Places to buy X1950pro AGP

honestjohn said:
Just saw this in a post on Rage3D.......

Just got off the phone with ZZF re an RMA matter. I asked about the sapphire card spec and ETA. According to the guy I was speaking with (he called the "buyer" the eta is 12/15 and the card is in fact 256mb not 512mb at 249.00. The "buyer" indcated this and said the webpage would be changed shortly.
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ZZF Now list the Sapphire 512MB for $249 AND the Diamond 256MB for $238...

512MB:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=326860

256MB:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=326745

Think it's possible the guy on the phone from ZZF may have been confusing the Diamond for the Sapphire... :confused:

Funny how both brands are named after Precious Stones... :p

wizzard0003

\\//_
 
I can't believe they are coming in at these price points. There is hope! Too bad my CPU virtually necessitates a complete system overhaul.
 
Amazon has prices fairly close to the equivalant PCI-E cards, which is pretty encouraging. Nothing in stock just yet...

edit: looks like sometime after Dec 22 for Amazon availability.
 
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honestjohn said:
Make sure you guys have a power supply that can handle the card. The Guys over on the Sapphire Forum are saying my Antec NeoPower 480w can't. Haven't had a single issue with my Power Supply since buying it a 1 1/2 years ago. Dual Rail with 18a@+12v on each. I'm being told I need at least 20-22a. On the fence right now on what to do.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/showthread.php?t=9124&page=1&pp=10
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Welp, I have a 350 watt power supply and I don't have the wattage that it requires. However, my performance is pretty good. Just to be on the safe side though, I ordered a nice fat OCZ 700 watt power supply. Yea, it was expensive, but I wanted something that was going to last me a VERY long time. Plus I don't want to take the chance I might burn out this card, system, or power supply because I have a 350 watt power supply right now.
 
When I talked to the ZZF people yesterday I refered to the Sapphire card's SKU number. The Amazon listing of the Diamond card at 289.00 sounds about right. As I said yesterday the eta at ZZF was quoted as 12/15. We shall see soon
 
cbdudek said:
Welp, I have a 350 watt power supply and I don't have the wattage that it requires. However, my performance is pretty good. Just to be on the safe side though, I ordered a nice fat OCZ 700 watt power supply. Yea, it was expensive, but I wanted something that was going to last me a VERY long time. Plus I don't want to take the chance I might burn out this card, system, or power supply because I have a 350 watt power supply right now.
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Yeah, I did the same thing. Picked up a Enermax Liberty 620W which will carry over nicely to a new system when that day comes. Of course we'll probably need 1000W Power Supplies by then.
 
Can anyone confirm if the picture for the 512mb diamond is accurate? What the hell happened to the massive cooler shown on the diamond website? The whole draw for diamond/powercolor was the massive HSF
 
Sunin said:
Can anyone confirm if the picture for the 512mb diamond is accurate? What the hell happened to the massive cooler shown on the diamond website? The whole draw for diamond/powercolor was the massive HSF
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I never saw a large cooler for the Diamond. I only saw the large AC cooler for the Powercolor
 
Geo Fry said:
I never saw a large cooler for the Diamond. I only saw the large AC cooler for the Powercolor
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You're right. Powercolor is the only one so far with that Cooler.
 
The pic on diamondmm.com website front page of the viper 1950 with a double slotted cooler similar to the powercolor...
 
Sunin said:
The pic on diamondmm.com website front page of the viper 1950 with a double slotted cooler similar to the powercolor...
Click to expand...

If you click on the "Details" button on pic it takes you to the product page for the PCI-E XT's. That cool looking cooler is reserved for the XT and Crossfire Cards. The X1950 Pro AGP at least for the Diamond, is single slot.

Here are some good pics on NewEgg of the Diamond X1950 Series. Note even the PCI-E X1950 Pro is single slot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=
 
honestjohn said:
If you click on the "Details" button on pic it takes you to the product page for the PCI-E XT's. That cool looking cooler is reserved for the XT and Crossfire Cards. The X1950 Pro AGP at least for the Diamond, is single slot.

Here are some good pics on NewEgg of the Diamond X1950 Series. Note even the PCI-E X1950 Pro is single slot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=
Click to expand...

Well scratch Diamond from my list most likely then. Powercolor needs to start shipping!
 
Amazon now has an official availability date up of January 15, 2007 for the Diamond Cards. I don't recall seeing this before. I have a feeling Sapphire is going to beat Diamond out of the gate, at least I hope so. I also hope the Sapphire Card is a 512MB card rather than a 256MB. That's a lot of hoping I guess..... Oh, and my apologies in advance for wasting space with this post if that availability date was always there.
 
honestjohn said:
Amazon now has an official availability date up of January 15, 2007 for the Diamond Cards. I don't recall seeing this before. I have a feeling Sapphire is going to beat Diamond out of the gate, at least I hope so. I also hope the Sapphire Card is a 512MB card rather than a 256MB. That's a lot of hoping I guess..... Oh, and my apologies in advance for wasting space with this post if that availability date was always there.
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it wasn't always there, I remember clearly it said sometime after Dec 22. so its been changed. another month, eh? ugh
 
One can only hope that the new Diamond does not have the customer support of the old Diamond Multimedia.

