refurb Radeon X800 XL AGP or new Radeon X850 Pro AGP = $119

[blacklit]

Originally posted by: Rachet
I'm still waiting to hear if they are going to be able to fill my order for
the x850 pro. I got my order in but it was listed as out of stock.

quote:

Hate to say it, but this is not necessarily true. Yes, the early batches of x850 pro's could be unlocked. The newer ones have either laser-cut bridges or are die-locked. Still a good card for the price, esp considering that most AGP cards carry a price premium over PCI-E cards these days.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you sure this statement is true for the AGP cards?

Has anyone received the x850 pro from ATI clearence sale and modded the bios sucessfully?

I thought the cards that were altered were PCI-E only.

I was thinking about canceling my order and buying the AIW x800XT but I heard it was loud and ran very hot.

arctic cooling yo

 

[jha1223]

Originally posted by: wazzledoozle
Nice. I might be getting an X800XL

.... as you should have. the x700 was horrible. i wouldn't say that they maybe would be redeemed in your eyes - i say they WOULD be. you won't be disappointed with the x800xl.

 

[WENEEDLIGHT]

Thanks OP

 

[Sonikku]

Good luck with the XL. The listing is gone. Also, the X850pro is still gone and despite what the ATI.com listing for the X800XT says, it IS in fact out of stock. A call to a rep half and hour ago confirmed that they don't really know if they'll ever get more XT's in stock.

 

[Rachet]

I just called again to see if a different CS rep. would have the same story.

She did, supposedly there is a shippment arriving at the end of the month,
they have no idea how many are coming in.
I'm not sure whether this is a stock answer they were told to give anyone who calls or
if stock is really coming in.

Their business practices of listing cards as being in stock when they are not will not
endear people to their company.

 

[shafts]

Yeah listing it when they are out of stock is one thing. Listing it when the CS are stating they are out of stock is another problem that pisses me off. Come on ATI get yer stuff together. Hey they should give us the X850 XT AIW as a replacement for false advertising.

 

[Rachet]

I like the way you think, but I believe the AIW x800xt was the fastest AGP AIW made in the (8xx) series.

ATI should offer some additional discount for those people who were duped by their
questionable business practice. If they disclosed up front that the item was on back order, many people would look for other deals, which would include deals based on Nvidia cards.

This way they have locked people in.

 

[cyburzaki]

ordered an X850 Pro on Aug. 14 for $113.05 shipped (must have caught a brief relisting).

But after reading this thread I was getting kinda ticked and was just about to call ATI to cancel, since I thought they'd tell me the card was actually OOS. But I first checked my order status online, and was surprised to see it shipped yesterday by Fedex. I'll get it Friday.

 

[Solarium]

Turned out I can only overclock the X800XT to around 515/522, is there a good ATI x800 series GPU fan that allows further overclocking, even to XT PE speeds of 520/560?

 

[cyburzaki]

Originally posted by: Solarium
Turned out I can only overclock the X800XT to around 515/522, is there a good ATI x800 series GPU fan that allows further overclocking, even to XT PE speeds of 520/560?

Zalman's VF900-Cu is an excellent cooler, and its older (but lesser) sibling, the VF700-Cu is also pretty good. But some reviews now place the Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus at the top of the heap for air-cooled efficacy. The Sytrin, though, can be somewhat problematical and time-consuming to install, depending upon the application.

For sheer bang for the buck, though, and considering you're not putting this on an expensive, cutting edge card, I think I'd go with an Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4--especially with the deal that SVC is currently offering on the Rev. 1 version. Pretty hard to beat $9.99 (even with another $5.89 for shipping by Priority Mail). Or you could spend $24.99 on Rev. 2, which offers a few extra, but not critical, refinements and niceties.

There's no guarantee, though, that better air cooling will take you to your 520/560 target, although it'll definitely raise the attainable ceiling. And I'd be outright flabbergasted if it didn't give you way more than a mere 5MHz on the core.

 

[Solarium]

Originally posted by: cyburzaki

Originally posted by: Solarium
Turned out I can only overclock the X800XT to around 515/522, is there a good ATI x800 series GPU fan that allows further overclocking, even to XT PE speeds of 520/560?

Zalman's VF900-Cu is an excellent cooler, and its older (but lesser) sibling, the VF700-Cu is also pretty good. But some reviews now place the Sytrin KuFormula VF1 Plus at the top of the heap for air-cooled efficacy. The Sytrin, though, can be somewhat problematical and time-consuming to install, depending upon the application.

For sheer bang for the buck, though, and considering you're not putting this on an expensive, cutting edge card, I think I'd go with an Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 4--especially with the deal that SVC is currently offering on the Rev. 1 version. Pretty hard to beat $9.99 (even with another $5.89 for shipping by Priority Mail). Or you could spend $24.99 on Rev. 2, which offers a few extra, but not critical, refinements and niceties.

There's no guarantee, though, that better air cooling will take you to your 520/560 target, although it'll definitely raise the attainable ceiling. And I'd be outright flabbergasted if it didn't give you way more than a mere 5MHz on the core.

Just saw the AC for 10 bucks, but also just found out that it's not compatible with my AIW. The Sytrin is 41 bucks shipped, kinda high considering I only spent 120 on the video card. If I can find a Zalman for 20 bucks shipped I would just go for it then... but I'm still trying to look for AIW compatibility around the net, since their website doesn't list the X800XT AIW AGP in either the compatible list or the non-compatible list.

Anyone knows if the AIW is slower than the regular x800 XT? I seem to have gotten a pretty badly overclocked one, most ppl can o/c to XT PE speeds fairly easy.

