Hot or Not

[maxcom]

seriously considering cancelling my backorder

 

[1reeves]

Originally posted by: Nacelle
I just got around to filling out the rebate form, to send it in. The upc on the box doesn't match the one on the rebate. The upc on my box is 727419412391. The two listed on the rebate are 727419412384 and 727419412322. Anyone else notice this, or have a form that matches my upc?

Originally posted by: cockeyed
I checked mine and they are the same as yours. However, I didn't mail in the UPC code, I mailed in the Serial Number label, since either one could be used. I hope that this isn't going to cause problems getting the rebate!

The "newer" in store rebate form does not have any UPCs listed. I picked up one of these last week in Cincy. They had 40-50 cards out on the displays. My guess is they are keeping these in store to avoid have to give rainchecks. They can just cancel online orders.
Print ads are a different matter.
Someone over at FW said they called either ATI or MC and were told any MC purchased ATI X850XT would be okay. The UPCs were there just for an example.
But if in doubt do as cockeyed has. Send the serial number.

 

[maxcom]

i just canceled mine, csr said he had no idea when/if they would be restocked

 

[aboothman]

they will not be restocked until the sale is over.

 

[RichWhalen]

I just called and they're shipping out my backorder today.

 

[maxcom]

my timing sux

 

[aboothman]

Just ordered one on the phone...not a problem. Did not ask about availability, but if when everyone was saying
about in store stock is any clue, they probably have quite a few around. Good luck

EDIT: haha, it seems that they know about the forum. The CSR told me about a
"situation" where the deal ended up on a hot deals forum. As he was explaining that
they may not be able to fill the order, his boss told him that the corporation decided to
make it available for sale again. *waves to Microcenter*

 

[Farfle]

It's orderable online now. When you click the "Buy" button, it will add it to your cart. Havn't gone all the way through to see if you can check out, but this is farther than i've ever gotten.

 

[aznpxdd91780]

WOOHOO! Just got a tracking number!!

 

[Budarow]

For $215 out the door...this is a good deal. I just can't force myself to spend $200+ on an AGP card for my XP 2400+ Mobile clocked at 2.0 GHz when I'm most likely 6 months away (or less) from dumping this PC to build a new one using PCI-E.

For you folks with A64 CPUs and AGP...this deal is really HOT. IMO.

 

[carpenter]

I've got 4 comps sitting next to me right now, typing on one of them. This one has an X800XT PE in it on a DFI 250Gb. Another 250Gb box has a 9800XT on it. Another a DFI UltraD with an EVGA 7800GT CO. The other an Epox mobo with an EVGA 6800. If I were to rank these boxes as far as real world gaming performance it would be the UltraD w/7800GT by a wisker, the 250Gb w/ X800XT PE right on it's heals, the 250Gb w/9800XT and then the Epox w/6800. I also tried the 6800 in one of the 250Gb boxes and I'd still take the 9800XT. After I put the UltraD box together with the 7800GT and 2 gig of OCZ, I shopped around and found another 250Gb mobo for the other box. They run so close to the pci-e boards that unless you're running benchmarks, it's very hard to tell a difference. These boxes are all running XP90's, good ram, are oc'd and tweaked and I run them all day in and day out. If you think agp is dead, you're reading to many magazine articles. I called and tried to get one of these because at this price, it's a steal.

 

[troublesbro]

Backorders are shipping!

Got my shipment notice, with tracking number, this morning!!!

 

[Tegeril]

They are available for instore pickup in Cambridge, MA.

 

[Farfle]

Here's the message I received from Microcenter Customer Support at 6:25am PST this morning:

Dear [Farfle] (I omitted my real name ),


Good News! The product is now available. "One per customer". Please click the link below to make your purchase! Thank you for your business!

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0217999

Respectfully,

Customer Service
Micro Center Online
4115 Leap Rd
Hilliard, OH 43026
800-634-3478

I still wasn't able to order it online, as the website would spit out an error on the final step of Credit Card validation. However, I was able to order it on the phone 10 minutes ago. Interestingly, the limit the customer service rep on the phone quoted me was 2 per customer, even though the e-mail above listed just 1.

 

[Budarow]

Originally posted by: carpenter
I've got 4 comps sitting next to me right now, typing on one of them. This one has an X800XT PE in it on a DFI 250Gb. Another 250Gb box has a 9800XT on it. Another a DFI UltraD with an EVGA 7800GT CO. The other an Epox mobo with an EVGA 6800. If I were to rank these boxes as far as real world gaming performance it would be the UltraD w/7800GT by a wisker, the 250Gb w/ X800XT PE right on it's heals, the 250Gb w/9800XT and then the Epox w/6800. I also tried the 6800 in one of the 250Gb boxes and I'd still take the 9800XT. After I put the UltraD box together with the 7800GT and 2 gig of OCZ, I shopped around and found another 250Gb mobo for the other box. They run so close to the pci-e boards that unless you're running benchmarks, it's very hard to tell a difference. These boxes are all running XP90's, good ram, are oc'd and tweaked and I run them all day in and day out. If you think agp is dead, you're reading to many magazine articles. I called and tried to get one of these because at this price, it's a steal.

