Im ordering a new computer this afternoon. I was set on getting the Geforce 6800 Ultra, but after reading numerous reviews, im not sure. I am in the midldle of these two cards, GeForce 6800 Ultra and ATI radeon X800 P.E. WHat do u all think about these two cards?? If THE ultra didnt have support for Shader 3.0 i would defintately go ATI. What is the significance of pixel shader 3.0, is anything come out using this feature?
No announcement yet.
GeForce 6800 Ultra vs. Platnium Pro
Collapse
X
-
Long term, the NVIDIA card has to be the better option with support for PS 3.0. Personally I would wait a couple of months and take the PCI-Express route. Get yourself an NV45 and a DDR/DDR2 supporting motherboard, upgrade to DDR2 memory later, when the price becomes a little more realistic.
Comment
-
my bad.........but, still, weta...........can you confirm? i believe this to be true about the nv 45 being todays nv40 w/a bridge........from what i can surmise, this bad boy will double current performance when the time comes........pci express and 3.0/32bit
Comment
-
I'd wait a while and see what comes out. Get a mid-range card or maybe a 9800 Pro, if you get anxious. If you want to spend a lot of money on a card, wait and see what the best performer with pixel shader 3.0 support is.
Don't worry about getting a board supporting PCI-E later on. A PCI-express card will have pretty much exactly the the same performance on a bridge as on a board with a PCI-Express slot. Currently, there is no difference in virtually every existing application between AGP 4x and 8x.
However, if you don't care much about the future, than the X800 is the way to go. There's currently no need for pixel shader 3.
Comment
-
I would stick with nvidia. I myself am getting a 9800pro, but that's a different story because I don't know which card to get now, lol. nvidia cards have better opengl capabilities which is what more and more games are using. Thus nvidia will perform better and be a better card in the long run. I mean, I have my ti 4200 turbo from Albatron still running strong. Sure it can't run games like far cry and halo to the full potential but it runs most everything else fine at the res and settings I play at. It all depends on what you want to do with the game, what kind of settings you want to run at and such. For me, if I had the money it would be the 6800ultra.
Comment
-
i have a 9800 pro, and true that is all about what you currently need..........i play almost everything @1600x1200x32..........buying a 6800 ultra just keeps you from having to buy another card, for a long period of time, and the 200+ dollars you'd spend on the 9800 would decrease your overall nut on the 6800, which by the way will come in a GT version @ 399 +/- without power supply issues, i believe..........the x factor here is that down the road, the 6800 is going to be much faster, if that's possible, due to the fact i believe it is a dumbed down nv 45 chip waitng to be unlocked. the need for xtra bandwidth will soon become apparent as the new demnds for fill rate become more apparent......far cry is patching for shader 3.0/32bit..........amd has just released chips that utilize hyperthreading and pci xpress 2.0 in 64bit servers......intel will try to get back into the game w/ pci express......the power increase for the slot will be necessary to ramp up and utilize it's doubling of agp bandwidth.
Comment
-
I could post in one of the other relevant threads, but this seems the most appropriate...
It's about time I put in my :2cents: I've just been watching people fight (mainly in the other threads) and sitting back. I think I've had only a single post regarding the topic, although I clearly know more aout than some people (mainly in the other threads) that keep posting about it.
First of all (again, this is mainly for all the **** going on in the other threads), get over the whole thing with JSR. So his posting style is annoying, big deal. My only major beef with him is that he keeps saying that the NV40 is a dumbed-down NV45 as if it is fact and not something he made up that might be true. It's irrelevant anyway.
That aside, allow me to compare the cards:
Performance-wise, it's very hard. The Radeon X800s beat the GeForce in most UT2004 situations, especially AF. The XT tears it apart and the Pro beats it overall. But if you switch over to Call of Duty, the GeForce 6800 eats the X800s for breakfast. In most tests the XT can't even tie, and the Pro shows its performance inferiority in this area quite well. But if you take synthetic benchmarking like AquaMark 3, you get very mixed results. There is no clear winner; even the X800 Pro holds its own. Lots of games have been tested, but there is no clear result. You might say the X800 XT wins out a bit over the GeForce 6800 in the area of performance, but that will likely change when the features of the GeForce are utilized properly. In this area, I would call it a tie between the XT and Ultra with the Pro trainling behind a tad.
