i really need help with ATI hardware here

[breadandbubbles]

i built a computer a few weeks ago, but i didnt buy a video card. im using an old pci video card until i can figure out which to buy.

at first i wanted the ATI X800XL. then i figured id put the extra few bucks in for the All In Wonder X800XL.

THEN i saw that the X850 All In Wonder is just a few more dollars. the problem is, it doesnt come in PCI-E.

to make thinsg worse, they recently came out with this GT and GTO stuff. and im hearing people say you can take a PCI-E X800GTO and turn it into X850, but i dont think that includes all in wonder.

so please, whats the deal. Why would ATI be so stupid as to not include AIW X850 with PCI-E? Whats GT and GTO. is there an AIW X800 GT/O? can i turn it into a PCI-E version of the X850 AIW, which is essentially what i want?

is it worth forking over a few MORE dollars for 512mb in any video card?

please help!

[suryad]

Whoa. Right now I would go with nvidia becaue most of ATIs top of the line products are paper launches. As for the all in wonders I dont know much about them since they are of no use to me and I dont think it is worth the money they charge for it. If you can wait a little bit till when an x1800 xt comes out then wait. And no you cant change agp into pci-e. The gt and gto cards have been reported to be able to have their pipelines unlocked so you can look into that.

While ATI is great right now nvidia has the lead. ATI is lagging. Not because of poor performance but for poor availability.

[Thai3g_Eclipse]

That's quite a series of inquisitions. Here's how everything breaks down:

-The X800GT is essentially a regular X800 with 4 of its pixel pipelines disabled. Theoretically it's slower than a regular X800, but also considerable cheaper. This card is the direct competitor to Nvidia's GeForce 6600GT.

-The X800GTO/GTO2 is ATi's attempt to get rid of their overstocked X800 GPUs (The R420, R423, R430). Connect3D's X800GTO has been confirmed to be able to BIOS-mod'd into a X800XT, but the other brands such as MSI and whatever else seems to be using a mix of all three, so it's not a guaranteed success. The Sapphire X800GTO2 is essentially an X850XT (R480) using an X800 BIOS. This card so far has a 100% successful conversion rate into an X850XT.

-The only two All-In-Wonder cards ATi has released for the PCI Express format is the AIW X600 Pro and the AIW X800XL. The reason for a AIW X850XT not existing is simply due to the facts that the cost will be too unreasonable. If I had to guess, an AIW X850XT would have cost as much as a Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX.

-If you are a heavy oriented gamer, 512MB of video memory is not necessary. Many new games such as Call of Duty 2, F.E.A.R. and a select few others proved that 512MB video memory is becoming necessary, but for a occasional gamer it's not needed.

[ripken204]

why do you even want an AIW? for the tv tuner? the ati tv tuners suck. get a hauppauge tv tuner.

[breadandbubbles]

it seemed going with AIW was best, since i could capture video, play multimedia with a remote control, watch tv, enhanced DVD playback, etc etc..

[Takeshi]

If you really want an ATI video card you don't have to have the AIW. You can get the ATI TV Wonder (or other alternatives) as an external box and the ATI PCI-E card to your liking.

I would go down this route (or similar) when I have a new PC although I'm a satisfied user of the AIW 9600XT (AGP only). The mpeg2 encoding is excellent but I don't use its DVD player (prefer PowerDVD) nor the remote. I don't use the TV tuner normally because I connect my cable box to the input dongle using S-video.