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New Graphics card

S

swamster

Junior Member
I'm planing on buying a new GFX card. Either the F5950U or 9800XT. I have read tons of reviews and benchmarks and in most of them the 9800XT outperforms the nvidia card. However,Nvidia cards will give better framerates in Doom3 than the ATI cards. And we could probably expect future games to use the D3 engine. So my questions are:

1. Which is the better overall card (considering each card's performance in DX8 and DX9 games, as well as there performances in HL2 and Doom3)?

2.Is doom3 (the game) optimized for Nvidia cards? or will the doom3 engine run better on nvidia cards for all future games?

3. Is it worth spending money on these cards? (the new cards from ATI and Nvidia are still a while off) and will I atleast be able to play games at decent framerates for some time to come?

Thanks!
 
1. IMO the 9800 XT is the better card
2. Doom III looks to run faster on FX 5950
3. NO, a $200 9800 pro 128 mb is by far a better buy

btw, keep in mind the next generation of cards will be released before Doom III is out
 
O yeah, the PC i'm planing on buying is:
P4 3Ghz 800mhz FSB, HT
DDR400 1024Mb PC3200 400Mhz (512 X2 dual)
MSI 865PE Neo2-PFS Intel® Pentium 4 ATX Mainboard (dual Ram)

And then either the Radeon or the Geforce
 
First of all wellcome to anandtech. Second: Buying a 9800XT is a waste of money, 9800pro 256mb oc'd performs as 9800XT and is quite a lot cheaper if you think you need 256mb. If not a $215 9800pro 128mg is the way to go, as it will perform as good in almost everything except some xtreme cases as 1600x1200 with 4xAA and 8xAF.

Third: FX series are much weaker while using AA and AF or/and DX9 features. OpenGL is their best and should run a little better in Doom 3. But this is only an estimation on a beta demo which was optimized for Nvidia. Better performance of Radeon on HL2 is a fact as it performs better in heavy DX9.

If your looking for IQ and DX9 performance radeon is your best bet.
If your looking for pure performance and Opengl then FX series is your best choice.

About stability with Catalyst drivers it is great in my computer, no problems at all here. And if you have any problem you can always use Omegas.
 
Easy, 9800 Pro. Right now. But I would like to see what the new Nvidia chips can do. They may be able to easily crush the 9800 Pro. But at this time the price point for the Pro is totally sweet.
 
Originally posted by: swamster
O yeah, the PC i'm planing on buying is:
P4 3Ghz 800mhz FSB, HT
DDR400 1024Mb PC3200 400Mhz (512 X2 dual)
MSI 865PE Neo2-PFS Intel® Pentium 4 ATX Mainboard (dual Ram)

And then either the Radeon or the Geforce
Click to expand...

I'd buy an A64 system as it should give that P43000 a good run.
 
Definitely. AMD is best for general applications and gaming. A64 3000 is same price and performes better.
 
1)In directx 8.1 and below nvidia is better.In directx 9 radeon is better,radeon has better iq while nvidia will provide extremes of fps ,the radeon won't provide too many fps in extremes but will maintain a good reputation in all,which the nvidia might fail to in the future directx games.Radeon 9800pro has better image quality.Overall radeon is a better buy today.It is better for the games of the NEAR FUTURE.
eg:In Quake 3 640*480:128mb fx 5200 yield over 400fps while radeon 9800pro will yeild no more.

2)Half life 2 is making use of ati graphics,don't know of doom3,but i think-not sure:it should be better in doom3 as well.

3)the best ecomnomical and practical performance buy will the the sapphire radeon 9800pro 128mb from newegg.com,it is for 215$.THe 256mb version and the xt versions are about double the cost and not worth the money.You take radeon 9800pro 128mb now and some thing very good a yr later,overall perforamcne is better and cost is same or less.These can play all most all games at atleasst 1280*1024*32*max settings,some aa and af and several with 1600*1200*max all.But some games like call of duty:
32mb = low textures
64 and 128=mid
256mb =high

max payne 2:
low system(1gz,256 ram and 32mb t&l)=upto 800*600
mid system(amd 1400/1.7ghz,512 ram better video card)=upto
good= 1280*1024

I recommed taking amd 3000 or more as a cheap buy,or amd 3400 for pure performace.amd can be oc a lot!!
 
9800p, no question. I would much rather get that card for ~200 bucks now rather than spend 400-500 bucks on a card in 3-4 months.
 
1)In directx 8.1 and below nvidia is better.In directx 9 radeon is better,radeon has better iq while nvidia will provide extremes of fps ,the radeon won't provide too many fps in extremes but will maintain a good reputation in all,which the nvidia might fail to in the future directx games.Radeon 9800pro has better image quality.Overall radeon is a better buy today.It is better for the games of the NEAR FUTURE.
eg:In Quake 3 640*480:128mb fx 5200 yield over 400fps while radeon 9800pro will yeild no more.

2)Half life 2 is making use of ati graphics,don't know of doom3,but i think-not sure:it should be better in doom3 as well.

