Grate dealz on graffix cardz

IF YOU know of any good value IT sales (auctions, rebates, one-off, clearance, surplus, classified ads) going around in the United Kingdom, France, USA or Singapore, don't hesitate to contact me, at least 24 hours before the sales end.

Singapore
Cheapest X800 in Singapore comes from Hardwareplace and is the famous Sapphire X800 Pro. It has twelve Pixel pipelines and 256MB GDDR3 memory which pits it up against the Geforce 6800GT. The core/memory speed is 475/500MHz helping it churning 5.7GTexels/s with a 32GB/s at S$ 749, you cannot go lower than that. The retail bundle includes PowerDVD, RedLine Tweak Utility,

Prince of Persia, Pandora's Tomorrow, Composite S-video and high definition cable, DVI to VGA and Composite adaptor. Beyond3D has been able to overclock the core to 519MHz while the memory speed reached 501Mhz yielding some impressive increases, up to 12% at high resolution over stock speeds. Bear in mind though that this is not the Toxic version but rather the normal version. The Sapphire X800 Pro features the usual red PC and is similar to ATI's plain X800 Pro model. The same fan and the same heatsink. Everything is there except the second floppy connector.

Hardwareplace also provides with the cheapest Geforce 6800, the Elsa Gladiac 940 FX featuring 128MB memory at only S$559. It doesn't cost substantially more than the precedent generation and certainly outperforms then by a wide margin. We had already covered that card some time back.

PLUK
You'll probably think twice about buying a Radeon X800SE which our own Fuad said would go agains the Geforce 6800LE. The Connect3D Radeon X800SE/A> features 256MB DDR and cost a mere £195.74+VAT. The X800SE has 8 pixel pipelines core running at 425MHz. The interface used is AGP rather than PCI-Express. DVI, TVO and Dsub connection. According to EYO.com.au, you should reach 3DMark 2003 scores nearing 8000 marks whereas the 6800LE goes to around 7000 marks. Basically and according to Rage3D, when defective cores are found, they are converted to X800 Pro or if it is worse, to X800SE. They apparently use the same Samsung 1.6ns GDDR3 which means that overclocking should be a treat.

Strangely though, there is no mention of this card on Connect's website.

At around half the price is the 6800LE to be found over here at £113+VAT. We have covered that model some times back in these columns. Interestingly enough, there are persisting rumors that the 6800LE can be softmodded and hard modded to something much more err... powerful. Many manufacturers do manufacture it - from Aopen to MSI. But I have yet to find a 6800LE openly sold. They probably not being advertised openly because there are considerable amount of GeforceFX 5900 still on the market.

USA
The Sapphire Radeon X800SE is the cheapest X800SE you can get in the US with 8 pixel pipelines and six parallel vertex processing engines. It will cost you only $345 which would buy not even buy you a 5950 Ultra card, a slower doomed card. The card also comes with 256MB 256-bit high quality GDDR3 memory, the same as the more expensive Sapphire Radeon X800 cards. The memory though runs at only 400MHz DDR and has a 425MHz engine clock - the one in PCW, a retail rather than Allstarshop's OEM - has 425MHz core rather than 350MHz memory.

For the rest, it is pretty much standard. One thing though, have a look at photos of the Sapphire Radeon X800SE card. There is no way you could tell if the card comes from that particular manufacturer. As if these cards as well as the 6800LE are cards to be hidden under the carpet or as some would rather tell it, to be sold only to OEM manufacturers. The HSF in this actual model is smaller and definitely less aesthetic than the usual one, just covering the memory which does not bode well for overclocking.

The X800SE has very serious competition in USA. Costing some dollars less at $343, the Asus 6800GT V9999 is build around the Geforce 6800GT comes with a 350MHz DDR memory coupled with the core running at 350MHz. This alone means that the 6800GT should substantially outpace the X800SE with a near 11000 marks score compare to the approximate 8000 marks.

Compared to the X800SE, the 6800GT comes with 16 pipelines rather than eight and more importantly, it has a good heatsink fan which should allow more than adequate overclocking. Hence the Asus V9999GT/TD seems to be an underclocked 6800GT - the real core but cheap DDR 1 memory.

As an end note, you will find very very difficult to get hold of reviews of these cards as if there is some kind of curfew being hold over them. If you can get some X800SE or 6800LE benchmarks somewhere, just let me know. All in all, thse two cards will definitely shift the price balance - which is what many resellers holding big stocks of old cards fear, as the Irish say. µ