Gainward 5900XT Ultra / Golden 1100 vs SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800 PRO

[magnum44]

Hi I have a question about Gainward 5900XT Ultra / Golden 1100 vs SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800 PRO. I got the 5900xt from new egg and I don't know if this results below are normal and want to find out if I should return this card and get an ATI 9800 Pro. It is a good card for overclocking but it tends to look up uf you over cloock it too high. Right now I run it at 450 MHZ Core and 780 MHZ memory.

System specs:
- A7N8X-X" nForce2 400 Chipset Motherboard
- AMD Athlon XP 2500 Barton Core (oc 3200 @ 2.2 GHZ )
- 500MB RAM PC2700 333MHZ ( oc PC3200 400MHZ)
- Maxtor 80 GB 2MB Buffer 7200RPM Ata 133
- Thermaltake Case w / 8 fans and 540 Watt Power supply
- Gainward GeForce FX5900XT Ultra Golden Sample 1100 @ 450 MHZ and 780 MHZ
|
L (RUNNING Nvidia 61.77 drivers)


(Doom 3)

1024x768 / 32bit (High quality) no aa and no af - 30~15 fps and slide show when opening doors.
1024x768 / 32bit (Medium quality) no aa and no af works fine on average 60~40 fps and minimal lag when opening the doors.
800c600 (Medium) 60fps runs with no lag.

(Far Cry) - After I had to download the 1.1 patch

1024x768 / 32bit (High Quality) with Ultra High water - WOULDN'T EVEN RUN ( LOOCKS UP THE PC )
1024x768 / 32bit (Medium Quality) High Texture, Ultra High Water, ( Runs but lags some on big maps but playable)
1024x768 / 32bit (Medium Quality) all medium settings runs fine no lag

I'm not totaly satisfied with this results. Any different drivers I can try ? HELP !!
IS THIS NORMAL?? is ATI 9800 Pro Better in these results. Should I get IT or stick to Nvidia ???
Please tell me why if I should switch and if I'm going to see any noticable difference.

(Nvidia) - the one I got
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-128-185&depa=0

(ATI) - Should I swap it for ATI ?
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=14-102-268&depa=0

Any suggestions apreciated.

 

[nRollo]

The 9800Pro will be faster at all games than a 5900XT.

-nVidia Rollo

 

[Dman877]

9800 Pro will definitley be better in farcry, I run the same setup as you with a 9800 Pro and can do farcry at 10x7, high detail and a few medium without any slowdown. For screenshots, I run 12x10 max detail 2x aa and 4x af and it still runs pretty well but not well enough to play imo. As to Doom3, I don't know which is faster.

EDIT: My system is a barton at 2.2 but I have a gig of ram.

 

[magnum44]

When I look at new egg reviews I'm kind of confused because some people say thay this card ( Gainward 5900xt Ultra 1100 Golden sample )blows away the ATI 9800 Pro and the ati People say that Ati blows away the 5900xt. So which one is it? Are this cards almost identical in performance or what ? I don't want to go through the hassle of returning it if i'm not going to see any obvious improvements. By the way does any one know of any good deals for the 6800gt ?

 

[PrayForDeath]

The first thing you should do is buy another 512Mb stick of RAM, that should help you alot in FarCry, for me it was like night and day difference between 512 and 1024.
As for your card, if you don't want to go throught the hassle of returning/replacing stuff, your video card is good, it has like 85-90% the power of the 9800Pro with AA/AF off, but the percentage goes down when AA/AF are on. If you like AA and AF you better replace your card, FX series was always bad with eye candy.
In my opinion, a GT is overkill for your rig, your CPU will be a bottleneck.

 

[Blastman]

I would switch to the 9800pro in a heartbeat. Games are going shaders, shaders and more shaders. The 9800Pro has a much more powerful shader engine than the 5900XT, so it will perform much better over the next 2 years.

 

[Blastman]

In shader heavy games the 9800pro is substantially faster than even a 5950U running the DX8 path in HL2 ?10x7?DX8.1?(Firingsquad) ?

5900XT ? ?81.8?.***est.
5950U ? ? 98.2
9800pro ? .. 126.6

*** A 5950U is about 20% faster than a 5900XT

Same deal in a shader heavy game like Farcry, 9800pro is much faster than a 5900XT.

 

[RussianSensation]

Get the 9800Pro if it isn't much trouble for you. It will even be faster than 5900 series in CS: Source and run at full DX9. So expect faster HL2 performance as well. Doom 3 will be about equal though. 9800Pro will be more suitable for AA/AF in older DX8.1 games as well.

