Card Upgrade questions

[ZoinKs!]

Its not as powerful as the X850TX or 7800GS but its not very far away. ATI has a clearance sale on its X850 pro AGP for $139 on there site. This is much cheeper the $299 and the profromans will be about 10% slower the the X850XT.
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2699206

Are these flashable to 16 pipes? Or is it only the VIVO cards that could do that?

Flashable or not, these are tempting at $139.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Are these flashable to 16 pipes? Or is it only the VIVO cards that could do that?

Those were mainly the VIVO cards, although I think there were some rumors of non-VIVOs that were flashable too; BUT.....

...DO NOT TAKE FLASHING YOUR VIDEO CARD LIGHTLY, EVAH!!!!

I have an X800 pro VIVO I flashed to a 16-pipe 500/540 X800 TT (tea-time, my own card distinction. ) that I love to pieces and has been nothing but good to me. I got it, followed the step-by-step instructions for my exact card that I found on the net in about 3 or 4 different places and the flash went fine and I got a nice boost.

I figured flashing a card was no biggy 'cause if anything went wrong I could just stick a PCI video card in and flash it back, so it's impossible to screw up flashing a video card.....


....WRONG!!!!

After hearing all the rumors of how easy it was to flash X1800GTOs into XLs (basically the same as the pro to XT flash for the X800, going from 12 pipes to 16), I decided to go ahead and flash an X1800GTO that ATi sent me and forced an XL bios onto it....and now I can't boot my system with that card in it to save me arse.

Total brick, dead, not fixable, all gone, bye-bye.

Now I only mention such a bloody embarressing thing as a warning to ya, do NOT try and flash enable the pipes unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing and you've seen/read/heard of some working examples with the exact same card you have...and even then enter into it cautiously and with your eyes open realizing that you could just end up with a doorstop for your efforts.

(BTW-ATi was kind and is sending me a new X1800GTO since I bricked it before I'd finished benching it... )

 

[micron]

Dig, you should have tried using a pci viddy card to flash it back

 

[digitalwanderer]

Dig, you should have tried using a pci viddy card to flash it back

Oh please, don't teach your grandpappy how to skin a cat!

1. Tried PCI in to flash it, won't even boot.
2. Tried PCIe and it in second PCIe, wouldn't boot.
3. Reversed, wouldn't boot.

Basically anytime the card is physically plugged into my system in any way/shape/form the PC will not boot....total deadstick. Take the card out, it's all good.

Believe me when I tell you that I have tried everything short of hot-swapping the card in and I'm not going to do that for fear of damaging my motherboard.

If you have any suggestions I'll gladly try them, but I have literally tried everything I can think of/could research.

Mebbe a different mobo it'd work with, but I only have one PCIe mobo.

 

[mtzlblk]

The X850 pro is not just clock speed differents. The X850 XT is 16 pixel pipe lines and the X850 pro has 4 pixel pipe lines disabled so is has 12 working pixel pipe lines. The proformans differents is about 10% to 15% from a X850 XT.

If it were me, I would not spend $300 on a AGP card because I could get a much better PCI-E card for that price. It would be better to just get a PCI-E mobo and with the money left you could still get a better video card with $220 left over after buying the mobo or get a much cheaper AGP card like the X850 pro.

Yeah, i saw that about the pixel pipes and looked at the speed difference, which won't mean that much to me since I'm not that heavy a gamer. The 10-15% gain isn't worth the extra ~$200.

Is your system a duel core or is it 2 seperat CPUs? Is it S478 or Socket T(775)?

Two separate CPUs, S478. OK, so IF I went with a mobo upgrade to get PCI-E, how does that work with fitting it into my case and all? Are they standardized so I can swap them out, or do I have to re-jigger EVERYTHING to fit it in?

 

[mtzlblk]

When you install a card with VIVO most times you'll install the drivers and reboot, and then when your PC boots up again it will find new hardware to install....that new hardware to be installed is the VIVO components to your viddy card (not TV card) and those are the ones you do not want installed or else it'll mess up the "pause" feature.

It actually took me quite a bit of searching on Rage3D to find that one, just thought I'd pass it along.

It seems weird that ATI would mess that up, especially with two ATI products in the same machine...can't they fix that in a driver release?

I will give it a shot by installing it once to see if it works and then back it out and remove the device and start over with your recommendations if it doesn't.

