Who has X1950pro?

[sym8olo]

hello Tatty, I have juist joined because I have been reading this looking to upgrade but wasnt sure if its worth it on my current system.
I have a NF3 lanparty UT250 and in it i have 2 512mb sticks of geil value ddr 400 ram, an A64 3000 and a Geforce 6800Gt. I wanted to upgrade my system but only so that I could wait until vista is out, DX10 is well down the line, and supported well by both red and green camps.

I've just got a nice new monitor but its native res 1680x1050 is a struggle in some games. I'm fed up of loosing half-seconds or more worth of frames in the middle of firefights and just after loading, when the system is pushed, when the rest of the time the FPS is acceptable.

I was going to add 1 gig of ram, but I have only the one free ram slot-

~~~could you let me know if I could just whack a 1gig ddr 400 module in there (say, Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 CAS3) and then my system would be fine and register 2 gigs?

I was told
'You can just stick a 1 gig stick in there and it should be fine. The cpu might not let you run at 1t timings though and you'll see a decrease from that, but the gains you get from more ram will easily surpass and decrease from the 2t timing issue.'

what I'd really like to know is- what is this timing issue? would this be worth doing and is it really going to give a good result?

Lastly, how much improvement would i get from putting a 7800gs/1950pro in there? Having read your postings I'm thinking you're going to cite the cpu bottleneck- my aim is to get playable framerates and a bit more eye candy in oblivion, hoping that Dark Messiah and other games will be smooth as silk. I'd be very grateful for any advice or sensible answers

 

[OpTicaL]

Which card is more powerful? Looking at the ATI comparision chart, is the X1950pro AGP better or the X850XT PE? It seems the 850 has a higher Pixel Fillrate than the 1950. All the other specs seem to be the same.

 

[Spacehead]

Which card is more powerful? Looking at the ATI comparision chart, is the X1950pro AGP better or the X850XT PE? It seems the 850 has a higher Pixel Fillrate than the 1950. All the other specs seem to be the same.

36 Pixel Shaders provide much more power for heavily shader utilizing new games.

 

[Frick]

Which card is more powerful? Looking at the ATI comparision chart, is the X1950pro AGP better or the X850XT PE? It seems the 850 has a higher Pixel Fillrate than the 1950. All the other specs seem to be the same.

The x1950pro is WAY more powerful than the x850XTPE.. There's really no way you can put them head to head. The XTPE is almost weaker than the Geforce 7600GT. I don't know about the AGP version though, but I assume the performance is pretty much the same as on PCI-e.

@sym8olo: You can always do a cheapo upgrade and go for the x1950pro and a 3800+, or overclock your current CPU.

 

[Tatty_Two]

hello Tatty, I have juist joined because I have been reading this looking to upgrade but wasnt sure if its worth it on my current system.
I have a NF3 lanparty UT250 and in it i have 2 512mb sticks of geil value ddr 400 ram, an A64 3000 and a Geforce 6800Gt. I wanted to upgrade my system but only so that I could wait until vista is out, DX10 is well down the line, and supported well by both red and green camps.

I've just got a nice new monitor but its native res 1680x1050 is a struggle in some games. I'm fed up of loosing half-seconds or more worth of frames in the middle of firefights and just after loading, when the system is pushed, when the rest of the time the FPS is acceptable.

I was going to add 1 gig of ram, but I have only the one free ram slot-

~~~could you let me know if I could just whack a 1gig ddr 400 module in there (say, Crucial 1GB DDR PC3200 CAS3) and then my system would be fine and register 2 gigs?

I was told
'You can just stick a 1 gig stick in there and it should be fine. The cpu might not let you run at 1t timings though and you'll see a decrease from that, but the gains you get from more ram will easily surpass and decrease from the 2t timing issue.'

what I'd really like to know is- what is this timing issue? would this be worth doing and is it really going to give a good result?

Lastly, how much improvement would i get from putting a 7800gs/1950pro in there? Having read your postings I'm thinking you're going to cite the cpu bottleneck- my aim is to get playable framerates and a bit more eye candy in oblivion, hoping that Dark Messiah and other games will be smooth as silk. I'd be very grateful for any advice or sensible answers

Frick and Spacehead are right, the 1950Pro is much better. Firstly to answer your memory question, yes you can put a 1GB stick in there, and it is quite likely that you may only be able to run the memory at 2T, the effect of 2T over 1T has caused some big debates in the past and does depend on what apps are being run, it can be as little as 2% and I think the average loss in games is around 5%, some arithmatic and processor number crunching apps can lose up to 20% I beleive but that is unlikely to effect most of us and you are right to beleive the positive benefits of the extra Gig would surpass that loss in any case. More importantly however is the loss of "dual channel" to single channel functionality, with your 2 sticks of 512 you will probably be running your memory in dual channel mode which requires sticks of the same density (size), as soon as you put the 1GB stick in you lose that to single channel, that coupled with the 1T to 2T thing will cause you a loss that the extra Gig wont compensate for. Therefore my advice would be to FleaBay the 2 512 sticks and buy yourself a matched 2 x 1Gig pair to run, that way you get dual channel and 1T......if you can afford it of course but it shouldnt really cost much more if you get a reasonable price for the 512 sticks.

