ND FDBCK - X800 Pro VIVO pci-e vs 2x6600GT SLI

[Cisco Kid]

Hi guys,

I have an offer to sell my 2x6600GT's and pick up a new X800 Pro VIVO pci-e card for less. It is OEM and new. One benefit of a single pci-e card is my cpu overlclock will become better. I am using a newcastle 3500 on a MSI NF4 SLI Platinum SLI board with 2x512 PC3700EB. Currently at 225fsb at stock multi but I am thinking about a single pci-e card and doing 250x10, as I know the chip will do it on water.

Here is question the 2x6600GT's imho are pretty fast in SLI even benches show them doing very well against an X800XL and X850XT but getting beat at higher res with detail set higher.

However I am playing at max of 1280x1024. Would an X800 Pro VIVO if it mods to 16 pipes and overclocks well be faster than than the 2x6600GT's

Would the 256 DDR be noteiceble over the 2 - 128DDR cards with 8 pripes each??

 

[Muppetmower]

Pro's only have 12 pipes. Get the X800xl. Best value on any videocard.

 

[mikeguava]

What are the typical benchmark scores your 6600GT SLI rig gets? The top performers in the 6600GT sli benches are all faster than any X800XL or X800Pro. I am not sure how far you have been pushing your system and cards - but it'll be hard for either one of those two cards to be faster than what you have.

The X800PRO PCI-E unfortunately can not be unlocked for 16Pipes only the AGP VIVO can.
But the good thing is the X800PROs overclock extremely well - much better than any X800Xl. The XL on the other hand is a tad bit faster stock but hits a wall quickly while overclocking. Some peeps argue the the 16pipes are better for high res etc. - not sure about that one.
I personally love the X800Pro - it's fun to see how you can push out of it. But both cards aren't too far apart from each other - but the Pro being cheaper - in my mind there is no doubt which of the 2 the better choice would be...

 

[Cisco Kid]

What are the typical benchmark scores your 6600GT SLI rig gets? The top performers in the 6600GT sli benches are all faster than any X800XL or X800Pro. I am not sure how far you have been pushing your system and cards - but it'll be hard for either one of those two cards to be faster than what you have.

The X800PRO PCI-E unfortunately can not be unlocked for 16Pipes only the AGP VIVO can.
But the good thing is the X800PROs overclock extremely well - much better than any X800Xl. The XL on the other hand is a tad bit faster stock but hits a wall quickly while overclocking. Some peeps argue the the 16pipes are better for high res etc. - not sure about that one.
I personally love the X800Pro - it's fun to see how you can push out of it. But both cards aren't too far apart from each other - but the Pro being cheaper - in my mind there is no doubt which of the 2 the better choice would be...

Thanks for your feedback I was unaware that the pci-e X800 VIVO will not soft mod. I was hoping it would causethe 16 pipes ould give a big boost.

currently my 2 6600GTs in 3D03 score near 15K or have done so from last time I benched. I was looking at the possibility of saving some cash going from the 2 down to a the X800 Pro VIVO.

Question , why is the pci-e VIVO non moddable over the agp version. Also I guess going to a single card defeats the purchase of my SLI board as well

But a single card may allow a higher overclock for me on my cpu with greater bandwidth but roughly the same clock speed

 

[mikeguava]

Well actually I am not sure whether it is a bad thing that the 4 pipes are disabled - those might actually be "bad" pipes - and the remaining pipes might be great for extreme overclocking.

The PCI-E cards actually only use 2.0ns memory vs. the 1.6ns of the AGP VIVO ( and only the VIVO version has the 1.6ns to my knowledge)
Even with the AGP X800Pro that have all their pipes unlocked they do get an immediate boost - but never reach the overclocks of true X800 XT or X800XT PE. On the PCI-E cards there now is a lasercut - to make sure that the pipes are disconnected permantly.
On the positive side the 12 pipes PCI-E score about the same scores on benchmarks than the unlocked 16 pipes AGP cards - due to the fact that they can be clocked a lot higher.
I got very lucky and my X800 Pro had insane clocks even at default voltages - but even average clockers can make it to 13k in 3DMark03. To beat your 15k score with the SLI 6600GT combo might be possible - if you had an extremely good CPU - GPU combo with vmods, phase change etc. - but I would be a much bigger effort as with the SLI setup.

