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I feel your pain, man. I'm in Canada.

All I can say to you is, ebay is your friend. I got my X1800 XL in Canada for $340 USD brand new from a trusted etailer. I've also ordered cards from the US... just keep your eye out for deals.

Sure, it's worth getting an X1800 XL or 7800 GT. Just get them used, at a deal. Should be able to find 7800 GTs on ebay in the low $200s.

Lawl, ebay is worthless for us amercians. shipping is slow, prices are high and parts are lower quality (unless new)

Hi Cleeve,

I would recommend the 6600GT over the X1600Pro because it is a more reliable gaming card. Both cards perform almost the same in average, but the X1600Pro tend to have some games it favors and some games it totally hates, such as Call of Duty 2 or Doom 3. Sure, for its price, it is not a bad investement, and it might even be considered superior because of its better video playback. But the 6600GT is the better gaming solution.

I basically agree with you Asik, and if you read the commentary in the recommendations those caviats are pointed out.

That's why both cards are recommended for AGP in the $100 to $150 range.

Just as a note, recently, retail X1600XTs just passed into the $150US range, so, though they're just barely in there, you may want to consider it. ($150US X1600XT; OEM is $149US)

Likewise, when comparing the X1600 cards to their competitors, do remember that the difference primarily lies within how their shader-to-texture layouts are; nVidia is clearly convinced that texture performance is the most important, while ATi is adamant that pixel shaders are the most important part of gaming framerates.

However, in the real world, it all depends on the game you select; ones like Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2 are rather texture-heavy; sure, they use a lot of shaders, but those pale in comparison to the texturing that's laid over the game. Likewise, such games will perform better on nVidia's cards.

On the other side, you have games like F.E.A.R., and as it would appear, also The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. These are shader-intensive games; their texturing does look nice, but they go all-out when it comes to shaders, with any given object being subject to not merely normal-mapping, but parralax-mapping as well, and countless others as well, even BEFORE you get to the HDR part. Likewise, it would seem that these games would perform better on ATi's "lopsided" X1600 and X1900 cards.

Hopefully X1900XT/XTX prices will drop to keep up pace with 7900's. I'd love to pick one up

Well, it appears that they've already done so; The X1900XTX is currently the same price as the 7900GTX, (though that is, in part, due to people snatching up all the lower-cost 7900GTX cards) in part due to a "mysterious" price slash on the X1900s that occured around the time of the 7900 launch.

What's a real shame is that ATi was doing so well to have the X1900s availible before their official launch, yet the X1800GTO is nowhere to be seen. A real shame, as they were headed in the right direction... (and nVidia, with the 7800GTX 512, had been heading to look like ATi)

The X1800 GTO was never supposed to be here yet. It was launched with a future availability date, which thay explained at launch.

They never claimed immediate availability. As long as it gets here by the date supplied (end of the month I believe), it's all as promised.

I vote that the 7600 GT should switch places with the x850 xt for the price category they are in.

A post I made earlier:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/har [...] 78310.html

What do you guys think?

-Ian

hm....yeah I support if the 7600 is comparable to a 6800ultra which pwned the x850.

yeah wait a little because x1800gtos are supposed to come out soon and will most likey abolish the x850xts, the only have 12 pixel pipelines but will have the same hyperthreaded core.

Yeah, I would say that it comes damn close, looking at these benchies

http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =2717&p=10

Keep in mind all the anandtech benchmarks are done with 4xFSAA which takes a bigger hit on the 7600 GT 128 bit memory and lower memory bandwidth than that of the cards with 256 bit memory interfaces. (ie the x850xt). And If the anti aliasing was turned down to 2, i think the performance of the 7600 GT would shine even more.

-Ian

EDIT: Yeah the X1800gto will be an interesting addition to the pool... Will have to see what the pricing is on it, etc.

X1600XTs are not available in AGP as far as I know. The X1600PRO is, which is why it tied between the X1600PRO and the 6600GT in the $100 - $150 AGP category. However, would the X1600XT be a good contender against the X800GTO in the PCI-E category even though it only has a 128-bit interface vs X800GTOs 256-bit??