Come to think of it, if any 3rd party cooling doesn't significantly allow higher O/C's, then I might as well sit my ass down and play games at default speeds. I got 1 fps increase in F.E.A.R. and 2 fps increase in Counter-Strike Source after overclocking my AMD64 3400+ socket754 from 2.4 Ghz to 2.6 Ghz, and my video card from 500/500 to 515/515. Even if I do get another 2-3 fps increase if I O/C to XT PE speeds, the percentage is still very small (52 to 57 in F.E.A.R, and 120 to 125 in CSS). I might as well not buy anything at all... all this time I thought the O/C would help at least 10%. This is very disappointing 8/

 

[BDawg]

Anyone knows if the AIW is slower than the regular x800 XT? I seem to have gotten a pretty badly overclocked one, most ppl can o/c to XT PE speeds fairly easy.

They're both 500/500.

 

[cyburzaki]

Originally posted by: Solarium
Just saw the AC for 10 bucks, but also just found out that it's not compatible with my AIW.

yeah, some AIW cards have slightly different surface architecture, but according to Arctic Cooling, the first iteration of the ATI Silencer 4 will work--at least on an AIW X800 XT that is R420-based. But I have to confess I haven't read this entire thread, and maybe you are talking about an R430 card that uses the Rialto PCI-express to AGP bridge...

 

[Rachet]

BDawg, This review shows that the cards are basically identical.

http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/video/aiwx800xt/

I did see another review that showed a minute difference with the slight
advantage going to the non AIW card

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: Rachet
BDawg, This review shows that the cards are basically identical.

Isn't that what I said?

 

[cyburzaki]

I lucked out! the X850 Pro that I ordered on the 14th, and received yesterday (it got here a day early) is unlockable. And opening up the extra four pipes was a breeze with a bootable and automated flash utility written by "dolf." He's got the complete collection of his ATI flash utilities available for download in one zipped file at: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/332.

 

[Piblokto]

cyburzaki,

Did you confirm your card was unlockable first, or did you just go ahead and flash the BIOS?

Per my earlier post, you can confirm unlockability via the following:

To determine if your ATI card is capable of unlocking the extra 4 pipes, you need of course the ATI Tool to determine both your Die and Substrate Fuse configurations. Once done, this is what they should display in order to determine whether your card can be moldable to 16 pipes:

CONFIG_DIE_FUSES:xxxxFxxx
CONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES:xxxxxxxF

Whereby 'F' denotes 16 pipe capable within the Config Die Fuse, whilst the 'F' denotes "NOT Laser Cut" within the substrate fuse.

Given BOTH: your card is moddable for 16 pipes with a simple bios flash

 

[cyburzaki]

Piblokto - checked the fuses data first in ATI Tool before flashing. For this first go around I flashed only to open up the extra four pipes, using dolf's BIOS that does that but keeps the stock 500/500 clocks. Max clock runs in ATI Tool suggest this card will run at XT PE speeds of 540/590--but I'm going to swap coolers first before actually burning a BIOS at that level.

A before and after run in 3DMark05, both at 500/500, showed the extra four pipes added 12% to the score, from 5282 to 5905. Just ran again at 535/560, and got 6374. I'm stoked.

 

[Rachet]

Sorry BDawg, I did't see the "quote", I just read the rest.

 

[agentsmith101]

Originally posted by: shafts
Hey I just ordered the X800 XT AIW from the tradeup section. The price is $179 minus $50 bucks after I send in another Video Card. That includes the shipping and tax so the overall price is $129. Go to http://shop.ati.com/tradeup.asp to see it and look at the tradeup requirements. Also the X800 XT isn't far off from the X850 XT and you don't have to risk the X850 pro mod or locked pipes. Plus this is a new unit with 3 year warranty another bonus.

L8

Do you have to pay shipping to send your card?

 

[Sonikku]

I don't know, but one thing I do know is t hat ATI.com does NOT have the X800XT in stock, despite what their website reads. Beware.

 

[Solarium]

Damn you, the overclockability of the 850 pro is so much better than the x800 xt. I guess the only thing that I can convince myself is that it has the AIW functions and a remote I will never use 8/

 

[arswihart]

ordered a x800xt AIW on 8/13, still not shipped, no e-mail telling me any estimated date, kind of sucks

I have a Rage 128 ready to send them in exchange for $50, nice trade i think, the price before the rebate is good enough as it is, the rebate makes this deal a no brainer for anyone with a 9800pro or worse.

 

[ElectricLegs]

Originally posted by: cyburzaki

Originally posted by: Solarium
Just saw the AC for 10 bucks, but also just found out that it's not compatible with my AIW.

yeah, some AIW cards have slightly different surface architecture, but according to Arctic Cooling, the first iteration of the ATI Silencer 4 will work--at least on an AIW X800 XT that is R420-based. But I have to confess I haven't read this entire thread, and maybe you are talking about an R430 card that uses the Rialto PCI-express to AGP bridge...

I have the 4 on my 800xt but had to Dremel 1 corner of 1 copper memory contact to get it to set level.

 

[Solarium]

Originally posted by: ElectricLegs

Originally posted by: cyburzaki

Originally posted by: Solarium
Just saw the AC for 10 bucks, but also just found out that it's not compatible with my AIW.

yeah, some AIW cards have slightly different surface architecture, but according to Arctic Cooling, the first iteration of the ATI Silencer 4 will work--at least on an AIW X800 XT that is R420-based. But I have to confess I haven't read this entire thread, and maybe you are talking about an R430 card that uses the Rialto PCI-express to AGP bridge...

I have the 4 on my 800xt but had to Dremel 1 corner of 1 copper memory contact to get it to set level.

You got the ATI Silencer 4 rev.1 or rev.2? The rev.1 is currently on sale at SVC for 10 bucks... wondering if I should jump on that. However, the 6 bucks shipping kills it 8/