Upgrade Time!
DOOManiac
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">Video card + more RAM!</div>I'm gonna get me 2 256MB sticks of PC2100 from Crucial (long story short, its what I have to get w/ this mobo, but that's still plenty fast cause I got a dual channel mobo)
I'm also upgrading my Ti4400, which is showing many signs of aging. I'm currently looking at the <a href='http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjM3' target='_blank'>BFGTech GeForce 6800GT OC</a>. This card, offered by BFGTech (yeah I know, silly name), is a bit different than the other more expensive GF6 cards in that it only requires 1 molex connector and a 300w power supply, and in addition it only takes up 1 slot (not 2).
It is an overclocked card, but oc'ed straight from the box, from the manufactorer, and under a full lifetime warranty. Its basically a 6800 Ultra for $100 cheaper.
The X800 Pro does come pretty close to the performance though (and in some cases, outperforms, though for the most part they are neck and neck with each other) so I'm not keeping it out of my options either. My main concern w/ the x800 Pro is that in some comparrison shots I've seen the x800 pro looks a lot better than the Nvidia 6800's. However, from what I understand there are also a lot of problems w/ games like Far Cry having some visual artifacts and whatnot on the ATI cards.
So yeah, its pretty much one of those two cards, and they are supposed to be around the same price. I just feel much better about NVidia than I do ATI, and yes that is 100% pure unadulterated bias.
What do you guys think? If any of you ATI fans care to swoon me with evidence and reason (not fanboyism), I'm actually going to be open and receptive to what you have to say. Any recommendations?
[edit]
Another point worth mentioning, I have $45 in Best Buy gift certificates, so being able to pick the card up at a store rather than buying it online (assuming the price is still cheaper doing so) is a plus.
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I'm also upgrading my Ti4400, which is showing many signs of aging. I'm currently looking at the <a href='http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjM3' target='_blank'>BFGTech GeForce 6800GT OC</a>. This card, offered by BFGTech (yeah I know, silly name), is a bit different than the other more expensive GF6 cards in that it only requires 1 molex connector and a 300w power supply, and in addition it only takes up 1 slot (not 2).
It is an overclocked card, but oc'ed straight from the box, from the manufactorer, and under a full lifetime warranty. Its basically a 6800 Ultra for $100 cheaper.
The X800 Pro does come pretty close to the performance though (and in some cases, outperforms, though for the most part they are neck and neck with each other) so I'm not keeping it out of my options either. My main concern w/ the x800 Pro is that in some comparrison shots I've seen the x800 pro looks a lot better than the Nvidia 6800's. However, from what I understand there are also a lot of problems w/ games like Far Cry having some visual artifacts and whatnot on the ATI cards.
So yeah, its pretty much one of those two cards, and they are supposed to be around the same price. I just feel much better about NVidia than I do ATI, and yes that is 100% pure unadulterated bias.
What do you guys think? If any of you ATI fans care to swoon me with evidence and reason (not fanboyism), I'm actually going to be open and receptive to what you have to say. Any recommendations?
[edit]
Another point worth mentioning, I have $45 in Best Buy gift certificates, so being able to pick the card up at a store rather than buying it online (assuming the price is still cheaper doing so) is a plus.
[/edit]
Comments
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I hear only 1 NVidea 3D card is documented to work 100% of the time with Far Cry, it also looks like ATi cards die in Far Cry with soo many bugs its unbeleivable, I cant even play it due to missing poly<b>gones</b> and crakly sound.
But still from what I hear Far Cry is the sole game to have any major problems with Ati cards.
Furthermore, I expect Talesin to come swooping in on this thread in about 30 seconds flat to show you all the evidence you need that ATi's image quality and driver support are superior to nVidia's.
I checked some prices and both cards seem to be $399. Ouch. I thought they were $100 cheaper, but I haven't spent an ungodly amount of money on a video card in awhile, so I guess now is the time. Heh.
Or should I look at some $299 cards?
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Marik, I'll be going to best buy on Sunday anyway, so I just have to hope there isn't such a good rebate deal the cards are all sold out. :X
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Marik, I'll be going to best buy on Sunday anyway, so I just have to hope there isn't such a good rebate deal the cards are all sold out. :X
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Looks like we'll be going to Best Buy together <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> . I dunno about you, but I've gotten used to waking up on Sunday in time to be at the door 15 minutes before it opens.
Remember how I made a thread back when school was still in session about how I could choose to buy a 9800Pro for $200 or wait until summer? Best Buy ran that deal for one week, set it aside, brought it out again once between then and now, set it aside...let's both hope this Sunday is our lucky week.
As far as I see it right now, regardless of which brand you prefer, if you're willing to spend over $200 on a new video card, you're giving yourself a 1-question multiple choice quiz.
