John C

HI all

I'm planning to upgrade my 850XT, and my eye fell on either (Sapphire ATI X1950Pro,512MB TV-out,2xDVI-I,PCIe, (11095-03-20R)à for 131€), or (PNY GF 8800GT/PCI-E 512MB GDDR3 2xDVI-I (GH8800GN1F51XPB)for 255€).

I currently have a 3.2ghz P4 processor. The big question I have: is it worth to get a 8800: will it give me a signiffent boost compaired to a 1950pro ? I don't care for x10 becouse I don't have vista

or is it possible that the 1950 will drop in price shortly ?

many thanks

kris23

the X1950PRO is an EOL card, it will just dissappear in its current state, go for the 8800GT, even if you have only a P4 and no vista, it WILL be a card that will last longer than your system

if you ever upgrade, you can take that card with you into your new machine its so powerful.

besides, the X1950PRO is not that much more powerful than your X850XT, its a bit better but the 8800GT is like 8x better, literally

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Chaos

8800GT for sure

John C

please note that i'm a bit tight on budget ... I'm not realy eager to spend 120€ more unless it's realy REALY worth it.. afterall for one 8800 i can buy 2 1950.

does anyone here know a good benchmark site so I can compaire these cards myselfs ? thanks

kris23

trust us, its REALLY worth it, the 8800GT is equivalent to an 8800GTX so if you cant find an X1950PRO bench vs 8800GT, try 8800GTX vs x1950

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kris23

VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware

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John C

thanks for that site, I've been googling for a while but I always ended up with sites that offerd me thouse cards and radom info wich wans't realy helpfull..

Can one actualy see the diffrence between 45 and 75 fps (sorry I'm used for games having 20fps atm)

kris23

yup, its like butter on a flaming piece of glass

the rest depends on your monitor, the 8800GT offers over 2x the performance of the x1950 pro, far more than what crossfire is capable of producing.

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Tipstaff

Take it from someone who previously ran 2 x1950Pros in his gaming rig, and bought an 8800GT: it is worth it. Soooo worth it. Yes, you will see the difference in frame rates. Yes, games will run way smoother. 2 x1950Pros working in Crossfire mode couldn't match the processing power this one 8800GT can put out.

Case in point: while I hate 3DMark06 it has one feature that I like, and that is that I can quickly, and easily show you the difference between setups. Taking my specs on the side panel, a single x1950Pro will net you roughly 4500-5000 marks with that setup. Crossfire x1950Pros will net you 6000-6500 marks (which is about what a single X1950XTX hits). On a BFG 8800GT OC card (625mhz core clock) I easily hit over 10,000 marks (the average is about 10,500).

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RoyBatty

Sure, with a E6600 the 8800GT would be much faster, but wouldn't the P4 be a bottleneck for it?

Dyre Straits

I have to ask you this since I don't see it addressed anywhere in your post or the following replies:

Is your present X850 also a PCIe card and does your present motherboard support PCIe? OR, is that system built on AGP?

The answer to this makes a HUGE difference in relation to some of the replies you've gotten.

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Tipstaff

Probably. Given his CPU is a 3.2Ghz P4, and as he didn't mention that it was dual core, that means it's either a P4 541, or a P4 641 (same speed, same FSB, different cache size), so I would have to say it's quite possible, however, due to the speed of the CPU it should still hold it's own.

That aside, though, getting the better of the 2 cards now would be the smarter choice. Even on the CPU he has now he'd get better performance using the 8800GT than out of an X1950Pro.

The 2 cards he mentioned looking at in his first post were both PCIE, so I'd have to assume that he has that bus.

Could be wrong though...

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Dyre Straits

I've learned not to assume. Believe it or not, I've had family members looking at PCIe cards and wanting to know if they'd be better for their PCs....which are AGP based systems.

So, that's why I asked the OP for clarification on it.

