nvidia boy considering a switch...

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NarcoticHobo

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
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So it seems the X850XT PE delivers only about 10% less than a 6800GT SLI setup, where the X850 is available for about $500 and the 6800GT SLI is available for about $900 if your are very lucky.

The two major things holding me back besides having always planned on getting sli are these:

1. 6800's have SM 3.0, which seems like it will offer a lot more in the future.

2. Nvidia seems to have MUCH better support than ATI.

So, lets make this an ATI v. Nvidia debate. Tell me the pros and cons if you can.
 
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Budman

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
10,980
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Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
So it seems the X850XT PE delivers only about 10% less than a 6800GT SLI setup, where the X850 is available for about $500 and the 6800GT SLI is available for about $900 if your are very lucky.

The two major things holding me back besides having always planned on getting sli are these:

1. 6800's have SM 3.0, which seems like it will offer a lot more in the future.

2. Nvidia seems to have MUCH better support than ATI.

So, lets make this an ATI v. Nvidia debate. Tell me the pros and cons if you can.
Click to expand...

Nuber 2 is slimply UNTRUE,ATI drivers are just a good if not better than Nvidia.
 
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Waylay00

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2004
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Just get an X850xt PE. I'd rather have 10% performance loss than spend $1000 on video cards alone.
 
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NarcoticHobo

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
442
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Well I've been using Nvidia for 5 years or so and have NEVER had a problem with their drivers... whereas I have heard of vast oscillations with performance and ATI's drivers.
 
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Budman

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
10,980
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Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
Well I've been using Nvidia for 5 years or so and have NEVER had a problem with their drivers... whereas I have heard of vast oscillations with performance and ATI's drivers.
Click to expand...

Well I've been using ATI for 5 years or so and have NEVER had a problem with their drivers... whereas I have heard of vast oscillations with performance and cheating with NVIDIA's drivers
 
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NarcoticHobo

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
442
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Originally posted by: Budman
Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
Well I've been using Nvidia for 5 years or so and have NEVER had a problem with their drivers... whereas I have heard of vast oscillations with performance and ATI's drivers.
Click to expand...

Well I've been using ATI for 5 years or so and have NEVER had a problem with their drivers... whereas I have heard of vast oscillations with performance and cheating with NVIDIA's drivers
Click to expand...

I have heard of the cheating with nvidias, isn't that what ATI did this time though?
 
flexy

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
8,464
155
106
Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
So it seems the X850XT PE delivers only about 10% less than a 6800GT SLI setup, where the X850 is available for about $500 and the 6800GT SLI is available for about $900 if your are very lucky.
Click to expand...

i posted something a week ago or so.

The X850XT PE (which is the PLATINUM :) ) can already be found listed on Froogle.
Not available, tho. But its listed and can be pre-ordered.

The price is as low as $458 (!) which is $100 under MSRP.

AGAIN: this is the X850XT PE !!!!
 
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NarcoticHobo

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
442
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Hell, I just realized I can probably get this card and a PCI express motherboard for about$600 before jan, which leaves me with approx $400 left over... In a few months that would be enough to upgrade to the ATI SLI board, and then I've got my SLI whenever that becomes a necessity.
 
flexy

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
8,464
155
106
>>> 1. 6800's have SM 3.0, which seems like it will offer a lot more in the future.

you got a point, and i was raving too about SM3.0 and how bad it is ATI missed out on this and still tries to tell us that "SM3.0" is not important. (SInce they were unable to implement it)

HOWEVER, as much as i wish to have a ATI card with SM3.0 (R520 in early/mid 2005) there are other factors to consider....SM3.0 right now is not that important for CURRENT games, you dont have any real disadvantage/ perfromance loss etc.

ATI MIGHT have a slight edge in image quality and, especially important for me, Antialiasing quality and "less shimmering". The NV cards have some minor issues there. Also, the majority of games i might play are NOT called "Doom" and will run under DirectX...and in DirectX ATI is superior.

Which makes ATI again more interesting (for me) EVEN without SM3.0

>>> 2. Nvidia seems to have MUCH better support than ATI.

I cannot really confirm that. ATI puts out drivers every month (!), just yesterday they released cat 4.12. ALso, 3rd party guys like Omega support ATI, i really like the Omega drivers. "We" (ATI users) have great forums and everything...so...where do you see there's a "lack of support" ?

Btw. i RMA-d an ATI card once, VERY nice..just sent my defective card in and got a spanking new, working one quickly. This was about two years ago. I never had problems with their "support" whatsoever.

The only negatice thing i have right now their pushing of this stupid "CCC" control center which is a resource hog...but since i use Omega drivers anyway its not a problem.
 
flexy

flexy

Diamond Member
Sep 28, 2001
8,464
155
106
Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
Ok I think this graph about does it for me:

http://techreport.com/reviews/...l2-kanal-1600-4x8x.gif

As in all honesty I will probably play HL2 more than anything else. I'd really like a 512mb version as I'm sure that would rip up the doom3 engine, but not necessary.
Click to expand...

i would also LOOOOOVE to get hands on a plain X850XT, without the "PE".....this would be a very, very nice performer at an extremely attractive price. (IMHO !)
 