Try to get the MSI9800Pro since it has the 9800xt core and just flash it or overclock it to 9800xt speeds. It should be around the same price on newegg.

 

[magnum44]

Thank you for all your input guys but I decided to spend $90 and get a 6800 from E-vga since it is supposed to be even better than the 9800 Pro. It's on its way and I'll post the results here on tesday or wednesday.

I checked the Doom 3 benchmark at the link below even with 4xAA and 8xAF all the way up this card is twice as fast as the ATI 9800 Pro for only $90 more .... no btrainer for me hehe I GOT IT.
Doom 3 Benchmark ATI 9800 Pro vs Nvidia 6800

Let me know what u think about my decion.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: magnum44
Thank you for all your input guys but I decided to spend $90 and get a 6800 from E-vga since it is supposed to be even better than the 9800 Pro. It's on its way and I'll post the results here on tesday or wednesday.

I checked the Doom 3 benchmark at the link below even with 4xAA and 8xAF all the way up this card is twice as fast as the ATI 9800 Pro for only $90 more .... no btrainer for me hehe I GOT IT.
Doom 3 Benchmark ATI 9800 Pro vs Nvidia 6800

Let me know what u think about my decion.

Your decision is good, the 6800 will be faster than the 9800Pro at every usable setting.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: Rollo
The 9800Pro will be faster at all games than a 5900XT.

-nVidia Rollo

After a year of donkeys and jackasses, better drivers and support, etc.. Now that the 9800 line and the 5900 lines are being discontinued - you are unbiased? Are you sure it is only a friend who works for Nvidia?
:roll:

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: Rollo
The 9800Pro will be faster at all games than a 5900XT.

-nVidia Rollo

After a year of donkeys and jackasses, better drivers and support, etc.. Now that the 9800 line and the 5900 lines are being discontinued - you are unbiased? Are you sure it is only a friend who works for Nvidia?
:roll:

 

[magnum44]

I got my Evga 6800 From newegg today and I have to say I do not see any improvement at all HELP HELP HELP ! I going crazy over here Doom 3 is driving me nuts ! Is it my RAM in my computer ?????? What I did notice is when I increase the resolution in doom or any other game than my hard drive is going like crazy , is this because I only have 512 MB ram ? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[magnum44]

OK I Overclocked the Evga 6800 128MB ddr card from 325 mhz core / 700 mhz mem to 410 mhz core / 900 mhz mem and wow do I see the improvement now. It is a lot faster oh and I also disable the fast writes in the bios for the agp and I can run doom at 40 ~ 60 fps in high res at 1200 x 1024 . It might jump like every 2 min like for 1 sec but its playable and looks super nice. I think it was fast writes in the bios that caused this. Anyway I decided to benchmark my rig with 3Dmark03 and got a 10226 @ OC speeds and 8400 a@ regular speed. All I can say Thank you EVGA!!!!

QUESTION
My card runs @ 54 C idle and about ~ 65 when playing games OCd. Should I upgrade the heatsink on it ?

 

[yhelothar]

My card runs @ 54 C idle and about ~ 65 when playing games OCd. Should I upgrade the heatsink on it ?

are you kidding me? That's COLD!

 

[magnum44]

If that is cold than I'm overclocking it until it's hotter......hehehe

 

[magnum44]

Q]The first thing you should do is buy another 512Mb stick of RAM, that should help you alot in FarCry, for me it was like night and day difference between 512 and 1024. [/quote]

Aihght, I finally got my 512 MB stick of RAM and I have to say that was my problem all along. Thank you PrayForDeath you were 100% correct !! My 6800 runs doom at High resolutuin 1600x1200 45 ~ 60 Frames a second no lag when opening doors etc in addition my hard drive is not that much active anymore since its all in the RAM!!! I also read a post overhere about RAM don't remember exactly where but it said that doom takes aup 1.3 gb ram when playing at ultra resolution so if U want ultra res I guess I will have to have ayt least 1.5 gb ram. But for me it looks INCREDIBLE @ High res 1600x1200. I love this site and thaks for ALL your help............. PEACE!!!!

 

[magnum44]

Just tested DOOM 3 in 1600x1200 Ultra Mode mode and no aa no af and I have to say i'm suprised it ran like 30 ~ 50 frames a second even in big fights but at 30 fps but playable, I guess EVGA ROCKS

just had to share that info.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Please tell us what AGP Aperture setting you are running at. DIII and FarCry general are better if you up the aperture size to 256. Also more memory would help you out a lot.

-Kevin