 

[digitalwanderer]

ATi or nVidia, if it's got VIVO it screws up my 550's pause feature.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Yeah, i saw that about the pixel pipes and looked at the speed difference, which won't mean that much to me since I'm not that heavy a gamer. The 10-15% gain isn't worth the extra ~$200.



Two separate CPUs, S478. OK, so IF I went with a mobo upgrade to get PCI-E, how does that work with fitting it into my case and all? Are they standardized so I can swap them out, or do I have to re-jigger EVERYTHING to fit it in?

Ahh. 2 S478. Forget just getting a mobo. They don't make dual S478 PCI-E mobos. There not may S478 PCI-E mobos out there and they suck too. If you want PCI-E and Intel then look at a S775(Socket T) mobo and a dual core Intel Pentium D. The CPU are around $160 to $200 and the mobo can be had for around $90 that support DDR and DDR2.

 

[Skrying]

Ahh. 2 S478. Forget just getting a mobo. They don't make dual S478 PCI-E mobos. There not may S478 PCI-E mobos out there and they suck too. If you want PCI-E and Intel then look at a S775(Socket T) mobo and a dual core Intel Pentium D. The CPU are around $160 to $200 and the mobo can be had for around $90 that support DDR and DDR2.

You can grab a great PD package for around $500 right now for the basic system. I recently built this setup for someone and I'm thinking seriously about going this way:

Pentium D 805

Asus P5ND2-SLI

Antec SmarPower 2.0 SP-500

XFX 7600GT

Corsair ValueSelect 2GB (1GB x 2) DDR2 667

Coming in at a bit more than $500 for some great stuff. Got the 805 up to 3.5Ghz on stock and it doesnt even rise above 50C under testing using Prime95 and performs great!

 

[mtzlblk]

Hmmmm....

Ok, so let's assume I can/want to upgrade the mobo setup and I get the aforementioned PD setup for ~$500.

Does ATX form factor mean that it will fit into my current case....easily?

Would the upgrade be as simple as:
1. Remove old ATX mobo and map connections
2. Place new ATX mobo in old case...will it screw on in the same spots?
3. Connect previous components into new mobo at appropraite locations..status lights, USB, Firewire, audio, etc. so they match up with external connection points on casing
4. Connect harddrive
5. Install windows from CD clean and go through the whole driver find/install process....etc.

This doesn't seem that difficult and would make sense once I am ready to upgrade to Windows Vista completely (I am going to go dual boot into the beta in the next week or so)

Other question...is one Pentium D (dual core) faster than my two 3.2 P4 with HT?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Dumb question, but why upgrade now when Conroe is literally days away?

If nothing else it'll be changing the pricing paradigm of all the CPUs pretty drastically.

 

[Skrying]

Dumb question, but why upgrade now when Conroe is literally days away?

If nothing else it'll be changing the pricing paradigm of all the CPUs pretty drastically.

The Pentium dual core, the lower ones anyway, probably wont see anymore massive price drops.

The only big thing in price will come from AMD when they drop prices big time themselves in order to steal some Conroe thunder.

Conroe will be expensive, I dont know about you, but I try not to spend $150 on processors, so a CPU such as the 805 is a pretty amazing deal when it almost always hits at least 3.4Ghz and just on stock cooling.

And one question, what do you mean by two 3.2Ghz P4 HT? You dont mean SMP, so I'm guessing you're mistaken by the fact that an HT enabled processor shows up as two in task manager when its still only one. At default settings the 805 would be slower in single threaded applications (games) but things that take advantage of the dual core would be faster. Also you can OC the 805s pretty darn easily.

But as Digi said, I'd wait till Conroe goes official and see what happens to the prices, especially those from AMD.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Conroe will be expensive, I dont know about you, but I try not to spend $150 on processors, so a CPU such as the 805 is a pretty amazing deal when it almost always hits at least 3.4Ghz and just on stock cooling.

I've been going AMD the last few boards and I got a 939 mobo just waiting for the 3800x2 to hit $169.

I'm like you in CPU price, but it's close enough and would be a sweet upgrade from my Venice 3000+.

Still, I'm waiting and seeing what happens too. One thing is for sure, something is going to happen and it is going to happen soon...it might really be a good idea to put off buying a new system for a week or two.

 

[rwolf]

mtzlblk, buy a new motherboard with integrated graphics then if your not a gamer.

