http://www.techspot.com/review/15-visiontek-radeon-x1300-pci/ They compared it to a card with 128-bit interface on a PCI-e Bus. Honestly, this is like the dumbest review out there, because if they had put the 128-bit memory on there, it would exceed the PCI bus' bandwith capability. Why not compare it to a 5500FX or a 6200, or that Radeon

"Of course, if you are limited to the PCI bus for one reason or another this VisionTek Radeon graphics card is probably the most powerful solution out there."

He said it himself. It really isnt fair to the company. Most computers dont have an AGP or PCI-e bus, so this is still the most powerful solution for PCI, and icant run FEAR and get 50FPS on 1024x768 resolution on my 5500FX. I get like 30fps on 640x480. I will write my own review soon, comparing it to my 5500FX.

I look forward to reading your review.

However, in the meantime, you can comment on the Techspot review HERE (http://www.techspot.com/news/22854-visiontek-radeon-x1300-pci-review--techspot.html).

I`m sure [-Steve-] will be happy to read your comments and maybe reply as necessary.

Regards Howard :)

Honestly I think those are some of the dumbest comments ever made!

Most computers don’t have an AGP or PCI-e bus, so this is still the most powerful solution for PCI. Most computers really? Most computers only have PCI slots, well if most gaming systems only have PCI slots then you are completely right.

I have to say I agree with the reviewer. I mean he is only trying to point us in the right direction, though I could have worked out for myself that a $120 PCI card that runs like crap is a bad buy without reading the review!

Completing the quote…

“That said, it is still nearly useless when it comes to gaming, so why not go with an older and much cheaper PCI graphics card? Older PCI -based Radeon cards still offer TV-Out and DVI, so there is really no need to spend $110 on this updated version. Given the Radeon X1300 Pro used for comparison costs just $60 and resulted in a 100% performance increase, how could anyone justify purchasing this graphics card?”

My point is there is no need to spend $110 US on this graphics card when there are cheaper alternatives such as the GeForceFX 5500 that you mentioned. If gaming is a priority and you have a system without an AGP or PCIe slot then I really need say no more. I did acknowledge that this will be the fastest PCI card available but this alone does not make it fast and in my eyes it’s not a good value solution either.

I look very forward to reading your review though!

Just a FYI, the PCI bus is 6.4gb/s, and this card is 4.3gb/s, with an overclock, this card will break the bus barrier, and lag up games. I plan to overclock mine, we'll see how performances is then :)

The PCI bus transfers 6.4GB/s is that what you are trying to say? I thought the PCI throughput was a shared 133MB/s bus.

No its 133mhz lol.

Really I must be an idiot I thought it was 33MHz, how embarrassing :(

I thought PCI 2.2 operated at 66MHz for a peak bandwidth of 266MB/s, rather shy of 6400MB/s.

I'd just like to point out that I'd find it hard to get hold of a board even for our classroom machines that doesn't at least have AGP. It's like a pretty standard feature on most boards and has been for years. I mean it, years! How old is your machine that you don't have one? What is your justification for trying to use it for a gaming system? Really I'd like to know. Hey, the machine I'm working on right now has one and it's a shuttle with an on-board card aswell.

Lekki_Sheep: That is exactly what I have been thinking all along.

F1N3ST: The only thing worth laughing about is a 133MHz bus of any kind producing 6400MB/s of bandwidth in this day and age!

I'd just like to point out that I'd find it hard to get hold of a board even for our classroom machines that doesn't at least have AGP. It's like a pretty standard feature on most boards and has been for years. I mean it, years! How old is your machine that you don't have one? What is your justification for trying to use it for a gaming system? Really I'd like to know. Hey, the machine I'm working on right now has one and it's a shuttle with an on-board card aswell.
My computer is 1 year old....

What motherboard are you using?

No its 133mhz lol.PCI bus is 33MHz ~= 127MB/s (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/buses/funcBandwidth-c.html).

idk, ppl were telling me otherwise, and it cant be only 127mb/s, or otherwise this card would exceed the bus by like 40X

I have an Intel D865GVHZ

I am a little surprised by all this. First you tell me I have written the worst review on the net which is a little displeasing. Sure you are entitled to your opinion but please back it up with some facts so we can discuss the issue properly.

