AGP 6600GT, 6800XT or X800GTO?

[Zenara25]

I currently have a Radeon 9600 256mb AGP. It's just barely cutting it for Oblivion and not at all for Medieval 2 Total War.

Which one of the cards above (AGP) would be better? The 6600GT only has 128mb the other 2 have 256mb

Thanks

 

[Sentinel]

Out of those choices, I would go with the GTO.

edit- these might help.
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[Zenara25]

Thanks. Just one more question. I read somewhere that the GTO can't play newer games (Such as Oblivion) at all. I think it had to do with the shader being only 2.0. Is this true?

I found the quote "But the x800gto does not have SM3 so it will not be able to play most of the more recent games!"

 

[Dazed and Confused]

X800GTO can play Oblivion

 

[Sentinel]

It will play Oblivion fine. Link to anandtech article: Text

 

[Munky]

SM3 is used by games to enable higher complexity shaders than would be feasible using SM2. Thus, SM3 effects in games put an additional load on the gpu, and you need a faster video card to play the game smoothly using those effects. For example Stalker requires an SM3 card to use dynamic lighting, but if you try it on a 6600gt you're looking at fps in the single digits. Most if not all latest games will run on SM2 hardware, you just won't be able to use some of the higher shader settings.

 

[Zenara25]

Not that I'm planning on buying these games but here's another quote "Rainbow six vegas and splinter cell double agent don't run on SM2.0 video card.

You need at least SM3.0 to run them"

Also which is better the 6600GT 128mb, or the 6800XT 256mb?

 

[Munky]

Those games are the only two I know which require SM3 to run.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

6800XT only beats 6600GT if you get one you can crank the GPU speed up on. You'd need at least 450mhz on a 6800XT's GPU to pass a 6600GT. And remember 9 times out of 10 6800XT's cannot unlock to 12/5 . There are a few games where the 256bit memory bus will let it beat a 6600GT @ stock speeds but in too many cases the higher fillrate of the 6600GT beats the 6800XT.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: munky
SM3 is used by games to enable higher complexity shaders than would be feasible using SM2. Thus, SM3 effects in games put an additional load on the gpu, and you need a faster video card to play the game smoothly using those effects. For example Stalker requires an SM3 card to use dynamic lighting, but if you try it on a 6600gt you're looking at fps in the single digits. Most if not all latest games will run on SM2 hardware, you just won't be able to use some of the higher shader settings.

That's correct, but bear in mind that the X800GTO uses the Pixel shader 2_b which has the same 512 pixel shader instructions count in hardware like the Pixel Shader 3.0 has, the only difference is that the static branching on the Shader 2_b allows a maximum of 1,536 instructions per pass which is huge, while the Dynamic Branching (Which incurrs in a performance hit on GeForce 6/7 hardware while it improves performance on Radeon X1K hardware) used on the Shader 3.0 allows up to 65,536 instructions. STALKER ran on my old X800XT PE with Full Dynamic Lightning and looks identical to the image that I get from my X1950XTX AGP, the only difference is the performance level which is greater with the current card that I have. Oblivion also benefits of SM2.0b, when you look at the renderer log, you can see in an option that says Uses 3.0 Shaders: And says yes, cause the game doesn't exceed the 512 instruction shader count which fits nicely in a 2_b profile. Even there's a trick which I used to enable Next Gen content from Tomb Raider Legend on my Radeon X800XT it worked flawleslly, the only problem was the shadows which looked weird. SM3.0 doesn't change significantly the programming compared to SM2.0. Anything that is done under SM3.0 can be done under 2.0, just that the impact in performance usinig SM2.0 will be greater due to the profile restraints, and the features in SM3.0 will incurr in a huge performance hit if the hardware is not efficient enough.