As to the Graphics card, do you overclock your processor? If you DO NOT, then IMO whilst the 1950Pro will give you nice improvements there will be a CPU bottleneck and you will only appreciate around 75% of its capability, so.....again only IMO, why not spend just 75% of the price and buy a card that will give you 100% of its capability, especially if it is only and interim measure for a few months so perhaps the 1650Pro? However the 7600GT is as competitively priced, is faster than the 1650Pro, overclocks like mad is similar in raw performance to the 850XT (some benches it wins a couple it loses) but has the SM3 that the 850XT does not have. really the choice is yours, if you can afford the memory upgrade and a 1950pro then fine, if not my advice would be to take the memory option and go for a slightly lesser card, if you can find a 7900GS cheaper than the cheapest 1950pro then that may be an option as it is not too far short on performance.

If you are overclocking your CPU then to get the most out of it I would push for the 1950Pro personallly for definate or as I said, possibly the 7900GS if you can get it a fair bit cheaper. Games such as Oblivion, Battlefield etc really do benefit from 2GB Ram but still the most important single issue to run them at decent resolutions with decent detail is a good quality graphics card.

 

[sym8olo]

To Frick I must say unfortunately I have a s745 mobo, so its hard to find replacement chips and uneconomical when you do- the best is a dodgy e-bay 3400 I believe, for 70 odd pounds. thanks tho.
Tatty, thank you very much for taking the time to post such a lengthy response, unfortunately the whole dual channel argument is out the window anyway due to the mobo being a s754, (no dual channel support on this model).
I dont think I'd think about overclocking, its risky, and too much time spent for too little gain. Given this, is it really likely to be much of an improvement to add a 1650Pro? for £100 its a nice price, but is it going to get me
"playable framerates and a bit more eye candy in oblivion, hoping that Dark Messiah and other games will be smooth as silk."
Would the 7600gt be better (£141)? - Actually a quick check puts the BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC 256MB at £164
P.S. Does the 1650pro do HDR and AA#?

 

[Tatty_Two]

To Frick I must say unfortunately I have a s745 mobo, so its hard to find replacement chips and uneconomical when you do- the best is a dodgy e-bay 3400 I believe, for 70 odd pounds. thanks tho.
Tatty, thank you very much for taking the time to post such a lengthy response, unfortunately the whole dual channel argument is out the window anyway due to the mobo being a s754, (no dual channel support on this model).
I dont think I'd think about overclocking, its risky, and too much time spent for too little gain. Given this, is it really likely to be much of an improvement to add a 1650Pro? for £100 its a nice price, but is it going to get me
"playable framerates and a bit more eye candy in oblivion, hoping that Dark Messiah and other games will be smooth as silk."
Would the 7600gt be better (£141)? - Actually a quick check puts the BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC 256MB at £164
P.S. Does the 1650pro do HDR and AA#?

Firstly, dont know where you do your graphics card shopping but sack them now, you can get the 7600GT for £80 here:

http://www.techfever.co.uk/products.asp?partno=5860&gclid=CM3EztK__ogCFUIHQgod0WmUXw

So reading your post I would not got for the 1650Pro, guessing you are on a budget how about either the 1950pro and 512MB ram or the 7600GT with a Gig? with your system and not overclocking, personally and again only my opinion, I would go for the 7600GT and the Gig of Ram, better graphics and more system memory.

 

[sym8olo]

By the way that link is to a pci ex card, the agp versions are more expensive cus the graphics card corporations are bastards.

 

[micron]

By the way that link is to a pci ex card, the agp versions are more expensive cus the graphics card corporations are bastards.

+
AGP cards are mor expensive because they require a completely different PCB, and they also require an interconnect chip to translate PCIE language to AGP.

 

[sym8olo]

Ah and its fair play I spose- supply and demand.
Surprised u dont suggest the 7800gs tatty, its sort of half way. All in with delivery and vat the 1950pro = 512mb (of geil value ram same timings) is £256.42
or I could get a BFG 7800gs oc with a gig of crucial cas 3 ram all in for £247.02
or 7900gs oc w/ 512mb geil , £215.30

(OCuk prices ) Any opinions regarding the effect of the timing or these options are more than welcome!

 

[Tatty_Two]

Ah and its fair play I spose- supply and demand.
Surprised u dont suggest the 7800gs tatty, its sort of half way. All in with delivery and vat the 1950pro = 512mb (of geil value ram same timings) is £256.42
or I could get a BFG 7800gs oc with a gig of crucial cas 3 ram all in for £247.02
or 7900gs oc w/ 512mb geil , £215.30

(OCuk prices ) Any opinions regarding the effect of the timing or these options are more than welcome!

