Sk88erguy

OK, i am thinking about getting one of these, im leaning towards the x850pro because there is a really good deal on it and i want to save some money. my questions are as follows, i know both cards are good but i dont know if one is better as far as what u get for the money, ect.

What im wondering is with the ATI version of these cards can i flash the bios? i have a rosewill 9800pro and could never flash the bios because it is locked. also if i got the 850pro and flashed it to XT, would i be unlocking the pipelines as well? and would a zalman copper/aluminum heatsink which is on my 9800pro be able to handle that overclock?

Edit- Also, with AGP does it even matter how many pipelines over 8 you have? thanks!

truekishin

yea, you'd definitely be able to bios flash ur x850pro (if you get it) to an XT or XTPE, im assuming you have the AGP version so get the AGP version bios for that card, and quite frankly the stock HSF could probably handle that kinda overclock, so the Zalman will take it quite nicely. I think ur unlock would be from 12 to 16 pipes. and ur clock speeds will jump roughly 100 for the core and 50 for the memory.

As for ur second question, to answer what was written, it shouldn't matter how many pipes there are at all, # of pipes doesn't affect system functionality, but the number of pipes does reflect the type of performance ur vid card is going to offer, 8 is probably best suited to 1280x1024 HL2 2xAA 4xAF, whereas a 16 pipe card can offer theoretically twice the pixel fill rate per cycle (Mhz) over an 8 piped card.

Ste

Not all new X850 pro are unlocking I'm afraid so it's not definite that this will unlock. Many are now being dielocked which prevents this.
More pipelines always gives better performance

CowBlazed

Theres a very little chance you'll get a 100mhz overclock on an X850 Pro GPU core, thats 600mhz (from stock 500).

On stock cooling, you can get it to X850 XT speeds, 520/540. After that, the core all depends on which core you got, and if you have the Samsung 1.6ns memory (most of them do) you could go higher if you cool the memory (all the memory, so you'd need to get an Artic Cooler).

Unlocking the pipes still has a good chance, but not as good as the practically 100% chance before, now theyre starting to lock.

Even with the 12 pipelines however, at 520/540 or ever at stock, the performance is still very good, and you'll be happy with it.

The X800 XT won't overclock very much at all, and its already at 16pipes so no unlocking, and it uses practically the same cooler as the X850 Pro. So the performance at stock will be better, but if you unlock and overclock, the X850 Pro turned X850 XT will perform better. Not only that buy your saving a good $150.