x800 pro and 6800GT

[Drayvn]

Oh well, over here in the UK, we can get pre modded X800 Pros with XT speeds and full warranty!

And they are pushing 3dmark03 with near 13000 points too.

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: Insomniak

Originally posted by: iamskew
hmmm...is the 6800gt really that far ahead? what manufacturer would you recommend?

lordtyranus - that's a good suggestion and i've seen it before...but doing anything that might void the warranty on a $400+ card scares me. I'd like to have this thing for at least 2 years to come.

No the 6800GT is not "that far ahead" - it is ahead by a few inches, at best. Technically it has two realistic advantages over the X800Pro as far as being future proof.

1) It's a slightly faster performer in most cases.

2) It supports SM3.0, meaning you'll get some graphical goodies at slightly faster framerates in games coming out over the next couple of years.


All this means the card might last you a few more months than an X800Pro...I'm thinking maybe 3 or 4 months, tops. When it comes to video cards, getting one to last you anything over 18 months is a good run...suffice it to say I've been extremely happy with my GF4 Ti which is now at 26 months and it looks like will manage to blaze a trail to the end of the year....

What the man said...

 

[Rankor]

Last longer in terms of performance? Probably the 6800GT w/c is an downclocked 6800 Ultra.

Depends on how often you upgrade parts on the system.

If this is a one time build with no planned options to upgrade, the 6800GT between the two.

If there'll be a future video card upgrade down the line, either will be fine.

But for what it puts on the table, the 6800GT is still the choice.

 

[iamskew]

well...the not so brilliant best-buy store clerk told me that they had a BFG 6800GT OC in stock. Well, actually, at first, I asked for it and he said, "we only have ati and nvidia fx"...lol...but then I got him to go find it and he told me that they had them in stock. I went there this morning and come to find that they only had 1 6800 vanillia in stock. Guess I'm gonna buy the leadtek online then, because it doesn't seem best buy will have them anytime soon.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

neither. there is no such thing as 'futureproof' when it comes to gfx cards.

Some cards are more future proof than others because of performance and/or features. Out of the Voodoo5 and GeForce DDR (for example) the GeForce outlasted the latter because of T&L.

hmm.. i dont' remember it that way.. seems there were lots of ppl who stuck with the v5 for their superior AA? i seem to remember alot of arguments regarding that., but man, that was a looong time ago... but i had actually dumped 3dfx by then anyway, my last one was v2...

also, the situation is quite different these days, as the cards are quite comparable (the sm3 card (ace in the hole?) being unplayed and insignificant to this point).

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: iamskew
I'm buying a video card for my new rig and cannot make up my mind. I was set on ATI, but the 16 pipes in the Nvidia keeps swaying me back.

My question is, which card is going to last me longer?

If it helps, I like to play first person shooters, "realistic" in nature...like CS, BF1942, metal of honor, etc....

neither. there is no such thing as 'futureproof' when it comes to gfx cards.

Cainam, how about the term "Future-Resistant"?

i dunno... i suppose perhaps.. the thing is, the 9700p was probably more 'future resistant' than a gf4, although the performance was quite superior at the time, which isn't the case today. at any rate, the 9700p is still a good budget option, but compared to the performance of current gen cards i don't see it any more 'future resistant' than any other previous gen card today. i guess if you dont want hi-res, high aa in the latest games, that's fine, but if you compare it to the performance of nv40/r420 it's still obsolete. again, it's all relevant, and has alot to do with each individual's breaking point at which he considers the performance inadequate.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: iamskew
I caved...I'm going to pick my a BFG 6800 GT at best buy this morning. The Lifetime Warranty put me over the edge.

Thanks all,
skew

it's a good card, i'm sure you'll be happy with it.

Originally posted by: jim1976

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: iamskew
I'm buying a video card for my new rig and cannot make up my mind. I was set on ATI, but the 16 pipes in the Nvidia keeps swaying me back.

My question is, which card is going to last me longer?

If it helps, I like to play first person shooters, "realistic" in nature...like CS, BF1942, metal of honor, etc....

neither. there is no such thing as 'futureproof' when it comes to gfx cards.

I dare you to prove it to me...

:laugh:

ahhhahahahah.. sure, as soon as you prove to me there is such a thing

 

[Blastman]

The cards are generally very close in performance. The only notable advantage of the X800Pro is that it has a higher/more usable AA in a lot of games. The pro?s 6AA is significantly faster than the 8AA on the GT. So the GT is pretty well limited to 4AA.

elitebastards

Need For Speed: Underground

Both cards find themselves capable of running at the highest available resolution and anisotropic filtering levels here, but again the X800 Pro finds itself able to make use of its 6x AA mode to give superior image quality, while the 6800GT is left with 4x anti-aliasing.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

T-buffer provides more featuers than nvidia hardware T&L. no games uses HWTL right now. while the FSAA on the T-buffer cannot be denied. Also, you get GLIDE support for games. you can get that with your geforce2, nvidia fanboy.

I'm assuming that was a joke even though you weren't around back then unless you were using a different handle(sounds almost word for word for the kind of talk I was hearing over and over again).

its a joke. i have been lurking on these forums since around late 2001, (even earlier for hot deals) but ventiored here during that time. finally decided to join when i though my knowledge about PCs was good enough. learned a good portion about PCs just by reading these forums during that time.

 

[caz67]

6800GT.

 

[ElvesBrew]

You should just do an online order with in store pickup. My local Best Buy has like 6 of those 6800GTs and as I understand it if you go online to order one they will just do an inter-store transfer. If you really want one.

EB

 

[iamskew]

Best Buy is completely sold out as far as I can tell. If they had it, I would buy it there.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Blastman
The cards are generally very close in performance. The only notable advantage of the X800Pro is that it has a higher/more usable AA in a lot of games. The pro?s 6AA is significantly faster than the 8AA on the GT. So the GT is pretty well limited to 4AA.

elitebastards

Need For Speed: Underground

Both cards find themselves capable of running at the highest available resolution and anisotropic filtering levels here, but again the X800 Pro finds itself able to make use of its 6x AA mode to give superior image quality, while the 6800GT is left with 4x anti-aliasing.

Yes, but the trick to this is that 6xAA on ATi cards is only MSAA while 8xAA on Nv parts is SSAA. SSAA is far more processor intensive (not to mention, it also uses 33% more samples...). I'm not trying to make excuses - I agree with everything you said, I'm simply saying there's a reason for it.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I was around back then, in the days of 3dfx Gamers and AGN. I was saying the same thing: V5 was comparatively feature-less. The V5 did run Undying sweet though, and have great IQ. The TBluffer was pretty meaningless because you had to run too low of resolution to see the fabled jittered RGAA, it was too slow for modern resolutions.

Undying was a sweet game and ran awesome on my V5. That game scard me more than D3!

 

[DefRef]

Considering that the choice is not between fast and slow cards, but between really fast and really, really fast cards, it may be good to consider performance in different game engines, esp. Source vs. Doom 3. Nvidia is the undisputed D3 master and it's likely that all that ATI bribe money will give it an edge in Source-based games, but a ton of games are being built in the Unreal engine, so factor that into the mix.

Also, who are we kidding? If a boss new card comes out in a year and there's a game that will run 20% faster because of it, we'll shell out (maybe not happily) to stay on the bleeding edge of the butter knife.