As the list points out, choosing the card depends on which games you play.

X1600XTs are not available in AGP as far as I know. The X1600PRO is, which is why it tied between the X1600PRO and the 6600GT in the $100 - $150 AGP category. However, would the X1600XT be a good contender against the X800GTO in the PCI-E category even though it only has a 128-bit interface vs X800GTOs 256-bit??

As the list points out, choosing the card depends on which games you play.
I think so since the X800GTO's are good OC'ers and some are unlockable.

EXACTLY! That's the point though, isn't it?!

Do we want to lower resolutions and AA to levels so the 7600 GT will win a comparison? For what purpose, just so we can declare the 7600 better? Why, because it's newer?

The X850's ability to use those high levels of AA make it very desirable... and so it is recommended over the 7600 GT.
AA and AF are universal image quality options, but debating SM 2.0b over 3.0 is hardly definitive.

The 7600 GT is a great card, but compared to the X850 XT it falls short because the X850 XT is so damn good with that memory bus.
The X850 XT supply will dry up sooner or later thoguh, and the 7600 GT will likely take it's place as far as recommendations.

and cards even at those levels choke with sm3.0 applications, correct me if im wrong. i also like to have some lee way with fps so that when i get in a fire fight it wont start to choke and you can do that with the x850xt and not with the 7600gt because of the memory bus.

EXACTLY! That's the point though, isn't it?!

Do we want to lower resolutions and AA to levels so the 7600 GT will win a comparison? For what purpose, just so we can declare the 7600 better? Why, because it's newer?

The X850's ability to use those high levels of AA make it very desirable... and so it is recommended over the 7600 GT.
AA and AF are universal image quality options, but debating SM 2.0b over 3.0 is hardly definitive.

The 7600 GT is a great card, but compared to the X850 XT it falls short because the X850 XT is so damn good with that memory bus.
The X850 XT supply will dry up sooner or later thoguh, and the 7600 GT will likely take it's place as far as recommendations.
ja, a lot of games still use SM2.0...HDR in hl2 was also built with SM2.0 just so it would work with old-generation ATi cards =/
Besides, what would a mid range card like a 7600gt be using HDR/SM3.0 on anyway? It would get owned..

EXACTLY! That's the point though, isn't it?!

Do we want to lower resolutions and AA to levels so the 7600 GT will win a comparison? For what purpose, just so we can declare the 7600 better? Why, because it's newer?

The X850's ability to use those high levels of AA make it very desirable... and so it is recommended over the 7600 GT.
AA and AF are universal image quality options, but debating SM 2.0b over 3.0 is hardly definitive.

The 7600 GT is a great card, but compared to the X850 XT it falls short because the X850 XT is so damn good with that memory bus.
The X850 XT supply will dry up sooner or later thoguh, and the 7600 GT will likely take it's place as far as recommendations.

Thinking the same thing.

With 256 bit bus and 16 pipelines X850XT is superior to 7600GT(especially with AA and AF on at higher resolutions).

I think one needs to remember that X850XT is released to be a top range card in the market not long ago, but 7600GT is released to be a mid range card. (I remember gforceFX 5700 to be more expensive then 9700pro when it was released while 9700pro was definitely superior)

Although 7600GT supports SM3.0 and HDR, I don't believe that this card will give satisfying performance when HDR is on(and the quality between 2.0b and 3.0 is unnoticable). Hence this support doesn't mean much for people like me. Nvidia does this all the time for midrange cards. Card supports the new feautes but it is not possible to get performance when those features are on. (Also HDR and AA cannot be turned on the same time and I choose AA over HDR since AA adds lots of quality to the image. I can prefer HDR if I can go higher resolutions but again 7600GT is no good for that. Moreover HDR implemented with sm2.0b looks good to me for now)


If 7800GT drops to 200$ range I think it will be a great buy, but for now I think I will go with X850XT which is nearly 40$ less then 7600GT(I hope it doesn't last until I purchase it ).