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Poll: Which of these cards should I go with

Hard Ball

Hard Ball

Senior member
Now I have decided on a dual opteron rig, only one choice remains, that of the video card.

I will likely be going with an Dual Opteron 244/246/248 rig with 3GB of RAM, ASUS K8N-DL, 2 7k2 SATA HDDs and other goodies. Originally, I planned this to be built in August; but there seeme to be some pretty good deals on Opteron chips on ebay right now from people who are upgrading to DC Opterons, so I might as well take advantage. So the rig could be up within the next couple of weeks. Video card, however, is the sore point which I can't decide right now; where I need your help.

Mostly what I will do with this machine is code compiling/interpreting, especially in C (in MSVS)and Python (in Linux); running programs that I write in computational linguistic analyses (mostly in Linux 64); extration of statistical information from large data sets; some html coding; some photo editing; and a number of other routine tasks. And the machine will be dual booting 32 bit WinXP and 64 bit Fedora on separate HDDs.

I will be doing some gaming, although not all the time. When I do game, the things I will play would most likely be FarCry, UT2k4, HL2, Perimeter (I have heard a lot of good things about this game), and some newer titles coming out for this christmas, such as AOE-III.

I have considered several things:

  • Hopefully I won't be playing games all the time, since this is a machine most for research. But I would be using it a few hours a week gaming with my friends online or at a LAN party. What do you think would be the kind of card, and the price range, that would justify such use.
    --Originally I looked at the 6800GT, and possibly pull this card sometime in the future into an SLI rig; but as seeing the reviews, I'm having second thoughts, since a single 7800GTX is demolishing 6800GT SLI rigs on certain games.
    --I hope for this card to last a while, so I would like for it to be SLI or Crossfire compatible if possible; so if I decide to build a gaming rig a year from now, I would still be able to utilize it somehow there, while getting a lower end card for my Opteron machine.
    --I don't have much experience with ATI; are they more or less likely to have driver problems running Linux. My old GF2 and FX cards always ran fine with Redhat or Fedora, would the difference between ATI and NV matter in this regard?
    --Would it be worth holding off building for another month, just to see what R520 looks like, or if it would cause the price of the 7800GTX to drop?
    --Would spending 600USD on an 7800GTX end up being a better long term investment, as opposed to a 6800GT or X800XL card? I mean would getting 7800GTX allow me to be OK for the next two years for the newer games, or even three if I build an SLI rig that utilizes this card? I assume that 6800GT or X800XL wouldn't let me do that. Would I be able to actually save money on the long term by not having to upgrad every year, or be able to upgrade economically by going SLI later?
    --ASUS K8N-DL only has two PCI slots, and I need them both, so buying a double slot cooling card is NOT an option for me, so 6800U and X800XT/X850XT are definitely out of the question.

Please help me by posting and voting. And if you vote for each category, please also specify whether ATI or NV is the preferable solution in a reply post, if you think there is a difference between the two.

Thanks in advance.
 
It seems like you will be doing some moderate gaming, so only one thing remains, and that is the details of your monitor. What resolution/refresh rate is it capable of, and what would you normally run it at? If you'll be gaming at 12x9, I'd say go ahead and pick up a 6800GT. That will power your games pretty well for quite some time. However, if you plan on playing at 16x12 or higher, the 7800GTX is your better (and more expensive) bet.
 
Thanks for the quick answer,

I think the monitor has refresh rate of 85;

I have only ever used as high as 16X12 in terms of resolution; but it might be able to go higher; I only plan on using it as high as 16X12 though, and sometimes at 12x9.
 
Err, Dual Opteron? Not an X2 rig? It'll probably be cheaper unless you want to think of upgrading your SC Opterons to DC latrer on when others are upgrading again.
Just seems a waste given the extra cost of RAM, mobo (and possibly the CPU's depending on how much they cost on EBay compared to X2's new).

Graphics card HAS to be a 6800GT, since it's gonna offer decent performance, and it's more likely to be happy under Linux (unless ATi finally did something about Linux).
 
Originally posted by: Lonyo
Err, Dual Opteron? Not an X2 rig? It'll probably be cheaper unless you want to think of upgrading your SC Opterons to DC latrer on when others are upgrading again.
Click to expand...

That's what I was hoping for, and that S940 will probably has longer support from AMD.
Right now, the price of A64 X2s are through the roof, and I can get a pair of Opteron 246s for 400USD or less on ebay.

Just seems a waste given the extra cost of RAM, mobo (and possibly the CPU's depending on how much they cost on EBay compared to X2's new).
Click to expand...

I was concerned about that as well, initially. But as it turned out, the Opteron CPUs are actually cheaper in comparism by a couple of hundred dollars (too bad they don't offer a cheaper 2.0GHz version of the X2, that would have been ideal) , and mobo K8N-DL is about 100 more than a good S939 board. And the cost of the RAM turned out to be only less than 100USD difference.

Graphics card HAS to be a 6800GT, since it's gonna offer decent performance, and it's more likely to be happy under Linux (unless ATi finally did something about Linux).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the warning. Like I said, I don't know too much about ATI products, and NV products always worked with Linux fine. So I guess it probably should be NV, since I will be running Fedora a good portion of the time, and I don't want any flakiness to my system.
 
I'd go 7800GTX or 6800GT. If you are going to run 1600x1200 I would say the 7800 card for future games and even some of those you listed really do take advantage of the card.
 
Thanks for the replies so far,

please keep the votes coming, and provide an explanation if you can; and if anyone can answer some of the pressing questions, please do so.
 
Bump,

Does any of you know if a GT version of the 7800 would be coming out anytime soon? if that is the case, it might be a viable compromise between the GTX and the 6800GT.
 
Don't get ATI if you're going to be using Linux. It crashed every 10 minutes on my Radeon 9500 PRO, with multiple Linux distros. I haven't tried my NVIDIA card yet but I hear NVIDIA has a LOT better driver support for Linux. I voted 7800 GTX. Definitely an ideal card because it's cooler, uses less power, and is more powerful than the 6800 Ultra by quite a stretch. It will also last you 2-3 years.
 
Originally posted by: Hard Ball
Bump,

Does any of you know if a GT version of the 7800 would be coming out anytime soon? if that is the case, it might be a viable compromise between the GTX and the 6800GT.
Click to expand...

Yes, it will be, probably soon. Also a NU version will be due soon as well, I hear. So you may want to wait as those might be $500 and $400 respectively and you can just overclock it to GTX speeds and save $100 (with the GT). Or not overclock it at all as it's already screaming fast.
 
Thanks, Xknight,

I hope that the 7800GT will be here within the next couple of weeks, otherwise I would have to face the choice of either delaying building this rig, or just go with either an 6800GT or 7800GTX.
 
It seems like you have money to go for the best, or at least near the best, so why not. Although, I do think you should wait and see what ATI has up it's sleeves. It could be more powerful and it could lower Nvidia's aggressive pricing.
 
Thanks,
Is the ATI R520 coming in late July as promised? Would there be availability at launch, or would it be the typical paper launch we have seen the past?

I would like to see R520 on the market before I buy, but I don't want to wait forever either; I have to get this built before the end of the summer.
 
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