It has NEVER been a question of performance with respect to AGP or PCI-E. It's a question of "support" (i.e., . I've got 3 PCs running on a LAN with a 7800GT (PCI-E), a X800XTPE (AGP) and a 9800Pro (AGP) cards. Since it appears no HIGH end video cards are coming out in AGP (at least for now and I don't want to hear about castrated 6800s and 7800s and the like because they are NOT high end cards), I don't like the idea of building a new rig using AGP and HOPING ATI and nVidia will support AGP with high end cards in the future.

And the card is a steal TODAY, but like all video cards, these cards will continue to drop in price and will likely be commonly found at <$175 in 3-6 months from now.

 

[aboothman]

same old rhetoric, but in 3-6 months these cards will probably be obsolete lol. The value with computer parts could
be summed up with a formula....which I am not going to bother with lol, but it would have things like:

Performance with current apps/games
Performance with future apps/games
duration of acceptable performance
cost when taking into account current and future performance

Of course, if you upgrade every 3-6 months, then you will not be considering this card as you already
have a ripping PCI-E system lol. I just don't want to bother with a new PSU, MB and card.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: aboothman
same old rhetoric, but in 3-6 months these cards will probably be obsolete lol. The value with computer parts could
be summed up with a formula....which I am not going to bother with lol, but it would have things like:

Performance with current apps/games
Performance with future apps/games
duration of acceptable performance
cost when taking into account current and future performance

Of course, if you upgrade every 3-6 months, then you will not be considering this card as you already
have a ripping PCI-E system lol. I just don't want to bother with a new PSU, MB and card.

That all depends how you define "obsolete." I have been using a 9700 Pro for more than three years, and it still runs nearly everything I want. An X850XT would obviously be much better.

 

[Budarow]

Originally posted by: aboothman
same old rhetoric, but in 3-6 months these cards will probably be obsolete lol. The value with computer parts could
be summed up with a formula....which I am not going to bother with lol, but it would have things like:

Performance with current apps/games
Performance with future apps/games
duration of acceptable performance
cost when taking into account current and future performance

Of course, if you upgrade every 3-6 months, then you will not be considering this card as you already
have a ripping PCI-E system lol. I just don't want to bother with a new PSU, MB and card.

"same old rhetoric"??? IF ATI nor nVidia releases high end AGP cards...AGP owners (I have 2 PCs with AGP and 1 with PCI-E) do NOT have an upgrade path. Get it??? No high end cards means merely "okay" visuals in the newest games.

"acceptable performance"??? In what...2-3 year old games?? Try running FEAR with a AMD XP CPU (clocked at <2.2 GHz) and an X850XT with the visuals on high (and modest AA and AF) and at a res. of ~1200x1000 and watch the frames drop to ~30. I'm only getting 58 fps with Doom 3 (which is 1.5 years old) at a res. of ~1000x800 and settings on high (Timedemo Demo1) with an X800XT PE and XP 3200+ (no AA or AF).

IF I KNEW there would be new high end AGP cards coming out...I'd be the FIRST one to buy a X850XT PE for ~$200 and to go with it...a new AGP mobo, A64 Opty CPU and some high end RAM because I'd know I could upgrade the rest of my system down the road (get a significant speed increase) and transfer the X850XT card into it. And later...upgrade the X850XT (and get another significant speed increase).

BUT I don't KNOW and nor does anyone else for sure.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Originally posted by: aboothman
same old rhetoric, but in 3-6 months these cards will probably be obsolete lol. The value with computer parts could
be summed up with a formula....which I am not going to bother with lol, but it would have things like:

Performance with current apps/games
Performance with future apps/games
duration of acceptable performance
cost when taking into account current and future performance

Of course, if you upgrade every 3-6 months, then you will not be considering this card as you already
have a ripping PCI-E system lol. I just don't want to bother with a new PSU, MB and card.

Combine this with a future purchase of an AGP/PCI-Express combo Motherboard, like the ASROCK, and you've jsut expanded the upgrade potential for many, many users. (Upgrade video now, wait 6 months to 1 year, upgrade CPU and mobo, wait 6 months to 1 year, upgrade to PCI-Express video..)

 

[imported_Jackyl]

Originally posted by: DonVito
That all depends how you define "obsolete." I have been using a 9700 Pro for more than three years, and it still runs nearly everything I want. An X850XT would obviously be much better.

I agree. This is a great price for those wanting to hold on to AGP for another two years. I have a 9800 Pro 128MB, and it has played everything I wanted also. It's lived up to my expectations and surpassed them. I play Doom3+expansion, Half-Life 2, and others. All at 1152x864 which is acceptable for me. All run at greater than 30fps. As long as the games don't look blocky like Castle Wolfenstein, I could care less. I even played Fear at 1024x768. I don't need "soft shadows".

 

[aboothman]

First I want to advise everyone to take a deep breath and calm down. I was not trying to rewrite the bible.

@ Don Vito: I would still be using my 9800 it if had no fried

@ Budarow: you seem to have a lot of anger...you should work on that.