My experiences with Diamond go back to around 1994-95. They used to have the best customer service in the business; I bought a used VLB vidcard (Speedstar Pro, yes, I know that dates me) off of Fidonet (dates me even further) and they sent me an updated BIOS chip (no flashable video BIOSes, back then, and very few if any motherboard ones either) and driver disks for free, just by calling their 800 number.

Fast forware to 1996. I bought the second to the top Diamond Stealth Video VRAM card. Massive problems (partly due to the S3 Vision 968 GPU, partly due to horrible Diamond drivers that caused corrupted screen redraws). Diamond did away with their 800 number; you had to call long distance to California for service. I was put on hold for as long as an hour at a time. Several times I left voicemail; none were returned. Finally I got through once, to a tech who promised to ship a new BIOS chip and drivers. They never arrived. Returned the card to Ingram Micro two weeks later. I wrote a letter to the CEO of Diamond indicating the details of my experience, and my level of frustration, as well as to their technical support department. I never received a reply.

Now, a lot of time has gone by since then. But Diamond had a long fall from grace, and that was only the beginning; I had a number of frustrated customers after that with poor support, who had specifically wanted their peripherals despite our advice at the shop I worked for. I don't believe the current Diamond Multimedia is the same as the old (staff changes, ownership/management changes, perhaps only the name is the same) but I wouldn't be likely to buy a Diamond peripheral until I've seen positive support experiences with current products. I'd stick with someone like Sapphire or VisionTek, who have had more recent US-sales of video cards.
 
Nice find! I try to do random searches from time to time but you guys tend to find them faster than me lol. I still can't make up my mind on if I am going to get one. Just spent $900 on a christmas present for my dad so I'm a little shorter on cash than I was previously :)
 
Decided to goto the horse's mouth so to speak. Called Sapphire USA Sales Office and I asked them 3 things regarding the X1950 Pro AGP.

Number of Pipes = 12 Pipes
Amount of GDDR3 = 256MB

When? = The card has been delayed until the end of December, beginning of January.


Guess I'm going to have to wait for the Diamond 512MB. Damn. Other manufacturers probably thought that no one was going to shell out $286 for an AGP Card so they stuck with the 256MB.
 
The test from saphhiretech.com was ENTIRE SYTEM USAGE, regarding the 219 watts. That was using and Intel Core Duo and 2048mb of RAM. Am I missing something here? I've been following this thread for awhile and was a little thrown off by the power consumption under peak loads.

The X1950pro made break-throughs by reducing power consumption when compared to the x1800's and x1900's. Is this a wattage problem or a rail problem? I just purchased a Thermaltake 430W PurePower in anticipation of this card. I've seen reports (the one from sapphiretech) and others that this power supply should be sufficient. I have only a P4 and a gig of ram, aside from that just standard drives and an aging soundblaster card.

Can someone clarify?
 
Katotonic said:
The test from saphhiretech.com was ENTIRE SYTEM USAGE, regarding the 219 watts. That was using and Intel Core Duo and 2048mb of RAM. Am I missing something here? I've been following this thread for awhile and was a little thrown off by the power consumption under peak loads.

The X1950pro made break-throughs by reducing power consumption when compared to the x1800's and x1900's. Is this a wattage problem or a rail problem? I just purchased a Thermaltake 430W PurePower in anticipation of this card. I've seen reports (the one from sapphiretech) and others that this power supply should be sufficient. I have only a P4 and a gig of ram, aside from that just standard drives and an aging soundblaster card.

Can someone clarify?
Click to expand...

Don't think it's a problem at all. Take a look at how it stacks up against some of the other cards. I can't remember where I originally pulled this from, but I believe it was a review on Guru3D.

100% Load
X1950 PRO 219w
X1800 GTO 219w
X1800 XL 229w
X1900 GT 232w
X1800 XT 273w
X1900 XTX 290w
X1950 XTX 293w
 
honestjohn said:
Don't think it's a problem at all. Take a look at how it stacks up against some of the other cards. I can't remember where I originally pulled this from, but I believe it was a review on Guru3D.

100% Load
X1950 PRO 219w
X1800 GTO 219w
X1800 XL 229w
X1900 GT 232w
X1800 XT 273w
X1900 XTX 290w
X1950 XTX 293w
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right about the site hj... It was on Guru3D (Page 3):

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/386/1/

My Fortron (FSP) 450W should handle it.. If not, I'll go with the 300W BOOSTER, also made by Fortron made just to run the Graphics Card...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104019

It's around $90 USD but with my present PSU that would be a total of about $145. Not too bad given that that would bring my combined total to 750W and a good 700+W PSU would be just as much...

The advantage is that it is dedicated "Soley" for the Graphics and would/should give me rock solid performance without taxing the 450W PSU and possibly causing instability...

