Sapphire's Radeon X1300 AGP and X1600 AGP

[PUTALE]

AGP owner rejoice, SApphire has introduced AGP version of ATI latest card, x1300 and x1600. I know this does not pack the performance of nvidia's 7800GS but it has a lot of good features that ATI brings.

You can read more info on the cards as well as look at hte pictures here (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=722)

[Frank Marino]

But that's still not as powerful as the AGP 7800, is it?

[Fantasma]

But that's still not as powerful as the AGP 7800, is it?
Exactly, the x1600pro of the page linked is not as powerful as an 6600GT AGP, so the fastest card in AGP is still the 7800GS. The x1300 is between 6200 and 6600LE

[Frank Marino]

But that's still not as powerful as the AGP 7800, is it?
Exactly, the x1600pro of the page linked is not as powerful as an 6600GT AGP, so the fastest card in AGP is still the 7800GS. The x1300 is between 6200 and 6600LE

Oh, so that's actually pretty outdated.

[PUTALE]

But that's still not as powerful as the AGP 7800, is it?
Exactly, the x1600pro of the page linked is not as powerful as an 6600GT AGP, so the fastest card in AGP is still the 7800GS. The x1300 is between 6200 and 6600LE

Oh, so that's actually pretty outdated.

not exactly. The x1600's performance is not as good as 7800GS because of the fact that x1600xt only has 128bit memory while the 7800gs has 256bit. It's quite stupid that ATI cuts down so much for their midrange card 1600. There are few feature in x1600 that's a tad better than nvidia's card but still on pure performance, I think nvidia is a better choice at the moment for the given price range.

[werty316]

These two cards aren't exactly for the gamer that for sure.

[Fantasma]

not exactly. The x1600's performance is not as good as 7800GS because of the fact that x1600xt only has 128bit memory while the 7800gs has 256bit. It's quite stupid that ATI cuts down so much for their midrange card 1600. There are few feature in x1600 that's a tad better than nvidia's card but still on pure performance, I think nvidia is a better choice at the moment for the given price range.
I have to say some things about the x1600 which I don´t agree.
The bottleneck of the x1600xt is not the memory, it has a 128bit 1400Mhz bus which is like a 700Mhz 256bit bus, similar to the bandwith of the x800 which is pretty good. x1600xt also features the 256bit ring bus which boosts the memory bandwith and the OpenGL games. x1600xt also has a good vertex shader power with 5 vertex units. The thing that bottlenecks the card is that it has 12pixel pipelines but only 4 texture units, that is to say, it can do more pixel shaders operations than rendered pixel shaders (less fillrate). For that reason, in older games which are not pixel shader dependant or doesn´t have heavy shaders, x1600xt runs like a 4 pipe card which is disappointing. However, in newer games like FEAR which has a lot of heavy shaders, it runs like nearly a 12 pipe card, sometimes even matching the 6800GT.

For a comparison, the 6600GT has 8pixel pipes and 8 texture units.
So, for the price, x1600 series are very good, you can put the x1600xt being better than a 6600GT and nearly matching a vanilla 6800 while x1600pro (which now is in AGP according to the link) is between 6600 and 6600Gt, being only a bit better than a 6600.
Also, I can say that x1600 has all new features, including AVIVO which has the best video quality right now.

[PUTALE]

yeah, that's true. However, it's unfortunate that the pricing of x1600 is competing against 6800GT, 6800GS or 7800GS. With the spec and performance of 1600 being a tad worse than either of the three card but slightly more expensive. I think we will soon see x1700 from ati that will correct these mistakes and then it may offer the much needed peformance boost from new gen of card.

[Fantasma]

I agree that it was too expensive at the beginning, but right now, it´s not too bad:
cheapest x1600xt for 155$ oem:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102668
in retail 167$:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102657

while cheapest 6600GT is at 115$:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150098

and cheapest vanilla 6800 is at 159$:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127179

So they have priced it with the 6800 card which are similar although the 6800 card is usually a bit faster but it doesn´t have AVIVO, it depends of your preferences