Video Card???

Alrite, I was looking at this XFX 6800GT Video Card for $300 after rebate here
I was then told that this Radeon Card would be better for the money here
So Im asking you guys, whcih would yall recommend? Thanks.

 

I would go with the ATI. I would prefer going for a X800XT or X850XT if you can find one that fits your budget but the X800XL is still a respectable card. This card even seems to have a higher core clock speed than the usual X800XL (432 instead of 400).

 

for more power take ATI, for more features take the Nvidia

 

I would go for the ATi card. Thats only IF you have room, that thing is huge! With a heatsink and blowerfan on top and a heatsink on bottom??? you better move some stuff around lol. Otherwise the 6800 isnt a bad card...

The ATi has a higher clock speed at 432 and the XFX card has it at 350... although the XFX is SLI ready... So you can run two cards at the same time!

I dont know much about the HIS Hightech brand but I know that XFX is an excellent product.

 

I usually always say nvidia because of support for pixel shader 3,used by alot of new graphically intensive games,they both perform about the same,also various forums it seems to me the nvidia cards have much more stable drivers at the moment.

But they both run hot,warming anything else up inside your case and while not yet proven to be harmful to the cards running 60 degrees idle and 70 under load is too hot for amd and intel,so me thinks it will be too hot for the cards in the long run.

just for that reason I'm gonna go ati between those two,because of the better heatsink,it looks to me to be an arctic cooling nv5 factory fitted the best aircooler out at the moment if it aint its a very close copy,not only does it cool your card but it pumps the warm air straight out the case.

 

Ati now have crossfire their version of sli,as stated in the ad,although it means purchasin a crossfire cable

 

Yea i know about crossfire... but not many people use it... ati hasnt gotten all the bugs out of it. My friends got an X850XT with crossfire and he still thinks it could be better... although i like it (of course i still have my 5200 a 6600 is on its way! )

 

Crossfire is out now?

What I like about what they promise is that Crossfire should work with any game unlike SLI with the need of profiles. I also like the fact that you wont need the exact same card (maufacturer, model version).

If in a year I want to have better video power, I could buy the X850 Crossfire instead of trying to sell my current X850XT and buy a more powerfull single card.

Do you know if the arctic cooling fans are better than the stock X850XT fan?

 

not read up on the stock 850 sink,just browsing though and came accross this a review of the latest HIS vid cards and the one in question

http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/196/

you all might find it interesting,I pretty much trust guru3d.com,I aint read the article yet though,you can and tell me what it says,gotta go and buy some milk.lol

 

Well that is one bloody long review! So what yall are saying is that yall would suggest the X800XL over the Geforce 6800GT, right? Those would probably be the best cards for under $350 rite?

 

Also, would it be worth it to keep my AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and get the X800XL, or could it I drop down to a 3200+ with still good performance? Id like to be able to save some money, but if it will make a big difference in performance, then Ill keep the 3500+.

 

It depends what preferences are. If you only care about benchmarks then spend the 50$ for the 3500+. If you want to play games and have fun and dont care for 5 to 10 extra frames for the 50$ extra dollars go for the 3200+. Personnally, I think the Winchester 3200+ would do the job. This processor has only 8 points less than Winchester 3500+ in 3DMark05 according to tomshardware.com.

 

So would this card work nice? here

 

This cpu should do the job. I dont know Venice much but it is a newer model than Winchester.

 

Well i just found a config on cyberpowerinc.com. It has a 3500+ CPU, dual 6600gts, and then basically the same stuff I have. Would this be a better buy, or would my current set up be better?

 

6600GT in SLI will not be better than a single ATI X800XL. As of my knowledge, only benchmarks like 3DMark05 and the games Doom 3 will benefit from dual 6600GTs. In some of the games, even a single 6600GT will beat this SLI setup. You're better off with the X800XL.

 

That statement is wrong,benchmarks such as 3d mark 2003-05 rely heavily on the video cards power,they are basically a video test,the score will only change slightly be it a an xp 2000 or an a64 3500,for more frames in a video test extra money should be spent on the video card,for more REAL WORLD gaming performance extra money should be spent on the cpu.

An 800xt is limited by an a64 4000,as is a 6800gt,unless you use 1600 X 1200 AA and 16x anistropic filtering or resolutions approaching those,when you include the physics,sound,A.I.ect,this limitation will become more apparent,as you can see in these tests the gaming performance increases with every cpu upgrade.

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/cpu_charts-15.html

 

So Rikky you suggest that I should spend the extra funds on a good processor? BTW, I read the same thing on guru3d, about video cards, especially the x800 series, rely heavily on the processor to reach peak performance.

