AGP X850pro VIVO to buy or not to buy?

[efilflah]

Hi there peeps, I need some adviceage.

I live in the UK where we get charged ridiculous amounts of money for basic everyday essentials like video cards and other techie goodies. Now, my brother is in Canada for a while, where our strong british sterling is worth over double what it is here. Naturally I'm itching to take this opportunity to get myself a brand new graphics card that will fill the current gaping void in my life.

So naturally I have my eye on whatever deals I can find, and not being native to Canada land I have no idea where to look for the best deals. I have noticed though, that the Ati shop has AGP VIVO x850pro's for an amazing price of 150 dollars which is only £75 compared to the £130 it'd cost me for the card here.

At current I have a softmodded 128mb 9800se, which really isn't coping very well anymore and I don't want to perform a mass upgrade (cpu, mobo + gfx card) right now because with the new dx10 cards and games like Crysis coming out, I'd rather just get something that'll last me a bit longer so that I can see how things settle in the future and how things perform, then decide what I'm gonna do. If I make a decision now (like am2 or conroe, and 7900gt etc.etc.) I might end up regretting it, so I just need to bide my time for now.

I know that some of the x850pro VIVO cards can be bios flashed to unlock 16 pipes which would be great, but given that they're probably down to the last ones available is it likely that i'll find one that isn't lasercut or dielocked or will they all have been bought by now? What kind of success rate is there for Ati brand cards of this type?

My dilemna is that the x850pro might not be worth the upgrade performance-wise, whereas something like an x850xt might be.

In essence, the most I'm willing to spend at the moment is 220 CAD. What is the best card I can get for that?

Sorry for the long winded post, I just need to make sure I make a good choice that I won't regret first time.

 

[dolf]

Most probably the ATI brand X850PRO VIVO AGP will unlock to 16 pipes. Of course it is better X850XT but for 150 dollars it worths to have even 12 pipe card (in case of "failure"). This is my opinion. I have had X800XT VIVO (imported from USA - I am also in Europe and know what you are tallking about) and after that MSI X850PRO VIVO AGP (imported from Germany) with dual (XT) slot cooler and 16 pipes - converted to X850XT PE .

 

[efilflah]

Thanks for the speedy response dolf.

I've read nothing but good things about the x850pro, I'm just weighing the difference between one that could unlock for £75 and maybe one that won't need to be unlocked for around £100. I've seen so many posts by people saying they couldn't unlock theirs and given that the lifecycle of these cards is coming to an end I was thinking that there's probably no chance of getting a 18052 or 18053 serial number anymore also without checking inside the box how do I know that the ram will be 1.6ns? Are there certain manufacturer/card-type combos that are signs? The only reason I ask is because I'm not there, I have a time-limit and it's an online order, I can't just walk into the shop and read the S/N.

I was also hoping people could point me in the direction of a few online sites that give good deals on graphics cards in Canada so i could see if it's really the best offer I'm gonna get.

I'm just worried about being disappointed given this opportunity is a rare one for me.

 

[b1lk1]

You can't get a better deal anywhere in Canada on those cards than at the ATI shop. They are $250+ everywhere else. In my opinion, the X850 Crossfire edition for the same price is a much better deal, although not many people run X850 Crossfire, it would be nice to have the option. You can check NCIX as they are the best online store in Canada, but you won't find ANY cards under $200 worth buying anywhere else than ATI.

 

[efilflah]

AGP only. Like I said, I don't plan on a major upgrade for now, I'd rather wait it out and see what happens when vista, directX10 and the conroes have settled into the market.

I just want a decent card that'll give me decent fps in some of today's established engines. But given that AGP cards are getting harder and harder to find at reasonable prices, is the x850pro really the only option or are there better ones (like I said, I'll go up to $220 can).