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Ok I have a crazy idea. Let's intentionally start another thread about ATi vs Nvidia, but let's do it for the sole purpose of stopping all the repetitive discussion when someone new comes to the forum and asks which card to buy. This may or may not work, but it's worth trying. Maybe I'll get lucky, this will get stickied, and then we can just link to it when people come in and ask questions instead of re-hashing the discussion.
To keep things organized, let's format everything as a pro or con for each card and if you're stating an opinion make sure you preface it with "In my opinion"...
The whole idea here is to get everyone to agree, so if you disagree with me just say so and I'll try to reach a common ground.
Also, this is about what card to buy. No need to bring politics into it, just state which card is the better buy and why.
So let me get this attempt to bring order to the chaos started.
ATi X800 General
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. Regular driver updates. (plus beta releases)
2. Same architecture as r300 which gives outstanding PS2.0 performance.
3. 3Dc texture compression (higher image quality and possible 1-5% performance boost over DXTC, but not used in any games yet. Farcry support is forthcoming in 1.3 patch).
4. Native PCI-E support.
Cons:
1. The r300 core is getting a little long in the tooth. For example, in FarCry, the X800 series can only render 3 lights per pass whereas 6800s can render 4. ATi says it can get to 4 with a little more work, but clearly, developers are closer to hitting these shader instruction limits than was initially thought.
2. Highly optimized trilinear/anistropic filtering uses a mixture of bilinear and trilinear filtering which has negligible Image Quality impact but has been noticed on several occasions. The problem: it cannot be disabled. So even if you want full trilinear out of your $400-500 video card, you can't get it.
3. Serious issues with OpenGL drivers. As evidenced by relatively poor Doom3 performance (in comparison to the competing 6800 card) as well as many other OpenGL titles. ATi was said to be re-writing the drivers, but recent PR conflicts with this stating that they will provide gradual performance increases in OpenGL.
4. Poor Linux support
5. Multi-monitor support is generally considered inferior to nvidia's.
nVidia Geforce 6800 General
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. Brand new architecture, supports all kinds of new features like:
___1a. PS3.0
___1b. fp16 blended High Dynamic Range (cool light effect)
___1c. SLI (in PCI-E versions, this could be huge next year)
___1d. hardware video encoding support etc.
2. Beats ATi in Doom3 at every price point. The GT is faster than the X800XT in Doom3 and the vanilla $299 6800 is faster than the X800Pro and even gives the X800XT a run for its money. If you're obsessed with Doom3, these are the cards for you.
3. nVidia has better driver support for OpenGL, Linux, and multiple-monitors.
4. Ultrashadow 2 (32x0) rendering of shadows could bring performance boost in future games/patch. (currently not enabled in drivers).
Cons:
1. Bigger, hotter and more power hungry than thier competitors.
2. Trilinear/anistropic filtering noticeably slower than ATi with optimizations enabled. (rumored to be fixed in forth-coming driver release)
3. All those new features mean a butt-ton of transistors (220+ million) which keeps the core clocks relatively low in comparison to the ATi cards.
ATi X800XTPE ($499 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. 16 Pipes
2. Single slot solution
3. Single molex connector
4. Power consumption about the same as the previous generation
5. 525Mhz core clock = ungodly fillrate.
6. Outstanding performance at extremely high anistropic filtering settings due to highly optimized filtering techniques.
Cons:
1. Serious availability issues, even if you want one they are almost impossible to find and a lot of price gauging is going on. One sold on ebay for almost $1000.
Bottom-line:
Killed by availability issues, but if you can get your hands on one, it's arguably the fastest video card on the planet.
nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra ($499 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. 16 Pipes
2. Outstanding performance, the XTPE is the only card that can compete.
3. Only card with Dual-DVI as standard equipment.
Cons:
1. Power hungry, 2 molex connectors needed and a brand name 350watt power supply highly recommended. Not an issue for most hardcore gamers, but still something the competition doesn't have a problem with.
2. Dual slot solution. With a lot of features being put on motherboards these days this isn't too much of an issue, but for some people it might cause problems.
3. In comparison to the GT, not the best value for the money.
Bottom-line:
Killed by availability issues, but gives you an appreciable boost over the GT version and dual-dvi. If you don't mind dual slot and dual molex connectors it's an outstanding card with features and speed to spare.
ATi X800PRO ($399 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. A lot faster than last generation.
2. Very good performance in all current games.
3. Some plain Pro's and nearly all VIVO's can be modded to 16 pipelines by flashing the bios.
Cons:
1. Slower in almost every game than the 6800GT (its direct competitor).
2. Only 12 pipelines, which makes it very difficult to compete with the 16-pipe 6800GT at the same price point ($399 MSRP)
Bottom-line:
A very fast card that gets overshadowed by the 6800GT which gives 4 more pipelines for the same amount of money.
nVidia Geforce 6800GT ($399 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. Faster in comparison to the X800Pro in just about every game.
2. Only marginally slower than it's big brother the 6800Ultra.
3. 16 pipes
4. Single slot
5. Single molex connector
6. Lots of headroom for overclocking. Easily reaches Ultra speeds.
Cons:
1. Can be tough to find one, but new shipments seem to be coming in regularly, if you keep your eyes open you should have no problem finding one at the MSRP.