BTW you can get refurbished X800Pro at newegg for $203.50 I got mine for that price...

 

[Cisco Kid]

it appears I should just keep my 6600GT sli units, this one I have to give thought

 

[mikeguava]

it appears I should just keep my 6600GT sli units, this one I have to give thought

if high benchmarks is what you are after - I absolutely agree
my poison is 3DMark05 - and the fastest 6600GT SLI rig has a score of over 8600...I wish I could get near that with my X800PRO...but I will try, but doubt I'll get there in the near future...

 

[Sentential]

it appears I should just keep my 6600GT sli units, this one I have to give thought

Honestally If you were to do anything it should be to get out of the market entirely since next-gen cards are a month away. This is why I bought a vanilla 6600

 

[IWasHungry]

You can try hardmodding the X800PRO into the X800XT, but it's a long shot. Personally I would probably stick with the 2x 6600GTs.

 

[Cisco Kid]

I am not intersted in long shots and I could care less about next gen cards as the 2x6600GT sli will play anything to come reasonably well for sometime to come.

I am running a 3500 at 2.5 and if i do anything I would rather dump the cash on a 4000+ or FX53 before I would do a vid card upgrade to the next gen.

The debate is whether an X800 Pro pci-e would be able to perform on par or better than my 2x6600GT and with the better fsb overclock due to a single v-card if I will be able to achieve scores and performance similar to what I have.

I guess I can slap myself in the face cause the only way to find out would be to try.
However I am not really into tinkering to get there cause the SLI was as simple as it comes to be honest.

BTW when will ATI debut their sli counterpart?

I do appreciate the feedback, I guess I am realizing that what I am trying to determine could be time consuming. I know if I could find a pci-e X850XT at say 365 I would hop onto it. X850Xt is sellig at 450 canadian in agp form at FS.com which is a great deal but nada for the pci-e form

 

[Cisco Kid]

ATI RADEON X800 PRO PCIe 256Mb will this support ATI's version of SLI coming out?

 

[techun]

why not get a 6800gt..you already have the sli mobo and everything, and that's your single, faster card

and you can add another one when you want..

 

[mikeguava]

ATI RADEON X800 PRO PCIe 256Mb will this support ATI's version of SLI coming out?

The rumor is that you will have to get a "master" card and you would be able to add most type of ATI cards as the second card for ATI's version of SLI - I would assume that the X800Pro would work in such type of setup. But we will know more in just a few days....

 

[Cisco Kid]

The rumor is that you will have to get a "master" card and you would be able to add most type of ATI cards as the second card for ATI's version of SLI - I would assume that the X800Pro would work in such type of setup. But we will know more in just a few days....

POST the news about AMR asap, this interests me with cost of an X800 Pro pic-e veing cheap

 

[mikeguava]

sorry for the delay - fell on my butt with my bike... the rumors are that with the ATI crossfire mastercard - you can add up to 32 GPUs total of any type for ATI's flavor of SLI.
I guess that could include Nvidia and old PCI cards ? - no clue - doubt it if they had single input and are connected by a dongle cable, but...
Not that there any mobo which has that many slots - a Gigabyte board with 4 PCI-E and a couple of PCI slots could atill produce a lot of power...
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23571
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23570
There were a couple of more articles on a German ATI site referring to the uup to 32 GPU support of any kind of GPU, but I couldn't find them off hand anymore plus I am not sure how good your german is

 

[mikeguava]

actually it was on tomshardware also
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050526_155843.html

 

[Cisco Kid]

thanks for feedback guys, I am interested in 2 x X800 Pro pci- cards in AMR but this will require a new board as well. Most sensible would be to leave well enough alone which I wqill prolly do as I have not tweasked out my system to its max yet anyways

Scoring 6700 in 3D05 and about 200 points shy 15K in 3D03

This tinkering upgrading playing around with new hardware bug is nasty!!

 

[mikeguava]

http://techreport.com/etc/2005q2/ati-crossfire/index.x?pg=1

 

[Cisco Kid]

http://techreport.com/etc/2005q2/ati-crossfire/index.x?pg=1

thanks for the informative link, I think I am gonna stay put where I am for a while

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

i would personally want just one card, then have to deal with the hassel of SLI, worrying about if the game i just bought would be supported.

i don't care at all about 3d marks. i care about my games working, and looking good at the same time.