 

[mtzlblk]

And one question, what do you mean by two 3.2Ghz P4 HT? You dont mean SMP, so I'm guessing you're mistaken by the fact that an HT enabled processor shows up as two in task manager when its still only one. At default settings the 805 would be slower in single threaded applications (games) but things that take advantage of the dual core would be faster. Also you can OC the 805s pretty darn easily.

My system is set up with two 3.2Ghz P4 HT processors. I didn't buy them that way, the mobo fritzed while under warranty and I got it replaced and the new one sent by the mfg. came with another, so I popped the processor from the first one in and voila...dual processors.

But as Digi said, I'd wait till Conroe goes official and see what happens to the prices, especially those from AMD.

I won't be doing anything with the mobo soon and would definitely do some research before going that route.

 

[mtzlblk]

mtzlblk, buy a new motherboard with integrated graphics then if your not a gamer.

Still do other grpahics intensive things, video capture/editing, etc. some games.

Where's the fun in that?

 

[Sharkfood]

I would NOT recommend ATI Tuner/Capture, unless you go with the VIVO option listed above. I'd also stay well away from their AIW cards on Intel + HT cpu's.

For a TV Tuner, I'd recommend a Haupauge card.

ATI's WDM drivers have been plagued with issues with HT and Intel ICH5/6/7 chipset mainboards. In this combination, the system will have total lock-ups using their digital audio path.

If you wind up with a VIVO, this isn't a problem as you'll only be using the ATI video capture WDM drivers and look audio to your soundcard. If you use a T200 or AIW based solution, you'll be stuck with either:
a) OLD 3d drivers (6.1 or older) and reverting digital audio to analog audio to eliminate lock-ups.
b) Hope ATI fixes this in a future release- but given this problem is 2+ years old, I doubt it.

 

[mtzlblk]

I would NOT recommend ATI Tuner/Capture, unless you go with the VIVO option listed above. I'd also stay well away from their AIW cards on Intel + HT cpu's.

For a TV Tuner, I'd recommend a Haupauge card.

ATI's WDM drivers have been plagued with issues with HT and Intel ICH5/6/7 chipset mainboards. In this combination, the system will have total lock-ups using their digital audio path.

If you wind up with a VIVO, this isn't a problem as you'll only be using the ATI video capture WDM drivers and look audio to your soundcard. If you use a T200 or AIW based solution, you'll be stuck with either:
a) OLD 3d drivers (6.1 or older) and reverting digital audio to analog audio to eliminate lock-ups.
b) Hope ATI fixes this in a future release- but given this problem is 2+ years old, I doubt it.

Thanks for the tip.

Hmmm...I already have the TV Wonder Elite which is an Avivo supported product and will be combining it with a Radeon X850 Pro which is not Avivo. Either way, neither is an AIW card, so I shouldn't have problems with HT.

 

[Sharkfood]

Correct. With Cat's 6.2 and above, ATI went to a new Unified Stream driver which has no method to downgrade the digital audio capture path down to analog (i.e. loopback to soundcard) so it will depend how you plan to capture audio.

The problem mainly exists with T200 chipset cards and all AIW cards. AIW owners with P4 + HT and ICHx chipsets are basically stuck at the 6.1 driver level (3d -and- WDM as they are now bound/incompatible to mix match thanks to the unified driver wdm + cats).. and downgrading to analog audio else total system lockups/freezes or frozen capture programs.

You SHOULD be okay, provided you:
a) Dont need the newer unified drivers audio portion for capture.
b) If you do need ATI WDM drivers for capture, don't mind reverting 3d and wdm drivers all the way back to 6.1's then manually changing the NSP Audio to SP Audio in the device manager (ATI at least still shipped dig & anal wdm's in each cat set from 4.x to 6.1)

Hope this helps! Just things to be aware of to save some grief.

 

[mtzlblk]

In what instance would I need to revert drivers? If I need to capture digital audio specifically?

I will be capturing LOTS of video from a mini-DV, but there is a slight possiblity I might want to record audio only, but I would probably do so through my USB Creative 24-bit External 'card'. Would that get me around the problem?

I'm not really going to be happy using old drivers, but I'm not clear in what instances I am going to be required to downgrade? Can you give me a little more detail on a use case where I would have to?

I definitely appreciate the help in avoiding any grief

thanks.