"Circle at most two of the following:"
A) I don't want my wallet to feel like it's been fed a laxative
B) I want a new video card that's fast
C) I want a new video card that will stay as valuable as I paid for it for a longer length of time
[edit]Here's something. Because both brands are selling fast cards with reasonably equal image quality, the main differences in selling points is nVidia's 3.0 Shaders vs. ATi's Temporal Anti-Aliasing. <a href='http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040705/farcry-12.html' target='_blank'>Tom's Hardware</a> (among others) wasn't terribly impressed with the improvements (or lack thereof) brought by the 3.0 Shader model. I'm trying to find a good article on Temporal AA now.
[edit2]An <a href='http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1584038,00.asp' target='_blank'>ExtremeTech</a> comparison article.
As Marik has allready pointed out the selling point is the temporal AA V Shaders bear in mind that the Nvidia card has SLI aswell so if you want a boast in performace later in life you could pickup another one cheap.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->SLI is only for PCI-Express though, not AGP, which is what I'll be getting...
I guess I'll just go and see on Sunday then. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bah lol thought it was a PCI express card silly me, why not just wait and buy a PCI express MB and a new PCI express GFX card since thiers no rush lol. Well the extra price of the MB is a consideration and i dont think thier is a huge performance boost from AGP to PCI Express.
I guess I'll just go and see on Sunday then. :P
Do you have to keep any crap installed and running like in your tasktray to make them work? I hate crap like that.
Yea... if you use windows... Their linux drivers suck arse through a srtaw...
:edit: i'd also like to point out that i was at one time an nVidia fan, and that both my TNT-2 and my VIVO are still in use today, though neither runs FarCry very well. ^_^
The x800 looks like it does beat out the gf6 on visual quality just a little though, so I think I may go w/ it. Also there's the fact that you can buy em now as opposed to just waiting on the GF6 card I want...
ATi is faster in DX9 games, has higher overall framerate and image quality, and comparable (or superior) drivers to the Detonators. They ALL draw less power and only take up a single slot.
nVidia is faster in OpenGL games, but the gap is much narrower than against ATi in DX9. The drivers have been shown to have outright cheats installed to improve synthetic benchmark scores (3DMark), and do NOT afford the user <b>actual</b> control over the visual quality (anisotropic filtering, colour calculations). The added speed in OpenGL rendering comes from cutting back-end colour calculations from full- to half- or even quarter-precision. This results in degraded image clarity, which can have cascading effects when performing related calculations (such as future-grade real-time radiosity rendering, shadowing techniques, and reflective/refractive computations, among others).
The drivers have been shown to 'catch' attempts to screenshot within given games, and render a <b>single frame</b> at full-quality... which fouled benchmarkers for a while, until it was noticed.
Short version:<ul><li>x800 Pro and 6800 Ultra are pretty close, but the x800 comes out on top the majority of the time. Between the two companies, the x800 XTPE is <b>the</b> fastest card, all-around.</li><li>FarCry runs perfectly on ATi cards. Those with artifacting most likely went with a low-end third party manufacturer, or are overclocking their card (intentionally or not). It's the nVidia cards that have SEVERE visual artifacts in FC.</li><li>nVidia STILL has not set their drivers to disable the Anisotropic 'optimizations' when the end-user tells the drivers to run in normal mode. (aka: cheat)</li><li>Stock of 'high-end' nVidia cards is limited at best, with a far inflated price tag. The x800 XTPE beats them in price and speed, and is easily available in bulk quantities.</li><li>TFSAA is one of the best ideas to come along for a while. If your refresh rate is fairly decent (60fps or higher) and your monitor is 60hz+ (mine is 100hz) you'll be able to see the difference right off the bat, especially at the lower settings (where it does the most good, and 'costs' the least). nVidia fanboys have a hard time with this, as it's something so simple, it should have been integrated in all video cards a long while ago.</li><li>ATi has ALL of their product line on the shelf, from the low-end to the XTPEs. The local Fry's just received their first shipment of 6800 GTs this week. (It's fun to heckle the nVidia rep that the company sends down as he tries to steer people away from the x800s... ESPECIALLY when he insists that Doom3 is a DX9 game, 'because you can't do that with OpenGL'!)</li></ul>
The only reason that the 6800 series is shown to be faster at Doom3 in the closed iD testing, is that the GF6 has a DEDICATED (read: highly optimized/tweaked) codepath with reduced colour calculations, using their (nVidia's) proprietary hardware-equivalent coding language... and ATi uses the default OpenGL path.
And 'Pixel Shader 3.0' in its current state is 99% a sham. Any card that can do ACTUAL PS2.0 (aka: GFFX need not apply, R9500 and up are sitting pretty) and has a hardware T&L unit is technically able to handle PS3.0 instructions, with minor driver handle additions. Anyone else remember nVidia's 'Pixel Shader 2.0+' marketing scheme, which ATi responded with 'Pixel Shader 2.0++'?
Neither of which existed as an actual standard, so both could advertise. Hopefully the savvy consumer caught that little spin-goof and riposte, and recognized it for being a weak ploy to fool the gullible and moronic into purchasing an inferior nVidia product.
i need a job :\
... pwnt
Hrm. Another ATI pwns NVidia thread <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
prices start to settle on the next generation cards.
