ATI finally drove me to nvidia

I have been a fan of ATI for a long time and have tried to stick to their cards, but they have finally drove me to nVidia. I have been wanting an x800 series for some time, and the x800xl lookes like the perfect card for me. Unfortunatly, it is almost impossable to find high end ati cards in Canada, and their prices are insane!!! You want an x800pro, local shop sells them for a mear $580 cdn... plus 14.5% tax. You want an x800 XT, their only $800. Don't worry about actually getting these cards though, they are always out of stock, so after you lay down your money you can expect to wait a month or two. AGP x800xl's arn't even listed by canadian stores.

I'd like to stay with ATI, but I just can't do it. They produce good cards, but they don't produce enough of them to keep vendors from ripping us off. I've bought a good 6800GT from the classifieds for less than I would end up paying for an x800se.

Excaliberpc.com

Does EXcaliberPC.com ship internationally?
Yes, we do ship internationally.

Might want to keep them in mind if you do go back to ATI...

yeah, you shouldn't let things like that decide which card you are going to get, i went from mx440 - fx5900- 9800- x800pro- 6800GT- 6800U- x850xtpe, and i think its safe to say that i won't be going NV anytime soon, IQ and performance can't be matched

Im one of the biggest ATI fanboys youll ever meet. But ATI drove me to Nvidia with the linux driver support. I spent three weeks trying to get my 9500 instaled properly as supposed to 5 minutes for my ti4200. Granted Im still a linux newb but the difference in driver install and compaitablitly made it for me.

Hmmm.... not sure where you are getting your prices from.

ATIC.ca has:

Sapphire X800PRO PCI-E -$360
http://www.atic.ca/index.php?page=LongDesc&sku=11602

Sapphire X800XL PCI-E - $370
http://www.atic.ca/index.php?page=LongDesc&sku=12229

EDIT - I just looked at your sig and noticed you probably need the AGP versions.

ATIC.ca also has:

Sapphire X800PRO AGP - $455
http://www.atic.ca/index.php?page=LongDesc&sku=06112

Sapphire X800XT VIVO AGP - $585
http://www.atic.ca/index.php?page=LongDesc&sku=08593

ATIC.ca is also based out of Vancouver.... so you dont have to pay any shipping. Keep this in mind for next time I'm sure you'll love the 6800GT. Enjoy.


-Adrayic

you guys must rember that 6800U is the card which is supposed to battle with the X800XTPE which it does very well, but the x850xtpe is a new version of the x800xtpe which i don't belive it should be allowed to be compared to a 6800U

Okay, lets not turn this thread into an Nvidia vs. Ati battle.. PLEASE

Blackmage said:

you guys must rember that 6800U is the card which is supposed to battle with the X800XTPE which it does very well, but the x850xtpe is a new version of the x800xtpe which i don't belive it should be allowed to be compared to a 6800U

Click to expand...

i believe the x850xt is slower clock to clock against an x800xt, the x850xts are a little faster(clocks) to make up for it

I don't want this to turn into an ATI vs Nvidia thread either. They are both great cards and very evenly matched. If they wern't they couldn't both stay in business.

Yes, I do need the AGP versions of cards, and I know all about atic. Half the parts in my computer are from atic. The problem with atic is that the store is pretty sketchy... they don't actually have most of the stuff listed on their site, usually only the stuff listed on their front page is actually in stock. Their stock is questionable as well, it tends to be very old, and I wouldn't be supprised to learn that half of it is refurbs or stolen. There isn't a single person in the entire store that speaks more than 3 words in english, and you can compleatly forget about any customer support or anything like that.

The prices I was talking about were from NCIX, who are a much better store. If you give them the money they actually will get you the card eventually, unlike atic who will just tell you it isn't in stock.

I know there are a lot of online places that will ship to canada, but you generally end up paying higher prices than you would at a local shop and have to pay for shipping and other stuff. I wish I could have got an ATI card, but their avalability in Canada is terrable.

Matt - thanks for the heads up - I had no idea about ATIC.. I was just going to place an order for the Sapphire X800PRO PCI tomorrow.... maybe i'll have to reconsider. I will see if NCIX can match the price first.

-Adrayic

Dang! I thought I was going to see a little ATI versus NVIDIA bloodletting and what do I get? Peaceful coexistence! Guess I'll have to turn on the old TV for some wholesome violence.

Adrayic said:

Matt - thanks for the heads up - I had no idea about ATIC.. I was just going to place an order for the Sapphire X800PRO PCI tomorrow.... maybe i'll have to reconsider. I will see if NCIX can match the price first.

-Adrayic

Click to expand...

NCIX will almost always match atic's price. The only time they don't is when atic has some rediculous price listed on their site because they know they don't have any of that product to sell.

Well I really hope so.... however, I am concerned with the extreme price difference between identical products. Take a look:

ATIC.CA
---------
SAPPHIRE Radeon X800 Pro 256M TV-o DVi-i ViVo PCI-Express - $345
http://www.atic.ca/index.php?page=LongDesc&sku=11602

NCIX.com
----------
SAPPHIRE RADEON X800 PRO VIDEO CARD PCI EXPRESS 256MB DDR VGA VIVO OEM - $522
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=13322&vpn=X800P-256-VIVO-OEM&manufacture=SAPPHIRE

I'm not sure why the NCIX price is so high... the card they are selling is OEM too... go figure. NEWEGG has the same card (retail) for $280US so I the ATIC price is pretty competative. I hope NCIX will match.

-Adrayic

That is a pretty good price, the one thing atic always has going for them is their prices. Since it says it is available on their website NCIX should match it, but they may not. I have had a couple experiences where NCIX refused to match atic's price because it was soo much lower than theirs.

Where do you live? I would highly recomend that if you do buy something from atic you actually go there and pick it up. This way you don't end up paying for something and then waiting forever to get it, and can inspect the thing before you take it. You should research the exact product SKU's and part numbers and what is in them, atic is the store that sold me my weird 9600XT that doesn't have any thermalprobes or support overdrive, and has a maximum overclock of right around where overdrive would put the card (exentailly no overclock). Somehow they got their hands on a cheaper initial run of the card that was missing those features and was pretty crappy, but there was no real way to tell without researching the product number.