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AWhackWhiteBoy

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2004
1,807
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i'm not biased to either brand but the ATI drivers on my laptop piss me off fairly often, esp when switching around the between the LCD, Svideo, and VGA. there are a lot of little weird quirks with the powerdvd overlay and a docking program i use were things just go black for no reason. theres a few other minor things. i just don't experince this stuff with Nvidia.

eitherway, on the otherhand i found my laptop with ATI drivers has much better support for older games than my desktop with Nvidia drivers.
 
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jvarszegi

Senior member
Aug 9, 2004
721
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0
Nvidia claims that SLI offers a performance boost of 1.87 times or thereabouts over a single card, which seems reasonable. If that's true, the numbers in the graph seem off, way off. Check out the fps on the 6800GT vs. the 6800GT SLI.
 
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imported_Computer MAn

Golden Member
Sep 30, 2004
1,190
0
76
Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
Hell, I just realized I can probably get this card and a PCI express motherboard for about$600 before jan, which leaves me with approx $400 left over... In a few months that would be enough to upgrade to the ATI SLI board, and then I've got my SLI whenever that becomes a necessity.
Click to expand...

I have a feeling that when ATi releases their SLI the current cards will not be compatible because they will need some kind of connector like Nvidia uses and these don't have them. I am proably wrong just be aware.
 
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NarcoticHobo

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
442
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Well then, since this will give me about $500 extra to spend, should this card last me two generations? I mean will it still power through games long enough that the next card I get can be like an R620 or something?
 
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Gurck

Banned
Mar 16, 2004
12,963
1
0
I've used cards by both companies with no problems, I would (and do) go with the best price/performance ratio in whatever price range I'm looking to spend. However, I'd base it on more than just a single benchmark...
 
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Spamdini

Senior member
May 24, 2004
354
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if ur canadian go with Ati ROFL....no kidding i got an X800 XT and am extremely happy with it.
 
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NarcoticHobo

Senior member
Nov 18, 2004
442
0
0
Originally posted by: Gurck
I've used cards by both companies with no problems, I would (and do) go with the best price/performance ratio in whatever price range I'm looking to spend. However, I'd base it on more than just a single benchmark...
Click to expand...

That one I posted was the straw that broke the camel's back per se. Now all I need to do is find a pci express motherboard... heh.
 
RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Originally posted by: Waylay00
Just get an X850xt PE. I'd rather have 10% performance loss than spend $1000 on video cards alone.
Click to expand...

This statement is simply not true either. 6800GTs and ultras in SLI deliver significantly greater performance in 1600x1200 4AA/8AF in shader intensive games. The problem is 99% of today's game are simply not complex enough in the shader department to show their advantages.

Half-Life 2

at_canals_05
X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/noAF = 134.2
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 101.3
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 107.7

at_canals_05
X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/noAF = 111.3
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 90.6
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 97.8

at_prison_05
X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/noAF = 114
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 85.2
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 95.8

at_c17_12
X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/noAF = 84.6
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 66.4
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 69.6

Half-Life 2 Performance Summary

Doom 3
X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/8AF = 60.8
X850XTPE 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 38.4
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 65
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 73.1

Far Cry
X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/noAF = 66.4
X850XTPE 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 43.7
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 58.4
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 61.4

UT2K4
UT2K4 is very CPU bound, even at 1600x1200. But....still

X850XTPE 1600x1200 no AA/noAF = 69.3
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 64.7
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 68

BattleField Vietnam
X850XTPE 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 70
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 106
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 120

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
X850XTPE 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 81.6
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 noAA/noAF = 103.2
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 noAA/noAF = 103.9
6800GT SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 96.6
6800Ultra SLI 1600x1200 4AA/8AF = 102.9

As you can see in the last 2 games SLI isn't even breaking a sweat as increasing image quality setting does nothing for the performance drop of SLI setup. In MOST intensive games SLI maintains 60+ frames per second at 1600x1200 4AA/8AF, something X850 XT PE can only dream of! In some cases SLI setup is faster with AA/AF enabled even at the same resolution.

Anandtech SLI Review
Anandtech X850 XT PE Review

The more intensive the games will be the more you'll start to see the advantage of SLI. What many fail to notice is that in some games SLI might run 60 frames at 1600x1200 4AA/8AF and x850 pe runs at 45 frames same settings. Doesnt sound like a lot. The problem is at 1600x1200 noAA/noAF, SLi still runs at 60 meaning that in the 4AA/8AF setting, it is still CPU limited not letting us see its true potential until even more intense games come out.

Sure I dont think SLI is worth it. But saying that X850 is within 10-20% of 6800GT/Ultra SLI setup is ludicrous as X850 is maybe 15% faster than 6800Ultra on average. So since SLI brings 70-80% improvement in speed for 2 cards, logically this doesnt even make sense unless people think that X850 is 60% faster than 6800Ultra???!

Toms' Hardware confirms this - it only makes sense to analyze the most shader intensive games out right now:

Doom 3
Far Cry
Battlefield Vietnam

Besides if you tried, you can find SLI right now. X850 cards are nowhere to be found and wont be until January it seems now. I do own an ATI card BTW. It would be nice for someone to do a review with 2048x1536 resolution to really see what these cards can do.

The biggest problem for SLI setup in my eyes is that in 6-8 months, next generation cards will offer this kind of performance, with better features perhaps for 2x less the cost.
 
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