Newegg has Diamond X1950 Pro 512MB AGP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Too_Much_Coffee ®
  • Start date Start date
On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:33:12 -0800, "Too_Much_Coffee ®"

:>$290.00 USD
:>
:>
:>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814103024
:>
:>or
:>
:>http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl
:>

So other than Shader Model 3.0 what does this offer over a X850XT PE
AGP card? Performance improvement worth the cost? Is it really only 12
pipelines? Any information will be appreciated. I haven't been
following the specs on the newer chips lately since none of them
seemed to offer a performance increase over what I've already got.

Thanks,
me/2
 
Have a look here: http://www.diamondmm.com/X1950PRO512AGP.php
Has 36/8, same as PCI-E version.


On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:33:12 -0800, "Too_Much_Coffee ®"

:>$290.00 USD
:>
:>
:>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814103024
:>
:>or
:>
:>http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl
:>

So other than Shader Model 3.0 what does this offer over a X850XT PE
AGP card? Performance improvement worth the cost? Is it really only 12
pipelines? Any information will be appreciated. I haven't been
following the specs on the newer chips lately since none of them
seemed to offer a performance increase over what I've already got.

Thanks,
me/2
 
$290.00 USD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814103024

or

http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl
Click to expand...
Newegg is a great place to shop. I was looking at the PowerColor X1950 Pro
review on FiringSquad.com earlier today. That version has a very nice
looking cooler attached and is only $259 at Directron. I saw it for $249
somewhere but cannot find again. The Sapphire version with 512MB for $249 is
at AllStartShop.com (but out of stock). You could buy a much inferior 7800GS
or X850XT for similar price as the X1950 Pro. Best AGP performance at a
reasonable price.
 
FiringSquad has a comparison between the X1950 Pro and the previously
fastest AGP cards like the X850XT PE and 7800GS. Whether the performance
improvement is worth the upgrade depends on the max resolution of your
monitor and the games you play:
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/powercolor_radeon_x1950_pro_agp_review/page5.asp

Even though the X1950 Pro has 12 texture units, keep in mind it has 36 pixel
shaders versus 16 on the X850XT. Shader-heavy games will see the X1950 Pro
pull ahead, with a wider margin at high resolutions. (More pixels - more
pixel shader operations.) The X1950 Pro is 60% faster in Company of Heroes,
60% faster in Pacific Fighters, 40% faster in BF2142, and 18% faster in
Quake 4.
 
First of One said:
FiringSquad has a comparison between the X1950 Pro and the previously
fastest AGP cards like the X850XT PE and 7800GS.
Click to expand...

Not all 7800GS's are created equal. Gainward's 7800GS+
has 24 pipes, 512MB, SM3.0, dual-link DVI etc. I'm hoping
to see side-by-side performance benchmarks with the GS+
and X1950 AGP.
 
me/2 said:
So other than Shader Model 3.0 what does this offer over a X850XT PE
AGP card? Performance improvement worth the cost? Is it really only
12 pipelines? Any information will be appreciated. I haven't been
following the specs on the newer chips lately since none of them
seemed to offer a performance increase over what I've already
Click to expand...
got.

Here's a review in German that compares several of the fastest
AGP cards. No 850 but the 800 is there. No need to translate
really.

http://www.hartware.de/review_668.html

It would have been nice if all the cards tested had the same
amount of memory. Considering the difference in price, the
7800GS doesn't look too bad. Newegg only wants $175.99 for the
BFG 7800GS OC. The 256MB X1950 AGP is only $240 at Amazon but it
won't be available until Jan 15.

Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/yglhzr

TMC
 
The Gainward 7800GS+ is essentially a 7900GT on AGP, so at best it will
perform like a regular 7900GT. The X1950 Pro AGP has been shown to perform
almost identically to its PCIe counterpart. There are plenty of articles
that include both the 7900GT and X1950 Pro PCIe, like this one:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2858&p=5 . It can be seen that
the two chipsets offer very similar levels of performance.

