Price Guide, November 2005: Video Cards
by Haider Farhan on November 13, 2005 12:24 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
With the recent release of the X1300 series, there is only one AIB manufacturer producing this card at the moment, Sapphire. The Sapphire Radeon X1300 256MB [RTPE: 100141] is on sale for about $95. As a four pixel pipeline design, the X1300 really isn't that fast. A 6600 or X700 Pro is probably going to be slightly faster in many cases, though of course the X700 lacks the "all important" SM3.0 support. (No, we're not serious - the number of games with SM3.0 is still very small, and in most cases the X700 and even 6600 lines are too slow to enable the higher quality rendering modes.)
For those not interested in high-end gaming, but need something better than onboard video graphics, these low-end cards would be right for you. There's nothing special about them and all perform roughly the same. Any choice you make here will most likely be adequate.
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mjh - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
I have noticed that heat isn't an issue with the unlocked Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 card.AtaStrumf - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
Yea I've been wondering that too. X850XT PE (Mine OCs to PE speeds) has a two slot cooler I think, so runing at those speeds while still stable, might not be too good for the card in the long run. X800XL runing at 400/500, which is about the same as X800GTO2 at default, however still has the normal cooler, buuuuut it may be a different core made with a process, 0.11 u I think, so the question still remains??? Mine gets quite hot after a few hours of CS:S. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 60-70 C (hard to judge from the graph).JarredWalton - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
X800XL uses .11 micron, but without the low-k dielectric material of the .13 micron process. In the end, it appears that the X850 and even X800XT cores are able to clock higher than the X800XL. GTO cores can be R423 or R428 I think, so you could end up with a card capable of X800XT performance or one capable of X850XTPE performance depending on luck of the draw.JarredWalton - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
R428 should be "R480", of course. :)lexmark - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
Is heat an issue with unlocked cards?Madellga - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
Please be aware that this GTO is based on the X800, not X850 family.It is also easy to unlock the 16p and I could reach 560GPU/580 with stock cooler.
Awesome, very good bang for the buck.
The X850XT mod is for the Sapphire GTO2 only. At the end it doesn't really matter which one you get, as the difference in clock is minimal and they will benchmark very close to each other.
toyota - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
"You'll find the newly released GeForce 6200 GS cards in stock at a few vendors." is that supposed to be 6800 GS?JarredWalton - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
Yes - fixed.DrZoidberg - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
Wow, is this even better deal than unlocked GTO2? Connect3D Radeon X800XL 256MB for $130.00 after rebate. Nice!! Too bad im in Australia. Anyone can sell it to me on ebay? :)DrZoidberg - Sunday, November 13, 2005 - link
actually just read the fineprint. Notice: Purchase of an additional CrossFire Edition Graphics Card is required in order to qualify for $100 rebate.So its 229 + 129=358 for 2 x800xl. And then i have to buy a crossfire motherboard for this to work? Maybe anandtech can mention the fineprint cause its a bit misleading in the price guide to not mention u have to purchase a 2nd x800xl to qualify.