I'm running FarCry on 9800 Pro, XP2800+ and 1 gig of 2100 Ram
and it's running very very nicely.
My screenshot based evidence is <a href='http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.taylor2/images/' target='_blank'>here</a>.
Click it, browse at your leisure, say "oohhhh" and "aahhh"
at the pretty FarCry images.
Is there any articles anywhere that compares the decibal values of the cards? (as in, which ones are quieter?)
For the 6800 Ultra Extreme, they had to go back to the dustbuster. All of the 6800s ARE noticeable over your CPU fan, but the lower-clocked ones tend to be quieter. All are much louder than the ATi solution. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
As for prices... well, these are stepping-stone cards. There are no games out which TRULY take full advantage of them just yet (excepting possibly Tron 2.0), and by the time the games are out, there will be still-faster cards on the market.
Personally though, I'd look at it this way. The x800 Pro is $400. The x800 XTPE is $500. While you're putting out that much money already, isn't it a good idea to get the best available, when it DOES show a marked performance increase, and doesn't show the usual logarithmic price jumping?
Personally, if I had the money, I'd go for the x800 XTPE as soon as tomorrow's sale papers come out.
It'd assure that for current-gen games, I'd have a killer video card.. and next-gen games would at least be playable. Most likely very well-playable, given that most development houses will still be aiming for GF2 compatability/playability.
With a major jump like this (doubling current framerates and then some) devs are faced with a large problem. Jumps like this don't happen often, and they have to decide if they want to keep up with current technology, or pander to those too cheap to upgrade their equipment in 7 years.
Plus, you can mock nVidia fanboys, whose Golden Sample (6800UE, msrp $700) cards are slower than your bulk-availability card. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
There's just one surprise.
I got the price wrong. It's not $200.
<a href='http://bestbuy.dailyshopper.com' target='_blank'>Check it yourself</a>. For my zip code, it was on page 3.
/me gets in car to camp out.
See, I've got a GeForce FX 5600 256mb version.
And frankly, I've learned: Don't get GeForce.
See, I came in thinking "Man my PC is gonna SCREAM with this!"
Well, it doesn't. I've learned a lot from Talesin in just his posts, and frankly, I'm seeing my GeForce sucking total ****.
The thing bad about GeForce is:
Their drivers. No, you are NOT correct in saying their drivers are superior. I'm sorry, but when they can just BARELY run a DX9 game, and can't even run HL with full ASF and AA settings, with a 256mb cache- something is WRONG. VERY VERY WRONG.
Oddly, CWAG posted about a month or 2(or maybe even 3) ago a quote saying that NVidia would release a new driver within a week of that time that would give all the DX9 optimizations.
...we still don't have it.
Then there is functionality: Sometimes, the ASF or AA just turns off with NVidia drivers.
Also, at least with mine: Its loud as hell.
If I were you, I'd do whatever Talesin says, because right now, ATi is kicking NVidia's **** out the door. I know that DOOM3 will be OpenGL based, but honestly DOOM: Are you going to play DOOM3 so much over the next 3+ years that it outlands all other games? I didn't think you were that stupid(no matter if it kicks ****[which it will] or not).
Just DON'T go NVidia.
oh, and btw: My RAM pwns your ram. DDR 1280mb.
WHAT A LOT OF DIFFERENCE
i mean the 9800 pro actual gives me the willies when i play games, i see detail, i dont get fps drops in HL
/me dies and fondles his 9800 Pro Box
Im officially a ATI man i had an nvidia and i was an nvidia man but man nvidia is nothing but disapointments
/me starts building up static charge using the carpet...
I just found out that the X800 XT ($100 more than the Pro) is the "OMG wet your pants" version... Dunno if I can afford that though... :X
The XTPE is the fastest card on the consumer-level market, in other words.
As for the GFFX 5600, I pulled a 'fry's rental' of one for about five days, to run a badly-coded software suite for a presentation. Picked up an Asylum GFFX 5600 Ultra. It was slower than my Radeon 9500 Pro by approximately 20-25% in all benchmarks, could not handle pbuffers as smoothly, and had terrible color balance even after my best attempts to adjust it. I'm just glad that it was going out over a standard VGA out, instead of a high-def... the analog output blending (projector on a rough wall) helped to hide a good bit of the ugly involved.
It only served to reinforce my conceptions that nVidia makes inferior products, if the next-gen top-end midrange card was SLOWER than my years-old midrange card.
Besides, my budget card has ticked me off enough.
So....I suppose the 9800 Pro is the way to go for now in terms of price? Would seem right as their prices here in Hong Kong are dropping. I guess I'd have to check on the prices soon....
I just found out that the X800 XT ($100 more than the Pro) is the "OMG wet your pants" version... Dunno if I can afford that though... :X <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do it man. Do it.