Newegg has Diamond X1950 Pro 512MB AGP

"First of One" root@localhost wrote in message ...
wrote in message
om...
Not quite true. The GS+ has 512MB and is substantially
more overclockable than the GS. On the PCIE side you
need to move to a GTX for comparable performance.

Common misconception. Remember a "real" GTX can be overclocked further. Many
7900GTs fitted with a $30 Arctic Cooler can overclock just as well as
Gainward's GS+.

For what it's worth, the Powercolor X1950 Pro, in both PCIe and AGP forms,
has an AC Accelero X2. It, too, can overclock very well.

512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at high-res
with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most demanding.

Benchmarks for games like Oblivion, FEAR etc beg to differ.
There are substantial benefits to 512MB, e.g.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page3.asp

7900GT: 45.5 FPS

7900GTX: 70.8 FPS

Er, nope. The benefits come from the GTX's higher default clock speed, not
its 512 MB of RAM. I hope you are not implying the only difference between
the 7900GT and GTX is the amount of RAM?

At the same clock speeds, 512 MB makes no difference. Here's an article from
the 7800GTX512 review (when 512 MB first became fashionable). FEAR is among
the games used.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...12mb/page3.asp

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

wrote in message
...
"First of One" root@localhost wrote in message
...
512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at high-res
with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most demanding.

Benchmarks for games like Oblivion, FEAR etc beg to differ.
There are substantial benefits to 512MB, e.g.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page3.asp

7900GT: 45.5 FPS

7900GTX: 70.8 FPS

"First of One" root@localhost wrote in
:

wrote in message
om...
Not quite true. The GS+ has 512MB and is substantially
more overclockable than the GS. On the PCIE side you
need to move to a GTX for comparable performance.

Common misconception. Remember a "real" GTX can be overclocked
further. Many 7900GTs fitted with a $30 Arctic Cooler can overclock
just as well as Gainward's GS+.

For what it's worth, the Powercolor X1950 Pro, in both PCIe and AGP
forms, has an AC Accelero X2. It, too, can overclock very well.

512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at
high-res with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most
demanding. The extra RAM is probably padding up the price, but it
doesn't *justify* the price because it doesn't improve the gaming
experience.

Well, the extra RAM doesn't necessarily help performance, and in fact, the
card might actually be a smidge slower than a 256MB version. But can't
better visual experience due to larger textures justify it?

i.e., might it not be worth it to take 512 card over a 256 card and accept,
say, a 3fps hit, if I see a noticeably better looking game due to higher
quality textures that I can load into it?

"Too_Much_Coffee ®" wrote in
:

$290.00 USD


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814103024

or

http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl

Looking at the images, it appears to be using the same crappy cooler as the
Sapphire 512MB card. (Which can be seen in images in its review at
www.driverheaven.net)

I was hoping (expecting) Diamond to use the same cooler as they do on their
PCIe version of the card. Silly me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814103022

The benchmark comparisons are always done with equal in-game quality
settings, and often already at the maximum available settings. With the
advent of AGP texturing all cards can load the highest-quality textures. The
expectation is, cards with less onboard memory will see more content spill
over into system memory, and run slower. With current games we are not
seeing this difference between 256 MB and 512 MB cards.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

"Nonymous" wrote in message
...
Well, the extra RAM doesn't necessarily help performance, and in fact, the
card might actually be a smidge slower than a 256MB version. But can't
better visual experience due to larger textures justify it?

i.e., might it not be worth it to take 512 card over a 256 card and
accept,
say, a 3fps hit, if I see a noticeably better looking game due to higher
quality textures that I can load into it?

The "crappy" cooler is roughly the same size as the "good" one, with a
similarly sized fan. It has a copper inlay contacting the GPU die. It seems
to follow the ATi reference design:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2858&p=2

Nowhere nearly as good as Powercolor's AC Accelero X2, though:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ro_agp_review/

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

"Nonymous" wrote in message
...
Looking at the images, it appears to be using the same crappy cooler as
the
Sapphire 512MB card. (Which can be seen in images in its review at
www.driverheaven.net)

I was hoping (expecting) Diamond to use the same cooler as they do on
their
PCIe version of the card. Silly me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814103022

Too_Much_Coffee ® wrote:
$290.00 USD


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814103024

or

http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl


This product is no longer available on Newegg. (???)


TMC

"Too_Much_Coffee ®" wrote in
:

http://tinyurl.com/yec4gl

Guess so. I definitely saw it there a couple days ago. It wasn't easy to
find.

It could be it's just lost in newegg's database as it seemed to be not
categorized right in the first place. The only way I could originally find
it was to browse to Video Cards, then view all the Diamond products and
then start scrolling through the thirdy-some results. If I searched on it
(such as "X1950PRO"), only the PCIe versions showed up, and if I tried to
browse to it a different way (such as show me all AGP-based ATI cards), it
wouldn't come up.

I've seen several posts this weekend on various forums telling people that
newegg had it. I wouldn't be surprised if those posts essentially let the
cat out of the bag and they're now all gone.

Keep checking back. Newegg does that alot when they sell out. It will
show back up again.

First of One wrote:
wrote in message
om...
Not quite true. The GS+ has 512MB and is substantially
more overclockable than the GS. On the PCIE side you
need to move to a GTX for comparable performance.

Common misconception. Remember a "real" GTX can be overclocked further. Many
7900GTs fitted with a $30 Arctic Cooler can overclock just as well as
Gainward's GS+.

For what it's worth, the Powercolor X1950 Pro, in both PCIe and AGP forms,
has an AC Accelero X2. It, too, can overclock very well.

512 MB has shown to be of very little benefit in games, even at high-res
with AA, where the framebuffer requirements are the most demanding. The
extra RAM is probably padding up the price, but it doesn't *justify* the
price because it doesn't improve the gaming experience.


What especially cracks me up is when I see a low-end card like the X1600
with 512MB of RAM...talk about a waste!