ATi has had 8 months to respond to the 7600 GT. You'd think they'd have tried to beat it, instead of just match it. In every review I've seen, this card matches the 7600 GT perfectly in almost every benchmark. This is a great card, but with the 7600GT sitting at $40 cheaper, it's just too little too late.

Is this just the x1950pro with locked pipes? And the review i read said it had 12 texture units not 8.

As far as I know it's only 8 texture pipes. What review said otherwise?

Sorry Mike i misread itand it was anandtech.(I read too fast sometiimes)

hmm is it like the 7 series that u cant reenable the disabled pipes? or can u unlock em and make this card match the x1950 pro . now this card has alot more shader horsepower than the 7600GT , so seems to me it should beat the 7600GT in HDR on.( or i am mistaken ? )

More shader operations thatna the 7950 GT, but with the performance of a 7600 GT. Couldnt ATI figure out the 3 to 1 ratio does not work for lower end cards? I dont see how u can call them smart.

u can... simply by saying "u r smart" lol :P
now anyways , if u can reenable the disabled pixel pipelines , i would get this card and reenable it ( actually the AGP version of it , since i have AGP slots )

future proof-ness.

the performance may not be showing from those extra shaders now, but i betcha it will in later games.

I think it could be a really good card, with its pipes unlocked, especially at the price it will ship at.

I highly doubt the pipes on this card will be unlockable.

the pipes are unlockable. just click on the pipes in the above specs and then a new button will appear which will show the specs of unlocked x1650xt and compare it to x1950 pro.
unlocked x1650xt is 100% same as x1950 pro stock but the only difference is that x1650xt is 128 bit and x1950 pro is 256.

I was wondering how do they even lock the pipes here anyway?

yeah well we can try to unlock em . if it doesnt work , this card will still be great on shader-heavy games .

This card has immense shader power, and judging from my old x1600xt, it would be a decent overclocker. Since iam an Unreal fan, that shader power and 24 pipes should come in handy with 07. Iam thinking of selling my agp x1600xt and getting the x1650xt. Seems like a good price to performance ratio to me

Is there a list to tell you which games are shader intensive?

HL2 is the most shader intensive game i know...
Unfortunally shaders aren't used a lot, a big waste of processing power...

So is that why they recommend ati cards? And what about bf2 and fear?

Shader intensive games include, Oblivion, HL2, Unreal 2007(unreleased), Crisis (unreleased), etc. Cant think of anymore right now

The resolution is all that matters here. It has too few Texture Units to run a high-resolution and too many Shaders for that resolution. It's shaders could run a really high resolution but it's Texture Units are holding it back big time!
When u say "shader intensive" that does have meaning, because the more effects, the more shaders are needed unlike texture fill where u need a specific ammount for a specific resolution and that will never change, but saying that it has a "ratio" of shaders to textures that makes it so that it needs less texture fill than shader opertaions dosent and isnt true.
As long as u have enough texture fill u can run a certain resolution. Even if a game required more shader operations than texture fill, it would not mean that u can play at a higher resolution.

Does anyone know when the x1650xt is supposed to hit stores, the pci-e and agp version?

I second that!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161049

AND

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=326858

Are the only 2 I could find as of 11/15/2006

i highly doubt this card will unlock too. Nv and Ati have this absurd practise of sometimes removing the pipes with a lazer. most of the time tho, the PCB just doesnt support the pipes themselves.

no it looks like unlocking is in for a grim future. be nice if we could unlock the "banks" (thats what firing squid calls em, sounds good to me) on the 8800GTS, to make it a full blown 8800GTX. i have yet to see anyone make this feat... unfortunatly.

HL2 never looked so good for under 150$! And Dang wish this had dx10.

Do any of you recommend going straight to ATI for the X1650 XT PCI-Express, or one of their partners? Such as Sapphire, HIS, GeCube, PowerColor, Diamond, ASUS, etc?

Its the same all around just get the one with higher clocks for less like i did with the sapphire version.

Overall, I'd take this X1650XT (now it's as cheap as the 7600GT) over the 7600GT because of its enhanced IQ: HQAF and better AA. Those fuck nV's AF and AA... It's the better card.

is there already a method to enable the disabled pipes? or am i just hoping for the impossible?

Well, I'm pretty sure DAAMIT lol laser cut those pipes... but anyone can try to mod a X1950PRO BIOS and flash it... who knows. For sure it won't work, but still...

laser cut pipes = pipes are removed from the card , its probably 'cause the unused pipes didnt work properly.

Does the pencil trick work for unlocking the pipes on this one?