgrade to and X850 some day.