On May 3, 3:03 pm, "Ken Maltby" wrote:
"Frederick J. Barnett" wrote in messagenews:sa7k33tb442t0nto3otsttvl0kmcujp5ug@4ax .com...

Which would be the better card for me to upgrade to? It has to
be one or the other because I'm not buying a new power supply, or
getting an nVidia card. Research with my brother-in-law seems to show
the X850 is better, but I want to ask here too. My system specs below:

Dell Dimension 8400
3Ghz Pentium 4 with hyperthreading
2GB DDR2 RAM
ATI X300 SE 128MB RAM (current card)

Thank you!

Frederick J. Barnett http://www.eatel.net/~fred/
"Someone's got to take the responsibility if the job's going to get done!!
Do you think that's easy?!" Gregory Peck - The Guns Of Navarone

They are much the same, in overall performance (assuming you are
talking both cards being the same versions, XTs, Pros, whatever.).
The X850 has more brut force power, but the X1650 has some
advanced features (like H.264 acceleration).

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/05/...video_cards_fo...

Note how far down the list your current card is, either of the
new cards you are considering will make a major impact.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. I still use a X850XT PE, myself, and an X1650Pro for
my HTPC.

I have an X1600 XT and an X850XT.

The 850 is definately faster in most current games. The x1650 Pro has
similar or slightly better performance than the x1600XT.

But there are new games on the market that use the 3.0 shader - some
won't run on a 2.0 shader (x850 can't use the 3.0 shader). Any game
with the 3.0 shader will make the performance of the x1650 look much
better.

James