If you look at power consumption and space, it's not even a contest. The GeForce is a monster to power and keep in your case, while the X800s use less power than their predeccesor, the 9800 XT. They also keep to their AGP slot and don't try to invade on your PCI capablities.
If you look at longevity, the 6800 gets a major victory. It actually comes with new features that are useful while the X800s just provide better performance than older cards.
When it comes down to bang-for-buck, though, we find that the X800s win out big time. They actually provide more bang-for-buck than the 9800XT as they provide nearly twice the performance while not costing twice as much. The GeForce 6800 is incredibly expensive and just doesn't add enough to say it's worth $100 more than the X800 XT, arguably.
If it comes down to making a sensible purchase, the X800 Pro wins out, for most people. Unless you have a very high-end P4 (> 3GHz clock with HTT), an Athlon 64 FX, or an Athlon 64 3800 (the only non-FX I would say is powerful enough), you are wasting money on a card. Most games and applications are too CPU-based and you start to see very CPU-limited scores and framerates even if you have the more powerful cards. Even with the 3.2 GHz P4 THG used in its review, some scores were obviously CPU limited. Basically, most people will be too limited by their CPU to see much of a performance increase in getting a 6800 or X800 XT over the Pro. In the case of the 6800, it's certainly not worth the extra $150 - $200 US (the Pro is supposed to cost $400, but costs $450) for performance (perhaps for features).
When it comes down to it, there's no clear winner. It all depends on your situation...
If you already have a very powerful system using a high-end P4, socket 939 or socket 940 processor with a GB of RAM, the GeForce 6800 may be the best choice. It will last for quite some time before being considered mid-range because it actually offers new features, rather than just performance.
If you already have a system with a low-end Athlon 64 (ie socket 754) or a mid-range P4, or high-end Athlon XP, the X800 Pro may be a better choice. It won't be as CPU-limited as the others, and you will save some money towards replacing and/or upgrading your current system.
If you are getting a new system, it depends on your budget. If you are trying to build a budget system but want a high-end video card that you might use if you replace it, the X800s both look good. If you are building a super-high-end gaming machine (ie socket 939 with a 3800 or better), you probably want a GeForce 6800. However, if it came down to getting a better processor, I would rather get an X800 XT (when they become more available). It's easier to upgrade a $500 video card than an $800 processor.
That's just my :2cents: on the subject. I think there's no clear winner and you have to base your choice around your budget and future use more than performance. So if money isn't an issue and you want something that will get better with time, you would probably want the GeForce. If money is an issue and you just want some huge performance increase, the X800s look better. What it comes down to is opinion, rather than pure facts. This is not the case in other price ranges. For example, if you're getting the bottomn of the high-end range (9800 and such), than the 9800 Pro is the only real choice. It will provide the best performance and bang-for-buck without jumping up a notch in cards. There are similar "facts" at other ranges. In my opinion, this just isn't the case with the new high-end graphics cards and deciding what card is best must be done on a person-to-person basis and be based heavily on opinion.
:2cents:
Edit: and BTW, these are the current cards available at Newegg, although they're all out-of-stock as of posting:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc...150-067&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-363&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...125-135&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-364&depa=0
The only card I have yet to see available at a respectable site is the Radeon X800 XT PE.
Comment
-
what i believe.....and, i will research and corroborate as i want everyone to know i did see what i am refering to...regardless, nvidia will try to compete with the x800 with a model called the GT....this model will not have the increased power requirements as the ultra and will be priced with the x800..........only significant differences are of course the reiteration of 32 bit support/ the rest of direct x/ pci express/ shader 3.0..........even if the GT gets beat in frame rate or not.......who will care as the difference should be negligible........ http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16139 http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/d...602060458.html http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=2068
Comment
-
Interesting... But I still have the same problem I had before. I have no clue as to what the point is. If the the NV45 is the NV40 clocked slightly lower but made for PCI-E, there is no point to it. Do some researching on 4x AGP and 8x AGP. There's no difference in performance. Application and the cards themselves have yet to mature to a point where 8x is even advantageous.
The one thing that got me was its supposed to be priced at $500. If that's true, then Nvidia could pull a huge victory over ATI. It have comparable price and performance to an X800 XT while providing much nicer features. Now that would be cool. But if it's just NV40 gone PCI-E, Nvidia could be doing something really stupid. :2cents:
Comment
Comment