I am also shocked that you were going to do a better review than mine on this graphics card without knowing how limited with PCI bus is. Not only is it limited to less than 130MB/s, it’s a shared bus so intergraded devices that use the PCI bus such as network and RAID controllers use a lot of the avalible bandwidth.

When you say the graphics card would exceed the bus by 40x you are again wrong. Where are you getting these figures? The memory bandwidth of the graphics card is measured between the GPU and the onboard memory. Think about it high-end PCI Express cards offer over 40GB/s of memory bandwidth … how much does a PCIe 16x port support?

No i didnt say it was the worst, i said dumbest, and i g2g to scholl.

The Intel Desktop Board D865GVHZ was designed with a focus on reducing overall platform cost. Features such as the Intel® 865GV Chipset with Intel® Extreme Graphics 2 and support for up to 2 GB of DDR 400/333 SDRAM memory, onboard Intel® PRO 10/100 LAN Network Connection, and AC'97 audio provide the essential building blocks for the value-oriented customer to use on a low-cost platform.

Nuff Said I feel. You bought a real budget piece of kit. This board was never designed with performance in mind. Here's a link to the specs & details page:

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d865gvhz/index.htm

If you're a miser with your board you're always going to find problems with upgrading. Also, it takes a lot of effort to pursue such a faulse economy. You'd be better off getting a few more hours of work and using it to pay the extra required for a quality piece of hardware.

Again Lekki_Sheep is right on the money!

Like I said in the review save your money and invest in a motherboard that’s not a waste of time. I just don’t get the logic behind what he is saying. He wants to play games and to do so he is willing to spend $110 US on a graphics card that can only play games at 1024x768 with every possible quality setting disabled just to get playable performance. Why not just do what I suggested in the review and purchase a motherboard/graphics combo for $110 US and get significantly more performance.

Finally, that motherboard is much much older than one year, I cannot recall the last time I used DDR technology with an Intel processor. In fact it has been at least 3 years since I tested a s-478 motherboard.

']My point is there is no need to spend $110 US on this graphics card when there are cheaper alternatives such as the GeForceFX 5500 that you mentioned.

You think GeForce FX5500 is faster than Radeon X1300?

Just a FYI, the PCI bus is 6.4gb/s, and this card is 4.3gb/s, with an overclock, this card will break the bus barrier, and lag up games. I plan to overclock mine, we'll see how performances is then :)

Hehe, not even PCI express has that bandwith :) According to THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express), it has a 4GB/s transfer rate :)
And PCI 2.2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_Component_Interconnect), has a 266MB/s shared bandwith.

']Again Lekki_Sheep is right on the money!

Like I said in the review save your money and invest in a motherboard that’s not a waste of time. I just don’t get the logic behind what he is saying. He wants to play games and to do so he is willing to spend $110 US on a graphics card that can only play games at 1024x768 with every possible quality setting disabled just to get playable performance. Why not just do what I suggested in the review and purchase a motherboard/graphics combo for $110 US and get significantly more performance.

Finally, that motherboard is much much older than one year, I cannot recall the last time I used DDR technology with an Intel processor. In fact it has been at least 3 years since I tested a s-478 motherboard.
Yeah, i will settle for 1024x768, because that is the max res for my monitor lol.

Just a FYI, the PCI bus is 6.4gb/s, and this card is 4.3gb/s, with an overclock, this card will break the bus barrier
Your numbers are way off! This is completely wrong and everyone should ignore this entire thread.

First point: The vast majority of workload performed is on the local bus of the graphics card, not across the PCI or other system buses. That's why this quote is completely incorrect: "idk, ppl were telling me otherwise, and it cant be only 127mb/s, or otherwise this card would exceed the bus by like 40X" -- Originally spewed by F1N3ST

No its 133mhz lol.
Wrong. It is 133MB/sec. Traditional PCI is 32 bits and 33MHz. 33 x 32 = 1056Mbps. 1056Mbps / 8 bits in a byte = 132MB/sec. There's also PCI 2.2 (as mentioned above) which doubles the MHz to 66Mhz. There's also 64-bit PCI called PCI-X which ramps up the MHz even more to (up to) 133MHz.

Anyway, F1N3ST, you're wrong and you need to do some research before you criticize.

