7800GT VS 800xt, 850xt and 1800XL (not XT)

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carbonsteel

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
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Newegg has a sweet deal for the Nvidia 7800GT. In comparison with the ATI 800XT, 850XT, and the 1800XL (not XT)... What would be the better card overall? Thanks:)
 
thanks for the link :) Ive heard the 7800GT is quite big...and may block other slots on the board???
 
Its not that big, it is just long, you should be able to use all the other slots on the motherboard, btw, what motherboard are you using?
 
I'd grab the 7800gt.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2...-1600-pcie.html
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Are you kidding me? A DOOM 3 review from september? First doom 3 is one the poorest performing games on ATI hardware, second catalyst 5.11 and up has huge gains not showed there... next time try being at least a bit convincing

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/games-2005.html

Read this one which is using cats 5.12 and doesnt even take into consideration the huge 1800XL overclockability and it becomes an easy choice
 
Frostwake said:
Are you kidding me? A DOOM 3 review from september? First doom 3 is one the poorest performing games on ATI hardware, second catalyst 5.11 and up has huge gains not showed there... next time try being at least a bit convincing

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/games-2005.html

Read this one which is using cats 5.12 and doesnt even take into consideration the huge 1800XL overclockability and it becomes an easy choice
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X1800XL overclockability is hit and miss from what I've seen...at least 2 reviews I've seen haven't been able to hit 570Mhz with an XL...so while there's a good chance you'll hit some super high clocks...it's not guaranteed...
 
Get the GF7800GT. X1800XL may not OC well and if you get bad overclocker you end up with a lot slower and more expensive card. You can't go wrong with GF7800GT, it is enough fast at stock speeds and you have no need to OC if you don't want to.
 
aop said:
Get the GF7800GT. X1800XL may not OC well and if you get bad overclocker you end up with a lot slower and more expensive card. You can't go wrong with GF7800GT, it is enough fast at stock speeds and you have no need to OC if you don't want to.
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First, I agree with you on the point that buying a card for its overclocking "potential" is a poor choice. For example, back a year and a half ago when I bought my 9600XT everyone was saying how it can hit 600Mhz on the core without difficulty. Mine, however, artifacts at 530Mhz :( . I will not make the mistake of buying a card for it's OC'ing potential again.

That being said, I have a brand new X1800XL sitting next to me that will be going into my new computer in a matter of days.

I decided to buy the X1800XL over the GT for several reasons:

1) I do not agree with your assesment of the X1800XL's performance at stock. While the X1800XL is slower in gaming situations when no AA is enabled, the card is more or less even with the 7800GT once AA gets turned on (likely due to the more efficient memory controller). Any gamer who is willing to pay through his/her nose for a high end card like a 7800GT/X1800XL will be enabling advanced video card features such as AA (making the 7800GT's advantage in "pure speed" benchmarks pointless).

If you don't believe me check out this review (obviously paying attention to XL vs. GT benches):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2616&p=1
You can see that the 7800GT's advantage shrinks to basically nothing when AA is enabled in games.

2)Shimmering. There have been way too many horror stories told about Nvidia's shimmering problem for it to be something that was just made up. Setting IQ to High Quality may eliminate this problem, but that involves a perofmance hit (which would sink the 7800GT to performance levels that are well below the X1800XL).

3)High Quality AF. Nvidia is yet to offer a feature that can compete with this. I'm sure anybody would welcome higher quality AF. This was probably the main selling feature for me.

4)HDR+AA.

5)Video Playback. A lot of people are very happy about the Catalyst 5.13 driver release. Basically, your getting a feature that's not only free but outperforms Nvidia's PureVideo which costs at least $20 extra on the side.

6)Expandability. We've already seen huge performance gains from recent ATI driver releases. I know that it's speculatory, but because the performance increases that we've seen from ATI driver updates have been substancially greater than those from Nvidia's, one could expect that the potential for future perfomance jumps is greater with ATI than it is with Nvidia.

I'm no f@nboy and I am not trying to slander Nvidia in anyway, but I'm merely just stating my objective opinion.

My recomendation to the OP, obviously, is to buy the X1800XL for the reasons above. Unless, you're planning to do a multi-GPU platform, I can't see much of an arguement for going with the 7800GT, given that the two cards are roughly the same price.
 
