Pro/sp/xt???

[Happy_Demon]

What are the differences between the ATI Pro, SP, & XTs? Which is best for gaming?

 

[mgoldb2]

What are the differences between the ATI Pro, SP, & XTs? Which is best for gaming?

sp/se=lowend version
no postfix = normle version
pro = highend version
xl = gaming version
xt= extreme gaming version

at least that the way I look at it.
usually if you gaming you want either a pro,xl,xt depending on your budget.
if you want to get the best you can get the XL best value wise and the XT is if you have some extra money you dont mind spending.

 

[Happy_Demon]

What is considered to be the top video card for gaming right now then?

 

[mgoldb2]

What is considered to be the top video card for gaming right now then?

Um best value wise I would say

geforce 6800 GT
and
radeon x800 XL


If cost have absolutly no meaning to you then

geforce 6800 ultra
and
radeon x850 XT

If you have a SLI setup

2Xgeforce 6600 GT about at the level of a single geforce 6800 GT/ultra
2Xgeforce 6800GT better then any single card setup in high resoultions
2Xgeforce 6800 ultra best money can buy at this moment

 

[AMDCam]

If you're looking for a good, cheaper card, you can get a Radeon 9800 Pro with an R360 core and flash it to XT which saves you a couple hundred bucks. If you don't want to go through that trouble though, you should definitely get yourself an AGP Radeon X850, since it's the best single card you can get, especially for gaming, and in my opinion ATI is a better company. But to put it simply:

Standards are bottom of the line
SE is even worse sometimes (by 3rd party companies, like on the Radeon 9550, they give you half as much RAM built in)
Pro is second best and best value
XL is for the new X### series, and I think it's just another name for Pro
XT is top of the line and most expensive
Platinum XT is usually only limited, and just an XT with more power

By the way, I hate Nvidia because they rip you off when it comes to selling you "cheap" cards. The GeForce 4 MX series has DirectX 7 built into it so it can't handle any pretty effects, and they still sell them as low-end cards. They do that all the time, cut corners to make it seem like a good deal. I've been ripped off by them before, and they also make slower cards than ATI. So if you want a great gaming card, go ATI, unless you've got SLI (which according to what you said about your motherboard you don't). Hope I can help

 

[Happy_Demon]

What is an SLI setup and how do you know if you have one?

 

[mgoldb2]

What is an SLI setup and how do you know if you have one?

If you dont know most likly you dont have it. Unless your computer really new and fairly highend. You would have 2 PCI-E slots on your computer if you had it.

 

[AMDCam]

Yeah, SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface, which doesn't really explain much, but what it means is it's a motherboard feature that can handle 2 graphics cards simultaneously for double the power (right now Nvidia is the only company that's trying it, and it has a lot of drawbacks since it's only in it's first generation). Also, SLI controllers aren't in AGP format, like yours, but in PCI Express Format, which supposedly has twice as fast a transfer rate as AGP 8x. But don't worry, AGP is still the most popular format of graphics cards, so we aren't out of date yet. And even graphics cards built for PCIe have almost NO performance increase over AGP graphics cards, at least not yet.

Model# LANPARTY UT nF3 250G
Item # N82E16813136147

Specifications:
Supported CPU: AMD Athlon 64 processor
Chipset: nForce3 250Gb
RAM: 3x DIMM Supports DDR266/333/400 Max 3GB
Slots: 1x AGP 8X/4X, 5x PCI
Ports: 2x PS/2, 1x COM, 1x LPT, 8x USB2.0(Rear 4), 1x RJ45, 1x 1394, 2x S/PDIF In/Out, Audio Ports
IDE: 2x ATA 133 up to 4 Devices
SATA/RAID: 2x SATA RAID with NVIDIA RAID 0,1,0+1,JBOD, 2x SATA by Marvell SATA PHY
Onboard Audio: Realtek ALC850(8-Ch)
Onboard LAN: Marvell 88E1111 GbE PHY
Form Factor: ATX

That's what you put in your "what memory should I get" forum, and what I highlighted in blue is the kind of graphics card capability you've got, which is top-of-the-line AGP (8x), so no you don't have an SLI system.

 

[tweaker]

Which is best for gaming?

Pro & XT (If Ati)

If you're looking for a good, cheaper card, you can get a Radeon 9800 Pro with an R360 core and flash it to XT which saves you a couple hundred bucks.

Now that would be stupid since the 6600GT's are about the same price and so much better.

If you don't want to go through that trouble though, you should definitely get yourself an AGP Radeon X850

ehh

I've been ripped off by them before

No offense, but buying a R350/60 over the NV43 is to get ripped off if anything

they also make slower cards than ATI

Maybe so but clockspeed isn't everything, your an AMD user and should know that.

 

[AMDCam]

Well if you had my experiences tweaker, you would probably agree. ATI doesn't purposely put old DirectX versions in their cards to make them cheaper, and for some reason Nvidia in almost every class, has lower benchmarks than ATI. I don't hate Nvidia, because I used to have an old GeForce 2 TNT2 Riva, which so far has been one of the best cards I've ever used, but now Nvidia changed their ways. And I got a 9800 Pro for XT because it's the highest I could afford in my price range ($200 for 256mb and the top-of-the-line model 9800), so actually it was a better deal than a 6600. I actually looked at those 6600's and for half the memory and a slower (not too much but still) clockrate, I preferred the Radeon. I guess I shouldn't have said to go for ATI's, but in my opinion they build faster, more solid cards. But I will go with you on this Tweaker, Nvidia's not a bad company so no one should leave them out of their choice range.

 

[mgoldb2]

And I got a 9800 Pro for XT because it's the highest I could afford in my price range ($200 for 256mb and the top-of-the-line model 9800), so actually it was a better deal than a 6600. I actually looked at those 6600's and for half the memory and a slower (not too much but still) clockrate,

The 9800 Pro not a better deal then the geforce 6600GT. amount of memory means almost nothing. Even core clock speed means very little.

let take a look at the actural performance

the geforce 6600GT as shown above has a 30fps lead in doom 3

6600GT slight lead in farcry

again the 6600GT has the slight lead

you will even see that the 6600GT does better then the 9800XT in high resoultions which shows the extra 128 memory the 9800XT has mean nothing at all when it comes to performance.

Also memory usually what holds you back not corespeed and the geforce 6600GT has a higher memory speed and uses GDDR3 for better OC ability of the memory.

For most people the geforce 6600GT is a better deal then the radeon 9800 pro

 

[AMDCam]

woah man, nice way to prove me wrong, but I still like ATI more. The GDDR3 RAM was almost the whole reason I was considering the 6600, but I know more about ATI cards so I decided to play with the 9800.