I'd just like to point out that I'd find it hard to get hold of a board even for our classroom machines that doesn't at least have AGP. It's like a pretty standard feature on most boards and has been for years. I mean it, years! How old is your machine that you don't have one? What is your justification for trying to use it for a gaming system? Really I'd like to know. Hey, the machine I'm working on right now has one and it's a shuttle with an on-board card aswell.
AGP has been standard on most motherboards for years!

Standard on motherboards you buy from retailers. But not standard on Branded PCs. Many have onboard video and no AGP slot, leaving the only option for upgrades to come on the regular PCI bus.

I agree with SNGX1275. I had a "2004" Gateway PC, and I thought it was the best, because it was very recent. Then I opened it, and surprise, no AGP slot :(

Just 3 damn white PCI slots :dead:

That’s all good and well but would you spend $120 US on a graphics card that offers you no real performance gains? Or would you rather patch up the existing system correctly for maximum performance?

out of the box brands have gotten so cheaply constructed and poorly made these days it is becoming terrible. The low ball pricing has cut into manufactuer profits so much that they are making computers out of the most flimsy and cheaply made parts possible. I wouldn't buy a brand out-of-the-box computer today period. I have built my last two computers myself.

']That’s all good and well but would you spend $120 US on a graphics card that offers you no real performance gains? Or would you rather patch up the existing system correctly for maximum performance?

Of course I wouldn't get it. I'd better get a new mobo with PCI-E, and a cheap good PCI-E card :)

Thats right ... smart man! :grinthumb

Hello All, new here

Got this video card (Visiontek Radeon X1300 PCI) two weeks ago or so (Compusa 79.99 deal :D ended though now btw). Since it was only 80 bucks so I gave it a try. About the review, i found parts helpful and some other parts unhelpful. I know that PCI-E obviously performs much better than PCI and i felt that it was unfair to compare this PCI one to a PCI-E. But overall it was ok, not counting the comparison to the PCI-E card. For me, PCI is my only option unless you can find some decent PCI-X card out there lol. (in college, i'm broke)

What i think of the card: (my tiny review)

System:
Dual 2.4 Xeons
4 gigz ram
35gb SCSI Hard Drive x2
200gb hard drive
Visiontek Radeon X1300 256mb PCI
Windows XP

First off, i know my system isn't one of those hard core gaming systems but it's what I got and i have to deal with it until i get out of college and get a job and get my own. I have a supermicro motherboard. And as i can understand from my friend, my computer is meant for industrial use like servers and such. Again, my budget and no job :/ My previous card was a Radeon 9200se 128 PCI and it did it's job well until i saw this card. This new card isn't perfect but doesn't quite suck either. For a PCI card, it's amazing and astounding, an X1300 GPU on a PCI. I am also running these games at 1024x768 unless mentioned otherwise.

Cons:
There are just a few games that this card just doesn't like. Guild Wars and Call of Duty 2 just don't like this card. Guild Wars (my system specs are over the requirements) runs only at 7 fps at max settings and only at ~10 at the lowest settings(compared to 15-20 on a 9200se). Call of Duty 2 also hates this card. It runs at 10 fps maxed out without AA, with AA it goes down to 1-3 (compared to 20-30 on a 9200se). Even when i tried the lowest settings (like 800x600, all details lowest or none and such) it only went to around 17 or less fps. Online, sometimes even lower with a 500 ping (ugh!). my typical ping with my 9200se was around 100 or less. These are the only gripes i have with this card. 2 of my favorite games are basically unplayable. Doing some research, a product review on CompUSA pointed out that it didn't play well on OpenGl game. I understand that's some sort of rendering method so i think that i can agree with that. Also, this card was made specifically for PCI-E and AGP and that it requires some sort of translator or converter and so the quality is lowered compared to PCI-E and AGP

Pros:
For me, this was a blessing. It has improved my CS:S fps quite a bit, from 15-20 fps to 30-60 fps at all the recommended settings (high). So card works for me when i play Source games. As a PCI card, compared to the 9200se, it is better on the games that it works on but just plain sucks on some other games. Compared to the 9200se, it has Pixel 3.0 (yay battlefield 2) and supports HDR (yay Lost Coast and CS:S). On doom 3, i get at least 30 fps and peak at 70 on 'high settings'. Also, another pro is that this card is 'Vista Ready' and I plan on getting it when it releases.