3)the best ecomnomical and practical performance buy will the the sapphire radeon 9800pro 128mb from newegg.com,it is for 215$.THe 256mb version and the xt versions are about double the cost and not worth the money.You take radeon 9800pro 128mb now and some thing very good a yr later,overall perforamcne is better and cost is same or less.These can play all most all games at atleasst 1280*1024*32*max settings,some aa and af and several with 1600*1200*max all.But some games like call of duty:
32mb = low textures
64 and 128=mid
256mb =high
Click to expand...

In DX ATI rules all. The Radeon provides higher FPS Radeon has better Anti-Aliasing Quality, but the rest of the image quality is similar. Half-Life two will run better on ATI's existing hardware, while Doom 3 will run better on Nvidia's existing hardware with ATI behind, possibly not by much. 256MB cards are for special games that provide higher textures for such an ability. Not too many games have this feature, YOu will also need to pair the extra high textures with a res of 1280 and up with max aa and af to actually see an improvement.
 
Some more questions:

1. Will the new Nvidia/Ati cards be on the shelves in April? Do you think it will retail at the same price as what the RAdeon 9800XT is currently at?

2. If I buy A radeon 9800 pro/xt will it still be able to perform well with future games?

I'm willing to spend the money on buying a Radeon 9800XT (yes i know the pro is less expensive) so I'd rather wait another 2-3 months and buy a next gen card for the same price (if it has the same price tag as the current price for a radeon 9800xt AND there is a noticeable increase in performance)
 
1)radeon 9900 will release later this yr.THe cost of retailing of radeon 9800xt will not decrease that much by the mid of this yr.

2)there will be some diff. but not that much to cover the cost,you should go for a 256mb video card,that is important
 
why not just wait until the next gen of video cards?


btw, if you want to play openGL games or do any 3d rendering, nvidia is definitely the way to go. if you want good pure dx9 performance, go with ati. however, nvidia runs just as well when devs actually use the tools given to them for optimization (hello, valve
rolleye.gif
)
 
If you're going for the long run, then I suggest that you wait for the new gen cards. I recommend for best experienc you upgrade every other generation of video cards. You could be pushing it if you skip two gens, but I think it might be doable.
 
Originally posted by: akshayt
1)radeon 9900 will release later this yr.THe cost of retailing of radeon 9800xt will not decrease that much by the mid of this yr.

2)there will be some diff. but not that much to cover the cost,you should go for a 256mb video card,that is important
Click to expand...

256mb is not important, 128mb is more than enough unless playing 1600x1200 with high AA/AF.
 
256mb is not important, 128mb is more than enough unless playing 1600x1200 with high AA/AF.
Click to expand...
Actually I would change that statement to getting 256MB if you plan on playing with a resolution of 1280x1024 or higher with max AA/AF. The difference may only be 5-10 frames but it is a difference none the less and should be taken into consideration in upcoming games. We high res people live a dangerous life.
 
to play games like cod,farcry and painkiller and games of near future at high settigns-textures,256mb is highly/strongly required . it wasn't required till 2-4months back

radeon buy
 
If you can delay buying your new PC for a month or two (new cards will debut in a month, should be available in two), do so. If you can't, consider buying a $215 9800P now and putting some money aside for a new card when the big next-gen games actually hit (D3 may be delayed 'til July, HL2 'til September).

I'd also be inclined to pick up an Athlon 64 over a P4, but that's your call. Really, I'd wait two months for the new cards and PCI Express motherboards. You're buying close to top of the line anyway, so why buy so close to the next gen of features (PCI Express) and speed (R420 & NV40)? I think we'll be seeing a 64-bit Windows this year, too, so the A64 may shine sooner than you think (Epic and Valve predict ~30% improvements with 64-bit versions of UT2K3 and HL2).

Edit: Whoops, I don't think PCIe will debut within a month or two, so ignore that argument.
 
Pete offers some good advice.

We can't say for certain exactly when the new parts will be on store shelves, but it should be in the April timeframe. ATi is talking about double the speed and nV is talking about tripple- take away for the PR BS line and we should still be looking at a considerable improvement.

Do you think it will retail at the same price as what the RAdeon 9800XT is currently at?
Click to expand...

What prices are you seeing now? When they first hit they should be ~$500 for the highest end part and ~$400 for the slightly slower model, both/all four of them should easily whip anything out in terms of performance.

2. If I buy A radeon 9800 pro/xt will it still be able to perform well with future games?
Click to expand...

Yes, but not as well as the R420/NV40 will be able to.

I'm willing to spend the money on buying a Radeon 9800XT (yes i know the pro is less expensive) so I'd rather wait another 2-3 months and buy a next gen card for the same price (if it has the same price tag as the current price for a radeon 9800xt AND there is a noticeable increase in performance)
Click to expand...

If you are willing to spend the cash on a 9800XT, then without a doubt wait for the new cards. The 128MB 9800Pro @$200 is a good deal, and even when the new boards hit it wouldn't make you feel too badly as they will cost considrably more. If you drop $400-$500 on a 9800XT and then see the new parts show up ~50% faster and cost the same you'll kick yourself in the @ss(not saying the new boards will be 50% faster, but it wouldn't shock me to see them in that range under certain cases, HL2 or Doom3 everything cranked w/AA+AF as an example).
 
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