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John C

I conferm I have PCIE, and a plain single core 3.2ghz p4. don't know the type, sorry

the bottleneck realy is my majoy consern: how much will of the preformens I be able to drain from to 8800, comaired to the preformens a 1950 would give me .... It's obvious I can get it's full potetial.

kris23

the 8800GT has more potential with the p4 than the x1950

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bug77

I can tell you my 8800GT is being held back by my E6400. I keep everything at stock for everyday use, but I did some overclocking on the CPU (from 2.13 to 2.56GHz) and the scores in 3DMark were significantly up.

So, if you don't have a ton of cash to spend, the X1950Pro might be the better choice. It is comparable to my previous card (7900GS) which could handle anything @1280x1024. The 8800GT is about twice as powerful, the question is do you need that power right now? If not, get the 1950Pro (maybe an XT if you can find it at a decent price?) and wait. The 8800GT is supposed to come down to 200USD within a month or so anyway.

Tipstaff

I did a test setup on my system with a P4 641 (3.2Ghz), and ran the tests with the X1950Pro, and the 8800GT (of note: I'm using a RAID0 setup, and it has an effect to some degree on the end result). Here's what I got:

X1950Pro - 4134
This surprised the crap out of me. The benchmarks on an E6600 with this card is so damn close.

8800GT - 6234
Another surprise here. The difference the CPU scaling makes with this card versus the X1950Pro is huge. I'm going to have to do another test on a fresh system at work, because this just can't be right as it's almost 1/2 the 'Marks score... then again.. it may be right.

To be honest, I'm really damn surprised by how much the CPU bottlenecked the 8800GT. That does, of course, bring up an interesting question: given the now closer margin between the X1950Pro and the 8800GT on the P4 3.2Ghz CPU, is it still worth the extra $120? I'd still have to say yes, but only because I'm also taking something else into consideration: longevity. If and when you upgrade the CPU you will get a very minor increase in performance out of the X1950Pro, but in contrast the 8800GT would almost double it's performance by upgrading one part.

Then again, that brings up another question: what board do you have, John C? The reason I ask is that I guess it boils down to this: Given how close the performance would be, can you justify paying 120€ more? If you are not going to upgrade your CPU in the near future, again, can you justify paying the 120€ more knowing that the more money you paid doesn't equal out to a huge payoff in performance? However, the flip side, if you are going to upgrade your CPU in the near future, can you live with not paying the 120€ more to get nearly 2x the performance out your card when you do upgrade versus the other card, and then realize that the only way to get better would be to spend more money on another card to get that performance?

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kris23

+ rep man.....

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Rizen

Everyone is right the 8800GT is the way to go, but if your budget is that tight i recomend the card i bought the 3850 is much faster than the 1900 pro and yet not that much more expensive. now the 8800gt is probably 20% to 50% faster depending on the game but the 3850 is the fastest card in its pricerange. (though the 3850 would still be bottlenecked by your cpu as well just not as badly)

also to warn you with the reference cooler they run very hot i would recomend one with a better cooler on it.

John C

this is my motherboard (taken from belarc, thinking that "main circuit board"=motherboard)

Board: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-7091
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 01/27/2005

I don't think it supports a dualcore, so IF I ever want to upgrade, I need that replaced as well... but I think that when it goes to that stage, I might concider buying a new PC...but I still could use the 8800...

The question is: how long will it be the king of the Hill. Aftherall it is a new generation of GFX cards, so the next ones will be mere spin-offs.

How much preformance boost means the diffrence between a '06 mark of 2000 points anyway ? is it like "average" or "poor".

the 1950XT is not an option : where I live it costs twice as much as a 8800, and then I rather go for that one ofcourse

btw thx for all your repiels guys

John C

oh yes , an other question : what type of powersullpy is needed foran 8800 ?

kris23

well.... next year, the 8800gt will eventually be replaced by the Geforce 9 series, not sure when the true G92 core successor arrives though.... most likely may or june latest

but it was never meant to be a flagship card......

the psu power needs to have a 6 pin connector, and probably a good 500w psu with a single rail will do.... it isnt THAT demanding

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John C

sorry but another Q: my dad has a dualcore pc E6400 series. From my experience his pc is worse then mine but he has a weak GFX card ... would putting a 8800 in it be a good gaming machine ?