Overall:
Overall, i think that this card [I]was[I] worth it when Compusa had the $79.99 deal. Now it's $130 and imo not worth the buy. If you currently have a PCI and no other option with only a 9200, i think this is worth a try and see how well it does. If most of your games that you play daily work then it is worth it. If not, then i guess you'll have to stick with your current card. As a 'gamer card', it doesn't do so well and it's just an average card with ps 3.0, hdr, and vista ready. if you don't want to play games on this, then this card is just way too expensive and the wrong card for you. For me, i'll be switching my cards every now and then so i can play call of duty 2 and guild wars :(

3.5/5
Note: I guess this card will really depend on the user. It works really well on some games but not on others so you really have to depend on what games you play.

Wrong. It is 133MB/sec. Traditional PCI is 32 bits and 33MHz. 33 x 32 = 1056Mbps. 1056Mbps / 8 bits in a byte = 132MB/sec. There's also PCI 2.2 (as mentioned above) which doubles the MHz to 66Mhz. There's also 64-bit PCI called PCI-X which ramps up the MHz even more to (up to) 133MHz Yes that is what i was taught, as follows

33mhz 32bit
33mhz 64bit
66mhz 32bit
66mhz 64bit

Thanks a lot for the feedback Coldshiver... you definitely got a great deal on the card.

An update on this card: I stuck it on a PCI-X slot and it has worked wonders! I guess it's the PCI slot itself that is limiting the card. If you stick it on a PCI-X slot (Not PCI-Express), PCI-X offers more bandwidth and performance has increased quite a bit. Haven't wrote down any tests but it there is a really noticeable difference in my gaming.


-EDIT-

Just some performance boosts i got:

Battlefield 2:
On PCI: Only playable at the lowest settings, everything low or none, 800x600. This would only offer about 20-30fps and sometimes with too much happening, it would go down to 10.
On PCI-X: I have everything maxed out, all settings on High except i haven't turned on AA (might try that though, i don't really care much for AA personally) at 1280x1024 I get on average about 40-50 and goes upwards of 70+ when i'm in small rooms. The lowest i ever saw it go down was 35 once.
[Edited by COLDshiver on 2007-03-18 17:44:05]


Guild Wars:
On PCI: Basically Unplayable. I got 2-3 fps and the most i could do was basically use the game to chat with my guildmates at my guild hall.
On PCI-X: i play everything maxed out at 1280x1024 (native resolution of my LCD). Not that great though, i go down to 8-10 fps when i'm in town. But when i go outside to fight and when in battles (Like RA or AB) everything is fine.

Wow....

Thats probably why they're phasing out PCI slots, and bringing in PCIe.

Also, I don't see why they didn't ever implement the PCI-X on PCs (other than the fact that PCI is good enough for soundcards, basic RAID controllers, etc).


Btw, why is the started of this thread banned? o.O

I don't see why they didn't ever implement the PCI-X on PCs (other than the fact that PCI is good enough for soundcards, basic RAID controllers, etc).you already answered your own question, the PCI bus is still good enough for almost all add-in cards (not including video).

read this (http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1151566,00.html) for more info.

Btw, why is the started of this thread banned? o.Ojust look over some of his other posts, you'll see ;)

:wave:

Lawl. I asked cos I knew he was kinda an idiot. I've looked over his last posts, but I didn't find anything that would've warranted a banning...

CMH

When someone gets banned, they've caused a problem. Typically mods don't let the posts that warranted the ban stay on the board. F1N3ST is one of the (if not the) only member that seems to get banned on a regular basis (because he actually comes back and continues), they aren't really bans, more like extended timeouts.

Or, you could just go on believing whatever you contrived in your head about how this board is ran.

You misunderstood me.

I've seen his posts, he needed some time out.

Besides, if you took a look at the advice he's been dishing out, you'd find that alot of them aren't good advice. Or at least I feel that way.

p.s. look at this thread he started.
p.s. we're going off topic now. I'll stop here.
p.s. I have no problems whatsoever with the management of these forums. The mods seem to be doing their job well. I was just looking for info on what would be the basis of a ban.