that evga promotion is looknig pretty good, im torn between getting an x800xl+DFI ULTRA-D for 400$ shipped or the 7800gt+evga SLI for 460$ shipped. My system specs are a 3500 venice and1gb pc3200 on a 17inch lcd. Is the 7800gt overkill for my system? The games I play are doom3, farcry, painkiller, half life 2, cs:s, 1.6 and maybe some wow or some other mmorpg
x800xl or 7800gt
- Thread starter nguyen1025
- Start date
7800GT
(made the same decision last friday, except it was X800XL/6800GT or 7800GT, and the price for the 7800GT was ~30% more than either of the others, and I still went 7800GT)
(made the same decision last friday, except it was X800XL/6800GT or 7800GT, and the price for the 7800GT was ~30% more than either of the others, and I still went 7800GT)
Neither one. You should wait for ATI's R520. The 7800GT has image quality problems that nobody should be willing to accept from a $400 card.
I was getting tired of pointing out the links, since nobody around here seems to have the attention span to read any of the discussions anyways. If you actually read this forum you would have seen it by now, but here ya go:
Beyond3D
HardForum
AnandTech
3DCenter
Conclusion
ATI, with its Radeon X800, shows: Even with activated "optimizations" (meaning quality reduction), there are no shimmering textures. While there is no full trilinear filtering used, this can not be noticed so quickly. Even though ATI's texture filtering hardware does not compute as exactly as a GeForces', the overall image quality is better, for there are not as many questionable "optimizations." Angle dependency when using AF, however, should not be considered as a feature of modern graphic cards any more, ATI's advertising speaking of "High Definition" gaming can thus be seen as an unfulfilled promise straight from the marketing department. At least, ATI shows that the scene in the video does not have to include texture shimmering.
Nvidia, with its current 7800 series, offers graphic cards that can not be recommended to lovers of texture quality?even though texel performance was increased by a factor of 2.5 compared to the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra! Added to the angle dependency (inspired by ATI's R300), there is now the tendency to texture shimmering in addition. The GeForce 6800 (or GeForce 6600) has to be configured to use "High Quality" to circumvent texture shimmering as much as possible. With the 7800, this seems to be useless; even when using "High Quality", the new chip tends to texture shimmering. The old Nvidia GeForce FX shows nearly perfect textures, though.
The quoted passages from Nvidia's Reviewer's Guide can be easily disproved. That means: All benchmarks using standard settings, no matter if GeForce 7800 or 6800, versus a Radeon, are wrong: Nvidia offers, at this time, the by far worse AF quality. Radeon standard settings are better (speaking in terms of image quality) than 6800 standard settings, whilst the 7800's standard settings are even worse. Thus, the so called "performance" should not be compared either. One should also not compare 7800 standard vs. 6800 standard or 7800 HQ vs 6800 HQ, since the 7800's texture quality is lower. Real "performance" includes on-screen image quality. (Otherwise, why bother to have and benchmark with AF at all? Should an AF implementation just have only minimal impact on the rendering speed or should it result in greatly improved textures?)
What advantage do you have of 16x AF if you get 2x AF at maximum at certain angles only, are exposed to texture shimmering while other cards provide flicker-free textures? All benchmarks using the standard setting for NV40 and G70 against the Radeon are invalid, because the Nvidia cards are using general undersampling which can (and does) result in texture shimmering. We know and love GeForce 7 for the Tranparency Antialiasing and the high-performance implementation of SM3 features, but the GeForce 7 series cannot be configured to deliver flicker-free AF textures while the GeForce 6 series and the Radeon series can (of course) render flicker-free AF quality.
If there should be any changes with new driver versions, we will try to keep our readers up-to-date.
Thanks M0rph, it's not like the shimmering issue isn't well known by now, there's no fanboyism involved in pointing something out that would be pretty irritating to most people. Personally this wouldn't dissuade me from choosing the 7800GT over the X800XL, but I would recommend waiting just a couple more weeks and see what r520 has to offer.
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/g70_flimmern/index_e.php
here´s another great article on that serious topic. iam wondering how nvidia will react.
here´s another great article on that serious topic. iam wondering how nvidia will react.
from the 3d center article:
"In terms of the level of texture quality, however, Nvidia seems to evaluate the demands of its high-end customers as fairly low. The new high-end chip G70 produces texture shimmering with activated anisotropic filtering (AF). Just as a reminder: This applies to the NV40 (GF 6800 series) in standard driver settings as well, but this can be remedied by activating the "High Quality" mode."
having had a gt for over a year now, this "texture shimmering" has not bothered me one bit (i haven't even noticed it tbh), so while a concern for some, i think this needs to be kept in perspective. i mean, how many of you current nv40 users have found this to detract from your overall satisfaction with your card?
"In terms of the level of texture quality, however, Nvidia seems to evaluate the demands of its high-end customers as fairly low. The new high-end chip G70 produces texture shimmering with activated anisotropic filtering (AF). Just as a reminder: This applies to the NV40 (GF 6800 series) in standard driver settings as well, but this can be remedied by activating the "High Quality" mode."
having had a gt for over a year now, this "texture shimmering" has not bothered me one bit (i haven't even noticed it tbh), so while a concern for some, i think this needs to be kept in perspective. i mean, how many of you current nv40 users have found this to detract from your overall satisfaction with your card?
keep in mind that if he gets the 7800gt he will be getting an evga mobo, and if he gets the x800xl he will be getting a dfi lanparty ultra-d.
Why is it that AT, HardOCP, Tom's, etc etc didn't pick up on this image quality problem if it's so apparent?
I'd save your $ and get the X800XL.. the 7800GTX is a lot faster than the 7800GT, which is not that much cheaper.
I am going based on FS/FT prices, but you can get an X800XL for $220, and a 7800GT for $400.. IMO for the difference in performance, it is NOT worth almost 2x as much as far as buying from the forums goes. The retail bundle seems pretty good, but still, the X800XL is not that much slower than the 7800GT in a lot of things.
I am going based on FS/FT prices, but you can get an X800XL for $220, and a 7800GT for $400.. IMO for the difference in performance, it is NOT worth almost 2x as much as far as buying from the forums goes. The retail bundle seems pretty good, but still, the X800XL is not that much slower than the 7800GT in a lot of things.
Between the two choices, id get the GT any day. Your system is perfect for it. Hell if there was something faster then a GTX (which obviously there isnt atm) i wouldnt even hesitate to put that one in with a proc that fast.
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