x1800xl or evga 7600gt co

[hans007]

now i will soon have both these cards. i actually already have the ati branded x1800xl.

i'd like to know all of your opinions.

i have 1 game that i want to play. and it would be rise of legends which i just bought.
the 7600 gt CO i happend to pick up well because it was dirt cheap and i figured at worst one of my friends would take it , i figured i didnt want to pass up a deal.

that said, my monitor is 1280x1024. i figure i might as well play with 4x fsaa and 8x af if i can. i dont really game that often, but i figure when i do bother to play games, that it might as well look as good as possible. so i'm more concerned with the most eye candy i can turn on while still having decent framerates.

so which card would you choose.

also i plan to dual booth ubuntu 6.06 when it comes out in a few weeks, and i know the x1000 cards have a linux driver now, but is it equivalent to the nvidia one in useability?

i was going to swear off nvidia cards because i thought they were evil, but the evga card was a pretty good deal (i will sell one of the cards once i decide which to keep)

my problem being, that i see so many conflicting reviews online. some have the 7600gt destroying th x1800xl and some have the 7600gt being beaten by x1800gtos.

so its rather confusing to know which card really is better though i'd assume its the x1800xl by a good deal.

also my cpu is a pentium d 820 , so does it even really matter which of the 2 is faster?

 

[akshayt]

X1800XT for 225$ , period
Should be fine at 1024*768 without aa/af, maybe 1280 for some games

 

[CKXP]

the x1800xl is the better performing card of the two, maybe in OpenGL can the 7600gt keep up. BUT since you plan on running ubuntu 6.06, you might want to keep the 7600gt since NV has always provided better support for linux.

 

[CFP]

If you are going to use Linux, get an NV card. If not, the X1800XT > X1800XL > 7600GT performance and IQ wise.

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: CedricFP
If you are going to use Linux, get an NV card. If not, the X1800XT > X1800XL > 7600GT performance and IQ wise.

if its a linux box you don't need a Gaming Graphic card because gaming on linux is horrible.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: CedricFP
If you are going to use Linux, get an NV card. If not, the X1800XT > X1800XL > 7600GT performance and IQ wise.

if its a linux box you don't need a Gaming Graphic card because gaming on linux is horrible.

well its going to be a dual boot box. i'd just use integrated video if it was no gaming at all.


that said, there are linux drivers out for ati from ati, i just have never tried them.

 

[CCityInstaller]

I would suggest the ATI, especially since you plan on running high AA+AF. I ran the demo on my rig with an X1800XT, and when playing in Hero mode, the FPS would drop to mid teens during a large battle. I was running @ 1680x1050 with 4XAA +8AF and High Quality AF enabled in the ATI CCC. HQ AF makes a nice difference in the game, but it is very demanding.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

if its a linux box you don't need a Gaming Graphic card because gaming on linux is horrible.

I completely disagree. Getting OpenGL to work right is a pain (doubly so on 64bit, quadruply so if you throw ATI into the mix), but once you do there is absolutely no horror. NO weird stuttering issues, smoothness galore. Linux gave my old gaming rig another six months to live simply because games ran that much smoother overall. Max frame rates may be a few lower in directx titles, but averages and seat of the pants feel is worlds better.

I'm talking about running windows games on Linux using cedega, of course. Linux native games (ports and open source) are indeed total, complete unbridled ass.

Besides, there are plenty of things someone might want to do with 3d acceleration that don't involve frags and gibs. One app I work on uses java3d for surface visualization, and it's really nice to have hardware accel for that. There is also plenty of eye candy available with Xgl which relies on hardware acceleration -- Vista may not be here yet, but some Linux apps with similar functionality are.

Ok, that being said: * DO NOT * get an ATI card if you are running Linux, especially one from the X10K series. A 9200 or earlier is good because the open source driver is mature and well supported. Newer than that is only supported by ATI's binary driver, which is neither mature, feature filled nor stable.

Go read the rage3d forums re: ATI linux drivers if you don't believe me. The X10k series is supported with the latest binary driver revision, but only to a point -- 512 meg cards don't even fire up in X. I can vouch for that, being a proud owner of a 512 meg X1800XT. And even if the driver did run, there are plenty of 6+ month old KDE hanging issues, multiple monitor support issues, install issues, kernel compatibility issues and just a laundry list of problems beneath my notice overall.

I'm guessing ATI hired some conslutants back in the days of the 9800 to write their windows drivers, and have been cruising from that codebase ever since. Linux isn't a priority for them, so they throw whomever is left over at those drivers with predictable results. NVidia's driver execution definitely shows they consider Linux important.

I wound up switching my monitor cable to the onboard video when booting Linux. It's enough of a pain that I'm building a gaming box that's separate from my work box. ATI is a windows-only video solution.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

if its a linux box you don't need a Gaming Graphic card because gaming on linux is horrible.

I completely disagree. Getting OpenGL to work right is a pain (doubly so on 64bit, quadruply so if you throw ATI into the mix), but once you do there is absolutely no horror. NO weird stuttering issues, smoothness galore. Linux gave my old gaming rig another six months to live simply because games ran that much smoother overall. Max frame rates may be a few lower in directx titles, but averages and seat of the pants feel is worlds better.

I'm talking about running windows games on Linux using cedega, of course. Linux native games (ports and open source) are indeed total, complete unbridled ass.

Besides, there are plenty of things someone might want to do with 3d acceleration that don't involve frags and gibs. One app I work on uses java3d for surface visualization, and it's really nice to have hardware accel for that. There is also plenty of eye candy available with Xgl which relies on hardware acceleration -- Vista may not be here yet, but some Linux apps with similar functionality are.

Ok, that being said: * DO NOT * get an ATI card if you are running Linux, especially one from the X10K series. A 9200 or earlier is good because the open source driver is mature and well supported. Newer than that is only supported by ATI's binary driver, which is neither mature, feature filled nor stable.

Go read the rage3d forums re: ATI linux drivers if you don't believe me. The X10k series is supported with the latest binary driver revision, but only to a point -- 512 meg cards don't even fire up in X. I can vouch for that, being a proud owner of a 512 meg X1800XT. And even if the driver did run, there are plenty of 6+ month old KDE hanging issues, multiple monitor support issues, install issues, kernel compatibility issues and just a laundry list of problems beneath my notice overall.

I'm guessing ATI hired some conslutants back in the days of the 9800 to write their windows drivers, and have been cruising from that codebase ever since. Linux isn't a priority for them, so they throw whomever is left over at those drivers with predictable results. NVidia's driver execution definitely shows they consider Linux important.

I wound up switching my monitor cable to the onboard video when booting Linux. It's enough of a pain that I'm building a gaming box that's separate from my work box. ATI is a windows-only video solution.

ah thanks for the review.

i'm definitely going with the 7600gt then i guess. i am not really a hardcore gamer, and from the benchmarks it looks like i'll only be getting a 10-20% drop in speed.

linux is something i really want to get far more comfortable with (i have it on another machine as well) and would like to try linux native games, and just overall migrate myself over to using that most of the time. i have all the vista betas at my office and well , the fact that vista is such a non improvement makes it seem like this would be a good a time as any to make the switch.

 

[akshayt]

Go with X1800XT for 219$ period.
or 1800XL which is still better than 7600GT
or even a 1800GTO which may again be better than 7600GT

 

[hans007]

i ended up going with the nvidia card due to the linux issues.

its important enough for me, not to mention the nvidia card was like $140.