Price Guides, April 2005: Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 23, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
GPU High End
Last month, we were excited to announce that the X800, X850XT and X800XL were showing on store shelves. Of course, we were originally promised a December/January ship date instead of a February/March ship date, but this is just business as usual for those of us accustomed to the hardware world. This month, the same cards from last month are on retail shelves, but now, in easy-to-upgrade AGP form. However, recommending a third generation Radeon X series repackaged into an AGP form is a difficult proposition for us. Although you may have upgraded your motherboard and CPU in the past, an AGP Radeon X800 only makes sense for those who have spent a lot of money on a relatively recent nForce3 or K8T800 setup, but only need to upgrade the graphics card now. A socket 462 based solution really would benefit more from a CPU/motherboard upgrade than from a high end GPU upgrade, although some overclockers among the crowd will always beg to differ. Further, considering that the X800 AGP cards carry a $30 premium over their PCIe brethren, we can't justify the extra cost. nForce4 boards are very easy to get under $100 for Socket 754 and Socket 939 [RTPE: nForce4]. By the way, if you really want an AGP video card, an ASUS 6800 GT might be the better way to go, but more on that in a second.Since March, the Sapphire X800 256MB [RTPE: 100107] fell almost $50, certainly impressive considering that we were promised an actual $250 MSRP on this product. Sapphire's X800XL 256MB [RTPE: 100105] also fell to the $299 MSRP, which was certainly welcomed as well. Take a look at how both of these products have behaved over the last three months.
Sapphire X800 256MB
Sapphire X800XL 256MB
We alluded to an LeadTek GeForce 6800 GT [RTPE: A400 GT TDH] earlier, and if you fall in that specific high-end AGP market, there really aren't many effective options. For those looking for the benchmark numbers, take a quick look at our benchmark summary from a few months ago. When talking about AGP video cards, these aren't apples-to-apples comparisons because of the bridge chips, but for all intents and purposes, there will not be much difference between those benchmarks and the AGP variants. Going the 6800GT route saves you $20 or so if you go with the 128MB version on AGP.
A bit of competition in this field would be nice. As we mentioned earlier, the bout for PCIe high end cards certainly go to ATI.
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JarredWalton - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
20 - Doom 3 running smooth on a X300SE!? I'd like to see that, as I've tried Doom 3 on an ATI Xpress 200 chipset (roughly the equivalent of the X300SE) and it ran like a slug. Even at low details and 640x480 resolution Doom 3 couldn't pull more than 15 FPS on that setup.400 MHz RAM with a 64-bit bus only gives 3.2 GBps of bandwidth, which is simply not enough for Doom 3's shadowing engine. Maybe if you disable the shadows and specular highlights it would get 30+ FPS, but then what's the point?
semo - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
does somebody know if these are real radeon 9800pro cardshttp://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html...
(sorry to firefox users if the links are too long)
#13, i don't know what you mean by benefit. i have a friend who has a dell system (quit booing/laughing, there was a good reason) with x300se and p4 530 (3.0ghz) and doom3 and painkiller run very smoothly on it.
if you want eye candy upgrade your vid card
Zebo - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
DrMrLordX read between the lines what I quoted above: especially the part about "in a million years."AT don't recommend garbage or stuff that fails some basic price/performance standard. They keep it lean and mean.:)
KristopherKubicki - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
spittledip: The cards we list as 9800 Pros are in fact 9800 Pros; these are the 256-bit cards. The 128-bit Radeon 9800 SE cards that you are refering to retail for about $110.Kristopher
zemane - Sunday, April 24, 2005 - link
Nice timing, I'm just buying a new video card!On page 5 "Low-End cards", second table, first row, the Newegg link for the Sapphire Radeon X300SE 128MB AGP opens the PCIe version page. And the corresponding "Check Prices" link is broken.
And the link that opens the comments popup says there is one more comment than reality.
DrMrLordX - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
Woops! Looks like you failed to mention the AGP 6200 cards as well.DrMrLordX - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
Interestingly, the 6800NU doesn't seem to be featured anywhere on your price list. Or, at least, I didn't see it.spittledip - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
I think someone needs to tell anandtech that those 9800 "pros" for 140$ are really SE models... and 9800 SE are really poor cards-- 9500 pro and 9600 pro beat those out!l3ored - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
nevermind... didnt read the second page yet. i have an athlon 64 3000 (754) and a 9800 pro. i think i'd benefit more from upgrading the graphics card first, am i right?l3ored - Saturday, April 23, 2005 - link
am i reading this right? "like so many things AGP, our disappointment can hardly be contained." you guys dont approve of agp anymore? i was under the impression that today's video cards dont require the bandwidth that pci-e gives and so the same card on either platform performs the same. or has that all changed?