kris23

it would destroy your system in entirety

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RoyBatty

I have found this article, their test system is faster than yours, but it might be interesting for you anyway: Upgrade Radeonu X1950 na HD 3850, �i 8800 GT? | ExtraHardware
It's in Czech, but the graphs are international

Tipstaff

Only one problem with the review: the test system is an Athlon 64 X2 4800 (2.5Ghz). For those that don't know, this is a dual core processor. As such the 8800GT scores will be higher than on a single core processor. Also of note, there are dual core optimizations in the Nvidia drivers if I remember correctly, so this can effect the scores as well.

I still feel that the 8800GT is your best bet, John, however given that the 8800GS will be out soon at a price point around the same as the X1950Pro, if you can wait, you might want to consider waiting at bit.

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Judas

HD3870 is a much better alternative to that of a x1950....

hd3850/3870 or the 8800gt......

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CDsDontBurn

the 8800GT is the general consensous here, and i agree with everybody.

however, there is one thing that has not been pointed out. there is a limitation with certain motherboards that support PCI-E 1.0 (8x PCI-E) bus. the limitation is purley a video BIOS issue where some of these cards on certain motherboards will not work on a motherboard that only supports PCI-E 1.0. The system will simply not boot. [I've heard] of an "unofficial BIOS" out there, but it's not guaranteed to work if it can be obtained.

so, that being said, be sure that your motherboard supports PCI-E 1.1 (16x PCI-E) in order to avoid this limitation.

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John C

ok, I'm conivinced. It's not like I absolutly need that card now, so if it'll drop in price shortly, I can wait a few months ... However what [COLOR=#e7d4d1]CDsDontBurn[/COLOR] pointed out concerns me.

this is what wikki sais :

Shortly after the release, an incompatibility issue with older PCI Express 1.0a motherboards was unmasked. When using the PCI Express 2.0 compliant 8800GT in motherboards with PCI Express 1.0a slots, the card would not produce any display image, but the computer would often boot (with the fan spinning at a constant 100%). Some mainboard (Motherboard) chipsets had a workaround, which was to re-flash the graphics card's bios with an older GEN1 BIOS (which effectively made it into a PCI Express 1.0 card, not being able to utilize the PCIE 2.0 functions. but since the card itself could not even utilize the full capacity of the regular PCIE 1.0 slots, there was no noticeable performance reduction). The flashing of the BIOS, however, voided the warranties of most cards thus making it a less-than-optimum way of getting the card to work properly. In relation to this compatibility issue, the high numbers of DOA (Dead On Arrival - cards that are broken out of the box)(As much as 13-15%) were believed to be inaccurate. When it was revealed that the G92 8800GT and 8800GTS 512Mb were going to be designed with PCI Express 2.0 connections, NVIDIA claimed that all cards would have full Backwards-Compatibility, but they completely failed to mentioned that this was only true for PCI Express 1.1 motherboards. The source for the BIOS-flash did not come from NVIDIA or any of their partners, but rather [COLOR=#0000ff]AsRock[/COLOR], a mainboard producer, who mentioned the fix in one of their motherboard FAQ's. [COLOR=#0000ff]ASUSTek[/COLOR], who produce their own 8800GT, posted a newer version of their 8800GT BIOS on their website, but did not mention that it fixed this issue. As of the date of this article (Dec 26 2007) there has still been no official word on this issue from either NVIDIA or any of their partners. One could speculate that this is because they do not want to harm their sales figures, by possibly turning away customers who are unsure of their motherboard specifications.


Belarc Adisor gave me following spects of my motherboard:

Board: MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-7091
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 01/27/2005

afther some googling I found this link:Medion info and files

in the file of 7091 I found this

��

CDsDontBurn

yes, it's bad news for those people who have PCI-E 1.0a. you however, seem to have PCI-E 1.1.

PCI-E 1.0 = 8x PCI-E

PCI-E 1.1 = 16x PCI-E

so, you should be fine .

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