Personally I would go with a 7800gt over the 1800xl in most games its faster thats a fact proven over and over again with benchmarks. Also nvidia is sli capable as ati crossfire isnt available too consumers. Lastly if you want to run any linux os ati drivers are just horrid nvidia is the only real solution. So in my opinion without a doubt 7800gt for sure.
 
Shane said:
Personally I would go with a 7800gt over the 1800xl in most games its faster thats a fact proven over and over again with benchmarks. Also nvidia is sli capable as ati crossfire isnt available too consumers. Lastly if you want to run any linux os ati drivers are just horrid nvidia is the only real solution. So in my opinion without a doubt 7800gt for sure.
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actually you're wrong the X1800 Master cards are avaiable, and the 7800GT is not faster in most games they basically tie =p if u really game on linux, what games are you running that require a 7800gt or anything that fast
 
I would go 7800GT if you're planning to run sli at some point, x1800xl if you're not, and x850xt pe if (and only if) you can get it substantially cheaper (at least $20) than the other 2 as all 3 perform pretty much on par. If you were to do a blind test, you most likely wouldn't be able to tell the difference performance wise, but the 1800xl has the most features followed by the 7800gt with the 850xt pe coming last.
 
I buy equipment based on it's overclock potential, as do lots of people on this site. It is the Hard Overclockers Comparison Page, afterall. I bought an AN8 Ultra, which was a cheap and good overclocker, a 0530 Opteron 170, which is a good overclocker, and an X1800XL, which does 700/650 Mhz.
Most X1800XL's are better overclockers than most 7800 GT's. They have similar performance at stock speeds. Since I'm not a cross-fire/SLI kind of person, the choice was obvious.
Either one you get you'll be happy. IMO, the X1800 XL is a better deal.
 
Jonsey said:
I buy equipment based on it's overclock potential, as do lots of people on this site. It is the Hard Overclockers Comparison Page, afterall. I bought an AN8 Ultra, which was a cheap and good overclocker, a 0530 Opteron 170, which is a good overclocker, and an X1800XL, which does 700/650 Mhz.
Most X1800XL's are better overclockers than most 7800 GT's. They have similar performance at stock speeds. Since I'm not a cross-fire/SLI kind of person, the choice was obvious.
Either one you get you'll be happy. IMO, the X1800 XL is a better deal.
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The only problem with that mentality (and I'm not accusing you of anything, just people in general) is that when they buy a card for its overclocking potential and find that they get a "dud", they feel pissed off and want to RMA/return it for another card that overclocks better. This puts corporations at a loss, thus making consumers (including those who don't care about overclocking) pay more for hardware.
 
my .02 goes to the x1800XL... all of them seem to be good OCers... just alot of them have a cold bug
 
GVX said:
The only problem with that mentality (and I'm not accusing you of anything, just people in general) is that when they buy a card for its overclocking potential and find that they get a "dud", they feel pissed off and want to RMA/return it for another card that overclocks better. This puts corporations at a loss, thus making consumers (including those who don't care about overclocking) pay more for hardware.
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That's true, and I've had my share of duds. The best you can do as an enthusiast is to buy the equipment with the most potential for success. I've never returned anything because it was a bad overclocker, but that doesn't stop me from doing everything in my power to get a good overclocker. :cool:
 
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH stop confusing me lol....what do i choose. OK HONESTLY...based on not caring about overclocking really, which one do i get?

lol.... i see a 50/50 in these postings...

The most persuasive posting was probably GVX's posting with a little more indepth analysis on the bad points of the 7800GT...but still im seeing a 50/50 split on this thread....so anyways based on not really caring about overclocking.....OVERALLL what is the better card???...lol

Carbonsteel
 
GVX said:
First, I agree with you on the point that buying a card for its overclocking "potential" is a poor choice. For example, back a year and a half ago when I bought my 9600XT everyone was saying how it can hit 600Mhz on the core without difficulty. Mine, however, artifacts at 530Mhz :( . I will not make the mistake of buying a card for it's OC'ing potential again..
Click to expand...
agreed. My GTX isn't too good at OCing either.
GVX said:
That being said, I have a brand new X1800XL sitting next to me that will be going into my new computer in a matter of days.

I decided to buy the X1800XL over the GT for several reasons:

1) I do not agree with your assesment of the X1800XL's performance at stock. While the X1800XL is slower in gaming situations when no AA is enabled, the card is more or less even with the 7800GT once AA gets turned on (likely due to the more efficient memory controller). Any gamer who is willing to pay through his/her nose for a high end card like a 7800GT/X1800XL will be enabling advanced video card features such as AA (making the 7800GT's advantage in "pure speed" benchmarks pointless).