1: not everyone is a freak about perfefct visuals...some like better FPS, and some like to have money in their wallet.

2: some people do still play 2-3 year old games. In fact, I tend to make a habit of doing so. It is more fun to me to
play an older, more established game with a well-known group of players than to play every FPS that comes out. Once again,
the money/upgrade issues comes into play more often, and causes more frustration from lackluster performance. However,
once every 2 years or so I get a new vid card that can run the latest games, for about 3 months until
something new comes out lol.

Maybe I am lame, but UT2k4 and Farcry is still great fun to me, and they run AWESOME @ 1280x1024 full detail, color and high FPS.

3: Myself and many others are not in a position to buy a new MB, PSU and vid card. It is a cycle ya know?

In the end, I am not sure what your point is *shrugs* I think you failed to realize that I was merely stating things that
I consider when buying harware...video cards in particular.

@ cKGunsliger: Exactly

@Jackyl: I agree. I usually turn on the "fancy stuff" for the first day I have a game,
but once I get into the gameplay (providing the game doesn't suck) I turn that
crap off. Low AA and AF is fine, but I am a multitasker. I guess it is my ADD lol.

 

[Budarow]

Originally posted by: aboothman
First I want to advise everyone to take a deep breath and calm down. I was not trying to rewrite the bible.

@ Don Vito: I would still be using my 9800 it if had no fried

@ Budarow: you seem to have a lot of anger...you should work on that.

1: not everyone is a freak about perfefct visuals...some like better FPS, and some like to have money in their wallet.

2: some people do still play 2-3 year old games. In fact, I tend to make a habit of doing so. It is more fun to me to
play an older, more established game with a well-known group of players than to play every FPS that comes out. Once again,
the money/upgrade issues comes into play more often, and causes more frustration from lackluster performance. However,
once every 2 years or so I get a new vid card that can run the latest games, for about 3 months until
something new comes out lol.

Maybe I am lame, but UT2k4 and Farcry is still great fun to me, and they run AWESOME @ 1280x1024 full detail, color and high FPS.

3: Myself and many others are not in a position to buy a new MB, PSU and vid card. It is a cycle ya know?

In the end, I am not sure what your point is *shrugs* I think you failed to realize that I was merely stating things that
I consider when buying harware...video cards in particular.

@ cKGunsliger: Exactly

@Jackyl: I agree. I usually turn on the "fancy stuff" for the first day I have a game,
but once I get into the gameplay (providing the game doesn't suck) I turn that
crap off. Low AA and AF is fine, but I am a multitasker. I guess it is my ADD lol.

Since I'm not "angry" about anything, you may be thinking I'm angry because I emphasize certain words by using caps. I do this so these words are not over looked (i.e., I'm NOT yelling them). In the same instance, I'm thinking (correctly or incorrectly) you're inhaling "laughing" gas (or something with a similar effect) while you're typing since you include "lol" after almost every sentence

Believe it or not...I share almost the EXACT same philosophy as you when it comes to hardware and games. Almost ALL of the games I buy are >1 year old (i.e., I rarely spend more than $20 for a game UNLESS it's a hot, newly released title (i.e., COD 2 which I got for $25) and I upgrade video cards every ~2 years (unless a REALLY good deal comes along AND it works out with my upgrade scheme). If I spend $200/upgrade, I'd be dropping $600 just for video cards. And I'm not going to do that without having "upgradability" in mind.

Dropping $215 for a video card on my slow arse XP3000+ cpu seems like a waste to me. With 3 PCs to upgrade, I need to be more selective and cost savvy with the upgrades. My 9800Pro will work just fine until I build my next PCI-E system (unless the X850XT becomes available pretty soon for say...$150.

The ASrocks AGP/PCI-E mobo is a GREAT idea...to bad the vcore settings are limited unless hard modded, use of a hacked BIOS, etc. I've got an Opty 146 CPU and I dont' think I'll bother with a mobo stuck at 1.4V (in case the Opty requires more). I wish someone would come out with an AGP/PCI-E combo board with LOTs of OC'ing options for $125 or less. That would be ideal IMO.

 

[aboothman]

its not laughing gas...its the wacky tabacky

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I finally decided to haul off and buy one of these. I was one of the people dumb enough to upgrade to Socket 754 Athlon 64 in the spring of 2004, and I really don't feel like building a whole new system for PCI-E. This should hold me for at least a year, and hopefully two. I have to give ATI credit for the groundbreaking 9700 Pro it will replace, though. There haven't been many video-card introductions that raised the bar by so much, and it's served me well for more than 3 years.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: DonVito
I finally decided to haul off and buy one of these. I was one of the people dumb enough to upgrade to Socket 754 Athlon 64 in the spring of 2004, and I really don't feel like building a whole new system for PCI-E. This should hold me for at least a year, and hopefully two. I have to give ATI credit for the groundbreaking 9700 Pro it will replace, though. There haven't been many video-card introductions that raised the bar by so much, and it's served me well for more than 3 years.

I'm also upgrading from a 9700 Pro. I bet ATI hates that card because of the ability for it to survive for so long