 

Yes,unless you want to run the games,at high resolutions above 12 x 10 with all the goodies,even then though you will still be cpu limited in how many people you will be able to have multiplayer games against without turning the detail down

 

Alrite thanks.

 

I dont see what I said wrong. I know that 3DMark rely heavily on the video card and bottlenecks are caused by the cpu, but like I said having the same system with different cpus, 3200+ and 3500+ in this case, will cause minimal performance difference but the difference is still there... There is no difference between what you said and what I said except you added some extra there.

This here demonstrates very well the bottleneck between various cpus as the scores are very close to each other (768*1024 res) http://www23.tomshardware.com/index.html?modelx=33&model1=63&model2=62&chart=18

The 3200+ could also be overclocked to the speeds of the 3500+

 

I have the X800XL and a 3000+ Venice.

The Venice is able to be stably overclocked to 2.4 GHz with the stock HSF, but I run every single thing fine at the stock 1.8 GHz.

My X800XL is the PCI-E from MSI... Cost me $292 shipped on Newegg. I'm amazed.

I am running 2 x 512 PC3200 dual channel... Haven't had any problems with Half Life 2/Far Cry/Doom 3/Guild Wars/Battlefield 2 all on max settings.

IMHO a 3000+ is plenty. Go for high-quality RAM and a decent video card.

Go with a Venice, though. If you got the money to spend around $350, the San Diego 3700+ (I believe that is the lowest SD) is more than worth it with the 1 MB cache. That's nuts.

 

first I will apologize for using the word "wrong",there isnt really a right or wrong when discussing opinion

When looking at cpu performance though,you shouldnt look use 3dmark 2003-05,because they are purely video tests for testing the video card the only time these should be used is for tweaking your video card and will show VERY little difference in cpu performance,this is because the tests are video card bottlenecked,it dont really matter what cpu you throw in there.

Lower cpu's will work fine,IMHO the 3500 is worth the extra money as is the 3700,it only starts to get silly up towards the fx range of chips,I dont think they are worth it.

The extra power will show itself when 5-6 guys run towards you,explosions are going off,your running through different enviroments,shooting,there are lots of multiple voices,its at these specific points in games when MOST people get slowdowns,whatever system they have,buying a higher spec cpu is the MOST effective way of reducing these frustrating slowdowns,in that sense I believe the extra $50 is worth it,its also the most effective way of increasing the amount of players in multiplayer games you can smoothly play against

This is why I think what you said is the wrong way around,if you care about benchmarks,dont get the 3500,get a better video card.

If you want to play games and have fun the faster cpu will be worth the extra money by reducing slowdowns at criticle points,your right it wont show any difference in benchmarks,but it will in real world gaming.

 

You're right. I never suggested the 3200+ though, I said it was ok. I would buy the 3500+ myself for 50$, but penguin seemed to want to save money... Anyway, penguin, if you can afford spending 50$ more, go for it! It's always like that, if you have the extra money, buy something better.

 

Personally mate i had an x800pro and i play BF2 alot now that card blew up after 6months of having it, so i took it back cause it was under warranty, and decided that i would go nvidia this time (always had ATI) so i got one of those 7800GTX's and i am more than happy with it something to note maybe that BF2 and JO (r.i.p) are developed using Nvidia to be worth a thought for that i reckon, only problem is i dont know why im getting 30/40FPS (BF2 settings on max, 2xaa) and 70/90FPS when there isnt much going on! is this normal for that card????
specs are:
GA-8N-SLI Mobo
P4 3.6ghz775
Gigabyte 7800GTX
1gb DDRII 667 Ram
36gb HDD
74gb Raptor
Audigy 2 ZS

Only drivers ive installed are Mobo drivers (off CD)
and Nvidia 77.72 drivers

what are the forceware drivers??

thanks for any advice

 

If you take good care and have a good brand of video your card should not fry. theres as much chance to blow up an nvidia.

 

yeah i tried to tweak the PCI latency settings that might have destroyed it, shouldnt have touched it really the card was AGP, but this one should be fine, i leave it alone. lol
what drivers do i need for this card and mobo

7800GTX and GA-8N-SLI Royal

 

Alrite I think Ill spend the extra $50 so Ill have better performance. Thanks a lot for the help guys. Also, isnt the 7800GTX one of the higher end cards atm? Isnt it really expensive, or am I wrong?

 

Yes it is the most performing card right now and one of the most expensive. ATI will most likely beat it with their upcoming release.