If you don't believe me check out this review (obviously paying attention to XL vs. GT benches):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2616&p=1
You can see that the 7800GT's advantage shrinks to basically nothing when AA is enabled in games.
Click to expand...
It's more or less even, but even in unplayable-ness. I'm looking at the FEAR part of the review you posted. The GT is at 40fps no AA 1600x1200, the XL at 34. 4xAA 1600x1200, both at 20. Now, yes they are even, but remember this is also the AVERAGE fps. Who the heck could someone play a game at a pace where 50% of the frames are @ less than 20fps??? Once you go past the unplayable mark, the benches don't matter much imho.
You gotta look at a level like 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 no AA, where the 7800GT and X1800XL are playable. And at those levels the GT is ahead.

GVX said:
2)Shimmering. There have been way too many horror stories told about Nvidia's shimmering problem for it to be something that was just made up. Setting IQ to High Quality may eliminate this problem, but that involves a perofmance hit (which would sink the 7800GT to performance levels that are well below the X1800XL).
Click to expand...
I haven't seen shimmering in my experience. I do run at HQ level thoguh. And it's HQ mode ffs. If you ran at the same game settings, HQ mode would look better than quality, that's the point. Obviously the performance goes down. Thats because the IQ is higher, you'd have to set the non-HQ card/tests to higher levels to equalize the IQ.
GVX said:
3)High Quality AF. Nvidia is yet to offer a feature that can compete with this. I'm sure anybody would welcome higher quality AF. This was probably the main selling feature for me.
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Both ATI and NVIDIA cheat at AF.

GVX said:
4)HDR+AA.
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Yes that's nice, but you gotta be at 1280x1024 for that to be feasible in the newest games. I'm sure a GT w/ HDR and no AA @ 1600x1200 isn't much different.
GVX said:
5)Video Playback. A lot of people are very happy about the Catalyst 5.13 driver release. Basically, your getting a feature that's not only free but outperforms Nvidia's PureVideo which costs at least $20 extra on the side.
Click to expand...
A good point. True, but I don't use it, and I don't really know if the average gamer does. (+1 to ATI)
GVX said:
6)Expandability. We've already seen huge performance gains from recent ATI driver releases. I know that it's speculatory, but because the performance increases that we've seen from ATI driver updates have been substancially greater than those from Nvidia's, one could expect that the potential for future perfomance jumps is greater with ATI than it is with Nvidia.
Click to expand...
I'd think that huge performance gains would mean that they probably don't have much else to improve. They were probably fixing the problems that they were forced to release on, like they did by refreshing the x800 series, and what nvidia has done with sli.
GVX said:
I'm no f@nboy and I am not trying to slander Nvidia in anyway, but I'm merely just stating my objective opinion.

My recomendation to the OP, obviously, is to buy the X1800XL for the reasons above. Unless, you're planning to do a multi-GPU platform, I can't see much of an arguement for going with the 7800GT, given that the two cards are roughly the same price.
Click to expand...
You can fond an X1800XL for under $300? Where? I thought they were all over $400 still.

And SLi is still definitely 1 for nvidia. Crossfire sucks, xpress200 sucks, and the dongle sucks (compared to SLI's solution and nforce4). Now, I don't even have an sli board, but it's certainly comforting that if i needed to, I have the power to easily use 2 graphics cards that will be stable and give me a large performance boost.
 
carbonsteel said:
Newegg has a sweet deal for the Nvidia 7800GT. In comparison with the ATI 800XT, 850XT, and the 1800XL (not XT)... What would be the better card overall? Thanks:)
Click to expand...

I chose a 7800GT for myself just yesterday. Every performance review I saw gave the nod to the 7800GT as did the prices over the Radeon 1800XL, so it wasn't a big choice in my view. My only real choice was in which model. I thought of the eVGA deal (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130238) which comes with a "free" SLI motherboard for a grand total of $379. Basically, if you compare it to their normal eVGA model, you are essentially buying the SLI MoBo for $75.

I went for the Gigabyte model, a bit pricier but comes with a Zalman cooling system on it, which is bound to be a substantial improvement over the stock coolers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125214 Currently $304 after the rebate.

Merry Christmas to me... ;)

Albert
 
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