which 6xxx series card?

[CMC79]

I'm building a new system around a Venice A64 3200. I need advice on what PCI-express card to pair it with. I think I'm convinced of the virtues of SM3 so I'm leaning towards the 6600/6800 cards. I do play some FPS, but the main game I'm looking forward to this year by far is AOE3. I also play LOTR Battle for Middle Earth, which is running pretty slow on my Athlon XP/5900XT system when there are lots of units on the screen, and FarCry brought my system to its knees. I play 10x7 right now, but would like to go higher. I'm open to overclocking but am much less confident on things like flashing a new BIOS.

6600GT--would this even have enough power to enable SM3 features? Admittedly, the price is very good.

6800NU--Unless I'm mistaken, this actually has less memory bandwidth than my 5900XT, right? Most seem to hover around the $300 mark--are they worth that premium over the 6600GT's? And for that matter, if they won't have the power for the future, might I be better off with a x800xl for less money (though I'd prefer SM3).

6800GTO--ZZF has a $339 GTO which says it has GDDR3 memory, although I can't find a specific mem clock on it. This is really hitting my upper price limit. It's 12 pipes like the 6800NU, but I think it's clocked slightly higher. I've searched but can't find much info on this card.

The regular 6800GT's are just more than I can probably spend.

Since AOEIII is my target game, will any of these have enough power to enable to the eye-candy? Or am I better off just getting a 6600GT for now (or, if SM3 won't be possible on any of these, even a X800XL for $249) and accepting having to do an upgrade within 6-8 months? Thanks for any help!!

 

[kurt454]

I would go for a 16 pipe card. If a full 6800gt is not in your budget, then I would probably go for the X800XL pci-e.

 

[CMC79]

Would the 12 pipe Nvidia cards (NU or GTO) not be any more future proof than a 16 pipe X800XL (as in more features but less power vs. more power with less features)?

Prices seem rather stable on the Nvidia cards--any reason to suspect they might drop soon?

 

[imported_Noob]

Originally posted by: kurt454
I would go for a 16 pipe card. If a full 6800gt is not in your budget, then I would probably go for the X800XL pci-e.

I agree with Kurt. But if you decide to get a 6800GT, make sure it's Leadtek. It's the best OCer with stock cooling. And it's top notch quality like BFG.

 

[CMC79]

I think I've narrowed it down to these three:


Connect3D x800xl for $249 at Monarch

MSI 6800GTO for $339 at ZZF

evga 6800NU $279 after MIR at Monarch.

I've dropped the idea of a 6600GT for now. Which one of these?

 

[JBT]

Leadtek 6800GT $299

Id get this

 

[CMC79]

I agree with the choice...alas, I'm looking pci-e. I think the pci-e version of that card is about $100 more unfortunately.

 

[globalcitizen]

Go for the X800XL.

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: CMC79
I agree with the choice...alas, I'm looking pci-e. I think the pci-e version of that card is about $100 more unfortunately.

wups sorry In all honesty I didn't really read much of the post. In that case I think the X800XL would be the best option for PCI-eXpress.

 

[Gstanfor]

Why have you decided that you need to go PCI-E?

At this early stage of the game, unless you intend to run video cards in SLI mode there is no compelling reason to go PCI-E IMO.

We are still on first-gen mothrboard and peripherals, and the PIC-E bandwidth for videocards will be significantly increased soon PCI Express accelerates to 5 Gbits/s.

AGP will be around for a year or two yet with good performance and longer still as a legacy/budget platform.

 

[CMC79]

Why have you decided that you need to go PCI-E?

I'm running a T-bred Athlon 2100 that I've overclocked to 2.17 GHz on a Nforce 2 motherboard that I got for free a couple of months ago--and before that I was still on a KT266A! So I've basically had this core system since Jan. 03 and it's starting to show its age. The really telling thing for me was playing the Far Cry demo and playing Battle for Middle Earth--performance just wasn't satisfactory.

I like to try to keep a motherboard for a few upgrade cycles, and considering the price and feature set of the NF4 it's too compelling to me to turn it down in favor of going with a NF3 or KT800 board.

 

[Gstanfor]

Fair enough. Consider however that Socket 939 isn't going anywhere anytime soon and chances are excellent that you will be able to plug the A64 you buy into future motherboards for a long time to come.

Given PCI-E evolution, CPU evolution (first dual-cores starting to appear), S-ATA evolution and even the fact that most graphics cards are not truly native PCI-E, I personally would get a cheap, solid nForce3 Ultra, then wait and see what the next generation of PCI-E boards brings to the table.

I know where you are coming from with Socket-A, I started on KT133A, moved to nForce1 and am currently on nForce2, where I will remain until the next gen PCI-E boards arrive and dual-core cpu's have had a chance to mature.

 

[CMC79]

I still think I'll go PCI-E...but I start out trying to pick which Nvidia card to get and now I'm back to strongly considering the x800xl...you read and read and read and eventually you talk yourself into almost anything! The ATI card is very impressive for the price, but I've read enough SM3 flame wars...er, threads to be moderately wary of plunking that much money into "old" tech.

 

[VIAN]

If you want to use the power of the SM3.

I would think you would at least have to get a 6800GT for that. I know that the 6600GT can do SM at 20fps.