Note the Gainward 7800GS+ still carries an inflated pricetag. With PCIe
7900GT cards dropping in price continuously, the disparity is almost at a
factor of two.
 
First of One said:
The Gainward 7800GS+ is essentially a 7900GT on AGP, so at best it will
perform like a regular 7900GT.
Click to expand...

Not quite true. The GS+ has 512MB and is substantially
more overclockable than the GS. On the PCIE side you
need to move to a GTX for comparable performance.
The X1950 Pro AGP has been shown to perform
almost identically to its PCIe counterpart. There are plenty of articles
that include both the 7900GT and X1950 Pro PCIe, like this one:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2858&p=5 . It can be seen that
the two chipsets offer very similar levels of performance.

Note the Gainward 7800GS+ still carries an inflated pricetag.
Click to expand...

See above. The proper comparison is with a GTX, and in
that case the price is only slightly inflated, if at all.
 
Not quite true. The GS+ has 512MB and is substantially
more overclockable than the GS. On the PCIE side you
need to move to a GTX for comparable performance.
Click to expand...

Common misconception. Remember a "real" GTX can be overclocked further. Many
7900GTs fitted with a $30 Arctic Cooler can overclock just as well as
Gainward's GS+.

For what it's worth, the Powercolor X1950 Pro, in both PCIe and AGP forms,
has an AC Accelero X2. It, too, can overclock very well.

512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at high-res
with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most demanding. The
extra RAM is probably padding up the price, but it doesn't *justify* the
price because it doesn't improve the gaming experience.
 
First of One said:
Common misconception. Remember a "real" GTX can be overclocked further. Many
7900GTs fitted with a $30 Arctic Cooler can overclock just as well as
Gainward's GS+.

For what it's worth, the Powercolor X1950 Pro, in both PCIe and AGP forms,
has an AC Accelero X2. It, too, can overclock very well.

512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at high-res
with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most demanding.
Click to expand...

Benchmarks for games like Oblivion, FEAR etc beg to differ.
There are substantial benefits to 512MB, e.g.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/oblivion_high-end_performance/page3.asp

7900GT: 45.5 FPS

7900GTX: 70.8 FPS
 
Common misconception. Remember a "real" GTX can be overclocked
further. Many 7900GTs fitted with a $30 Arctic Cooler can overclock
just as well as Gainward's GS+.

For what it's worth, the Powercolor X1950 Pro, in both PCIe and AGP
forms, has an AC Accelero X2. It, too, can overclock very well.

512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at
high-res with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most
demanding. The extra RAM is probably padding up the price, but it
doesn't *justify* the price because it doesn't improve the gaming
experience.
Click to expand...

Well, the extra RAM doesn't necessarily help performance, and in fact, the
card might actually be a smidge slower than a 256MB version. But can't
better visual experience due to larger textures justify it?

i.e., might it not be worth it to take 512 card over a 256 card and accept,
say, a 3fps hit, if I see a noticeably better looking game due to higher
quality textures that I can load into it?
 
The benchmark comparisons are always done with equal in-game quality
settings, and often already at the maximum available settings. With the
advent of AGP texturing all cards can load the highest-quality textures. The
expectation is, cards with less onboard memory will see more content spill
over into system memory, and run slower. With current games we are not
seeing this difference between 256 MB and 512 MB cards.
 
http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl
Click to expand...

Guess so. I definitely saw it there a couple days ago. It wasn't easy to
find.

It could be it's just lost in newegg's database as it seemed to be not
categorized right in the first place. The only way I could originally find
it was to browse to Video Cards, then view all the Diamond products and
then start scrolling through the thirdy-some results. If I searched on it
(such as "X1950PRO"), only the PCIe versions showed up, and if I tried to
browse to it a different way (such as show me all AGP-based ATI cards), it
wouldn't come up.

I've seen several posts this weekend on various forums telling people that
newegg had it. I wouldn't be surprised if those posts essentially let the
cat out of the bag and they're now all gone.
 
Keep checking back. Newegg does that alot when they sell out. It will
show back up again.
 
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