Finally bought a new video card...

[Anusha]

Today I bought a Sapphire (ATI) X800GTO 256MB PCI-E from PC Partner (or PC House). You wouldn't believe the price of it. Only Rs.9,500.

Not only it's cheap, it overclocked well too. I installed the overclocking too included in the driver CD. There is a overclocking mode called "Performance" where the card automatically checks the safest maximum core and memory clock speeds keeping the temperature in a safe level. By this method, I could overclock the core from 400MHz to 493MHz (almost 25%) and memory from 490MHz (or 980MHz DDR) to 563MHz (or 1126MHz DDR) (almost 15%).

With those clock speeds and ATI Catalyst 6.10 driver, I can run NFS Carbon at 25-40 frames per second with all settings set to maximum (except motion blur which is not supported on this card because this card doesn't have pixel shader 3 support) and 1280x960 with 2x anti-aliasing and whatever anisotropic filtering level the game applies. It's amazing!!! I didn't expect to see this card do that well in this brand new game. Faster nVidia cards can't perform this well in NFS Carbon. Maybe it's a driver issue, who knows. For the moment, this is an unbelievably fast card.

Anyone looking for a new PCI-E card, head over to PC Partner and buy this card for Rs.9,500. The best card they have (at least the most expensive one) costs about Rs.23,000 (ATI X1600), and it's more than twice slower than this. Hahahah... Those PC Partner people don't know a thing other than doing business

 

[Novindu]

hehe wow machoo... i thnk ur lucky o dey must be mistaken

 

[Anusha]

They were not mistaken. If you check the current prices in USA, X1600 is still expensive than the old but fast X800GTO. The price they sell the Sapphire X800GTO 256MB at newegg.com is US$86.99. I only paid Rs.800 more.

BTW, Novindu, this is PCI-E. I didn't see the AGP version at PC Partner.

 

[Anusha]

This card has 12 pixel pipelines. I just checked the card using a software and it seems there are hidden (deactivated) 4 pixel pipelines. Looks like I can unlock them - at least the preliminary checking was promising.

If that's true and if i get it done without damaging the card, it will become an X850XT, which is faster than a Geforce 7600GT. Wow! This was once a US$500 card

Wish me luck. This will also help those people who are looking to buy this card.

 

[Novindu]

oh is dat so??? den no use for me @ all

 

[Novindu]

This card has 12 pixel pipelines. I just checked the card using a software and it seems there are hidden (deactivated) 4 pixel pipelines. Looks like I can unlock them - at least the preliminary checking was promising.

If that's true and if i get it done without damaging the card, it will become an X850XT, which is faster than a Geforce 7600GT. Wow! This was once a US$500 card

Wish me luck. This will also help those people who are looking to buy this card.

ya guuud luk macho.... may god an all his servents be with u with da whole process!!

 

[Anusha]

Thanks dude

 

[Novindu]

annny time bro

 

[GTRZ]

haha nice to see you found something atlast! low cost great performer.
All the best bro!
looking forward for some high res NFSC screen shots...

 

[Michael]

haha nice to see you found something atlast! low cost great performer.
All the best bro!
looking forward for some high res NFSC screen shots...

ya! That's What I Want Too. I Want To See How Is The Graphics On The Game!

 

[Anusha]

Yippie. Successfully unlocked the remaining 4 pipelines. Now it's an X800XL. With successful overclocking, it will be similar to X850XT. That's a US$500 card couple of years ago.

P.S.
Now the card can't overclock as much as it could previously. This is the safe clocks. It might reach the previous speeds if I try it manually. But don't feel like doing that right now. However, the performance is higher than before because of 33% increase in pipelines.

 

[HishamZz]

and to to think bout it .. i was bout to buy da shit a few years back for bout 65k lmao.. who knwz.. it stil might b dat card available cuz dose moronz kept on importing the wrong specs of what i needed...

Zz

 

[nEoN_wHitE]

hey wheres da srn shots

 

[Novindu]

Yippie. Successfully unlocked the remaining 4 pipelines. Now it's an X800XL. With successful overclocking, it will be similar to X850XT. That's a US$500 card couple of years ago.

P.S.
Now the card can't overclock as much as it could previously. This is the safe clocks. It might reach the previous speeds if I try it manually. But don't feel like doing that right now. However, the performance is higher than before because of 33% increase in pipelines.

wow machooo congratzzz

 

[HishamZz]

ado anusha.. are ya rentin out ya color card? letz like eh.. 500 bux per week.. just 2 finish of nfs carbon n itz back 2 ya

Zz

 

[sri_lion]

They were not mistaken. If you check the current prices in USA, X1600 is still expensive than the old but fast X800GTO. The price they sell the Sapphire X800GTO 256MB at newegg.com is US$86.99. I only paid Rs.800 more.

BTW, Novindu, this is PCI-E. I didn't see the AGP version at PC Partner.

Its chepaer than X1600 because it doesnt have features like "CROSSFIRE" and AVIVO!!!!!!

But X16XX series does!!! that's I think the future of Graphic Cards.. And unlike Ge Force SLI you can enble the CROSSFIRE to any secondary CROSSFIRE featured ATI card you buy next!!!!

I would go for X16XX straight away!!!! because I dont wanna throw away my Graphics Card after couple of years when the gaming demands get high!!!

And 23k is DAMN expensive for a X1600, I checked the prices here last monday its around Rs.10,600/= when converted!!! Even the 1650 costs about 15k only... DAMN!!! Just imagine how much profit they are getting......... SUCKERS!!!!

 

[Anusha]

But what's point of having a 2 X1600 cards which would cost 40000 if you buy now, and still perform SLOWER than my overclocked Rs. 9500 card or about same?

X1650Pro is not good either. You need X1650XT which is about the speed of a 7600GT. And ATI offering use helluva lot of power than nVidia offering - not only in the enthusiast level, but in the midrange as well. I believe my video card uses more power than the 7600GT. So 2 X1600 cards will require quite a lot of power.

Besides, you need motherboards which have two PCI-E 16x ports to run them in Crossfire. Those motherboards aren't cheap either. And Crossfire doesn't always deliever the performance of a comparable single graphics card.

Remember, you can't play NFS Carbon well on a X1600 card unless it's a X1650Pro or XT with all the details set to max.

 

[Anusha]

ado anusha.. are ya rentin out ya color card? letz like eh.. 500 bux per week.. just 2 finish of nfs carbon n itz back 2 ya

Zz

No way man
I finished it with onboard graphics that sux like hell than your 6200.

 

[Anusha]

hey wheres da srn shots

I'm not at home at the moment. I will surely post some when I get home.

Was busy benchmarking / unlocking (flashing) / benchmarking / overclocking / benchmarking yesterday night and today morning. That's why the delay.

 

[Anusha]

Here are some screenshots. That yellow number on the top, left hand corner is the framerate measured by FRAPS. Only one will load in elakiri, because otherwise it will take long to load. Rest of them have direct links to imageshack.us.



Image002
Image003
Image004
Image005
Image006

Damn. I just noticed that some images are overlapped
I pasted them on one mspaint each time. did it in a hurry. you will see good screeshots tonight.