Well the 7900GS is your best bet there as I said before, the 7800GS has been well surpassed now.

 

[tkpenalty]

I actually better that 2003 score by a considerable margin but cannot get anywhere near that 2005 score which is why I asked for 2005, a 1950pro will not match a 7900GTO on 2005 especially if its at stock and dual core dont make any difference in 2005 and to get 11,818 I was running at 3.2Gig.

That is because 7900GTO Has a larger price tag.

To Frick I must say unfortunately I have a s745 mobo, so its hard to find replacement chips and uneconomical when you do- the best is a dodgy e-bay 3400 I believe, for 70 odd pounds. thanks tho.
Tatty, thank you very much for taking the time to post such a lengthy response, unfortunately the whole dual channel argument is out the window anyway due to the mobo being a s754, (no dual channel support on this model).
I dont think I'd think about overclocking, its risky, and too much time spent for too little gain. Given this, is it really likely to be much of an improvement to add a 1650Pro? for £100 its a nice price, but is it going to get me
"playable framerates and a bit more eye candy in oblivion, hoping that Dark Messiah and other games will be smooth as silk."
Would the 7600gt be better (£141)? - Actually a quick check puts the BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC 256MB at £164
P.S. Does the 1650pro do HDR and AA#?

Yes.
Im getting X1950 at around Christmas

EDIT: Uh a little off topic aren't we?

 

[sym8olo]

Tatty, thats a PCI ex card (7900). Unless I'm mistaken you cant get a 7900gs on AGP. So what dost thou think about my options?
I really do appreciate all the help and time you are taking to think about my situation, its always good to have more opinions!

 

[Frick]

Tatty, thats a PCI ex card (7900). Unless I'm mistaken you cant get a 7900gs on AGP. So what dost thou think about my options?
I really do appreciate all the help and time you are taking to think about my situation, its always good to have more opinions!

I'd say the 7600GT.
Link

And you can always add 1GB of memory.. Memory is NEVER bad.

 

[L|NK|N]

Now back to the 1950pro's. Has anyone had any high overclocks yet on the x1950pro?

 

[Frick]

Now back to the 1950pro's. Has anyone had any high overclocks yet on the x1950pro?

Meeh, you're boring.

But no. I don't think those exists.. It doesn't seem to be very good at that. The memory is pretty much maxed out, I think, at stock and the core I know nothing about.. Maybe there are some physical mods that can be done..

 

[Tatty_Two]

That is because 7900GTO Has a larger price tag.



Yes.
Im getting X1950 at around Christmas

EDIT: Uh a little off topic aren't we?

Not if you choose like for like....the 7900GTO compared with the 512MB 1950pro are very similar priced so again, there is quite a price to performance difference, you cannot compare prices with the 256MB version, you only need to comapere the prices of the 1900XT and both memory sizes to see the difference in price.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Tatty, thats a PCI ex card (7900). Unless I'm mistaken you cant get a 7900gs on AGP. So what dost thou think about my options?
I really do appreciate all the help and time you are taking to think about my situation, its always good to have more opinions!

yeah for your needs I think I would probably go for the 7600GT as its a bit faster than the 1650pro and add a gig of ram, that should see you alright for the interim.

 

[sym8olo]

yeah bang on- i just found out about that! It looks perfect

 

[rickw584]

Now back to the 1950pro's. Has anyone had any high overclocks yet on the x1950pro?

I've managed to get 688mhz on the core with AtiTools, it completely freezes up after that though, can't budge the Mem without crashing the system, think there might still be a problem with the software??

 

[rickw584]

I've managed to get 688mhz on the core with AtiTools, it completely freezes up after that though, can't budge the Mem without crashing the system, think there might still be a problem with the software??

Scrap that, changed the overclocking method to driver and it's working, 850mhz on the mem 'seems' ok......

 

[L|NK|N]

Wow that card get friggin hot!! You using stock cooling? Grats on your luck so far.
P.S. You using CCC and overdrive as well?

 

[mitsirfishi]

well ive had my his x1950 pro now for a few days and ive got 650/1550 but ati tool freezes up and that without voltmodding yet

 

[rickw584]

Wow that card get friggin hot!! You using stock cooling? Grats on your luck so far.
P.S. You using CCC and overdrive as well?

Cheers! It's not stock cooling, I stuck my waterblock on it not long after getting it, the fan got annoying!!
I can't get overdrive to work (or even appear!), have you got this option on your Cats? I'm running the 6.12 betas at the mo. This is the agp version btw

Tried 3d05, and got 9.5k on a 2.4 A64, am gonna give 06 a whirl....

Mitsirfishi, have you tried Ati Tray Tool? I had no luck at all with Ati Tool

 

[mitsirfishi]

yer ive just tried that and now i got my cpu up to 3.8ghz i scored 16.6k in 03 getting 3dmark 05 n 06 now to have a go and see what i get




how come i dont get the voltage options anyone no any other hard or softmods