It does have 6 pin PCI-E connectors but that could be changed to molex easy enough for applications like the Sapphire which look to use dual molex...

wizzard0003

\\//_
 
Surprised noone has asked any of us North American techies to ship you guys one for a small upcharge! :)
 
honestjohn said:
Decided to goto the horse's mouth so to speak. Called Sapphire USA Sales Office and I asked them 3 things regarding the X1950 Pro AGP.

Number of Pipes = 12 Pipes
Amount of GDDR3 = 256MB

When? = The card has been delayed until the end of December, beginning of January.


Guess I'm going to have to wait for the Diamond 512MB. Damn. Other manufacturers probably thought that no one was going to shell out $286 for an AGP Card so they stuck with the 256MB.
Click to expand...

Never quoted myself before, anyway guess what....

http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/products/products_overview.php?gpid=168&grp=2

Sapphire has now changed their product page for the X1950 Pro from 256MB to 512MB. So much for going to the horse's mouth. Guess I was talking to the other end when I called Sapphire yesterday.
 
fromundacheese said:
All this back n forth spec changes are starting to make my head spin :confused:
Click to expand...

I agree and want off the Merry-Go-Round. Done looking for "Official" information which turns out to be no better than rumor anyway. Just going to wait until the 512MB Cards are actually in stock or reviewed somewhere.

And a big congratulations to Visiontek for being the only manufacturer to deliver their card on time, at least here in the US.
 
guru3d.com has the review of the Powercolor 512mb version... Although I wonder how the hell they got 9k on their bench at stock speeds...
 
Sunin said:
guru3d.com has the review of the Powercolor 512mb version... Although I wonder how the hell they got 9k on their bench at stock speeds...
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Sunin, I know the performance should be similar, but what I meant was an actual review of an AGP X1950 Pro 512MB. Not the PCI-E Version which is the only one I see on Guru3D.
 
HaHa... I guess you get used to reviews here at [H], which actually preface the article with exactly what they are testing... I don't think you learn this until 4 or 5 pages in...

Now I know how they got the 9k score... its a current system... wow my little dated system is keeping up well! 8.5k is nothing to sneeze at with only 256mb then! Hmmm, but then again their test was at stock speeds I have nearly a 10% OC.

Hope some official reviews come out soon then!
 
Well, found another e-tailer with the Sapphire X1950 Pro Card listed today and again confusion with the specs. The Card was listed as having 256MBs, but in the description it said 512MB which looked like a direct cut & paste from Sapphire's site. Emailed them for clarification and below is the email I received back, and yes they changed their listing from 256MB to 512MB and thanked me for pointing it out to them. So all signs continue to point to the Sapphire being 512MBs and it looks like we're not going to need to wait for that Diamond Card.

http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?pid=16749&sid=V9TCKWFHDXGV8K88XR3JU828QV57EN25

Email from Allstarshop:

Hi John,

Thank you very much for pointing out our typo. We contacted Sapphire and verified that the X1950 PRO AGP is 512MB. We have corrected our typo. The ETA is mid of next week. Thanks again for visiting allstarshop.com.

James
Allstarshop.com
 
honestjohn said:
Well, found another e-tailer with the Sapphire X1950 Pro Card listed today and again confusion with the specs. The Card was listed as having 256MBs, but in the description it said 512MB which looked like a direct cut & paste from Sapphire's site. Emailed them for clarification and below is the email I received back, and yes they changed their listing from 256MB to 512MB and thanked me for pointing it out to them. So all signs continue to point to the Sapphire being 512MBs and it looks like we're not going to need to wait for that Diamond Card.

http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?pid=16749&sid=V9TCKWFHDXGV8K88XR3JU828QV57EN25

Email from Allstarshop:

Hi John,

Thank you very much for pointing out our typo. We contacted Sapphire and verified that the X1950 PRO AGP is 512MB. We have corrected our typo. The ETA is mid of next week. Thanks again for visiting allstarshop.com.

James
Allstarshop.com
Click to expand...
Nice one honestjohn... this sapphire card has the right price point and has 512MB to boot. Seems like once they become readily available a 512MB card is the way to go :). Hopefully these sapphire cards have no weird quirks that will sway my buying decision. Looks like this will be my after christmas present to me :D
 
Geo Fry said:
Nice one honestjohn... this sapphire card has the right price point and has 512MB to boot. Seems like once they become readily available a 512MB card is the way to go :). Hopefully these sapphire cards have no weird quirks that will sway my buying decision. Looks like this will be my after christmas present to me :D
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The only thing is the ugly character on the HSF of the sapphire cards :(
 
Now the only decision becomes to wait for the powercolor huge HSF or jump on the sapphire version?
 
morbid3ntity said:
The only thing is the ugly character on the HSF of the sapphire cards :(
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How often do you actually LOOK at your G'Card... :confused: :p

Last time I looked at mine was to remove the two tiny "Cricket" sounding fans and shroud and replace them with a single 80mm case fan...

That, and some Ceramique lowered my temp's by 12C... ;)

wizzard0003

\\//_
 
I'm gunna be gone for the next 4 days... hopefully when I come back you guys will have found a ton of places where this is on sale :p :D. I doubt it but what a pleasent surprise that would be.
 
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