Bottom-line:
Pound for pound the GT is THE CARD TO BUY as evidenced by the large number of people on these forums that have them.
A word on Half-Life 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of people will say that ATi will significantly outperform Nvidia in Half-Life 2. This may very well be, but there is no solid proof of this yet. All we know is that one of ATi's PR guys made a vague reference to ATi cards being 30% faster and that leaked alphas from last year show the 6800s neck and neck with the X800s, so it's still anyones game.
To keep things organized, let's format everything as a pro or con for each card and if you're stating an opinion make sure you preface it with "In my opinion"...
The whole idea here is to get everyone to agree, so if you disagree with me just say so and I'll try to reach a common ground.
Also, this is about what card to buy. No need to bring politics into it, just state which card is the better buy and why.
So let me get this attempt to bring order to the chaos started.
ATi X800 General
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. Regular driver updates. (plus beta releases)
2. Same architecture as r300 which gives outstanding PS2.0 performance.
3. 3Dc texture compression (higher image quality and possible 1-5% performance boost over DXTC, but not used in any games yet. Farcry support is forthcoming in 1.3 patch).
4. Native PCI-E support.
Cons:
1. The r300 core is getting a little long in the tooth. For example, in FarCry, the X800 series can only render 3 lights per pass whereas 6800s can render 4. ATi says it can get to 4 with a little more work, but clearly, developers are closer to hitting these shader instruction limits than was initially thought.
2. Highly optimized trilinear/anistropic filtering uses a mixture of bilinear and trilinear filtering which has negligible Image Quality impact but has been noticed on several occasions. The problem: it cannot be disabled. So even if you want full trilinear out of your $400-500 video card, you can't get it.
3. Serious issues with OpenGL drivers. As evidenced by relatively poor Doom3 performance (in comparison to the competing 6800 card) as well as many other OpenGL titles. ATi was said to be re-writing the drivers, but recent PR conflicts with this stating that they will provide gradual performance increases in OpenGL.
4. Poor Linux support
5. Multi-monitor support is generally considered inferior to nvidia's.
nVidia Geforce 6800 General
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. Brand new architecture, supports all kinds of new features like:
___1a. PS3.0
___1b. fp16 blended High Dynamic Range (cool light effect)
___1c. SLI (in PCI-E versions, this could be huge next year)
___1d. hardware video encoding support etc.
2. Beats ATi in Doom3 at every price point. The GT is faster than the X800XT in Doom3 and the vanilla $299 6800 is faster than the X800Pro and even gives the X800XT a run for its money. If you're obsessed with Doom3, these are the cards for you.
3. nVidia has better driver support for OpenGL, Linux, and multiple-monitors.
4. Ultrashadow 2 (32x0) rendering of shadows could bring performance boost in future games/patch. (currently not enabled in drivers).
Cons:
1. Bigger, hotter and more power hungry than thier competitors.
2. Trilinear/anistropic filtering noticeably slower than ATi with optimizations enabled. (rumored to be fixed in forth-coming driver release)
3. All those new features mean a butt-ton of transistors (220+ million) which keeps the core clocks relatively low in comparison to the ATi cards.
ATi X800XTPE ($499 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. 16 Pipes
2. Single slot solution
3. Single molex connector
4. Power consumption about the same as the previous generation
5. 525Mhz core clock = ungodly fillrate.
6. Outstanding performance at extremely high anistropic filtering settings due to highly optimized filtering techniques.
Cons:
1. Serious availability issues, even if you want one they are almost impossible to find and a lot of price gauging is going on. One sold on ebay for almost $1000.
Bottom-line:
Killed by availability issues, but if you can get your hands on one, it's arguably the fastest video card on the planet.
nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra ($499 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. 16 Pipes
2. Outstanding performance, the XTPE is the only card that can compete.
3. Only card with Dual-DVI as standard equipment.
Cons:
1. Power hungry, 2 molex connectors needed and a brand name 350watt power supply highly recommended. Not an issue for most hardcore gamers, but still something the competition doesn't have a problem with.
2. Dual slot solution. With a lot of features being put on motherboards these days this isn't too much of an issue, but for some people it might cause problems.
3. In comparison to the GT, not the best value for the money.
Bottom-line:
Killed by availability issues, but gives you an appreciable boost over the GT version and dual-dvi. If you don't mind dual slot and dual molex connectors it's an outstanding card with features and speed to spare.
ATi X800PRO ($399 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. A lot faster than last generation.
2. Very good performance in all current games.
3. Some plain Pro's and nearly all VIVO's can be modded to 16 pipelines by flashing the bios.
Cons:
1. Slower in almost every game than the 6800GT (its direct competitor).
2. Only 12 pipelines, which makes it very difficult to compete with the 16-pipe 6800GT at the same price point ($399 MSRP)
Bottom-line:
A very fast card that gets overshadowed by the 6800GT which gives 4 more pipelines for the same amount of money.
nVidia Geforce 6800GT ($399 MSRP)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros:
1. Faster in comparison to the X800Pro in just about every game.
2. Only marginally slower than it's big brother the 6800Ultra.
3. 16 pipes
4. Single slot
5. Single molex connector
6. Lots of headroom for overclocking. Easily reaches Ultra speeds.
Cons:
1. Can be tough to find one, but new shipments seem to be coming in regularly, if you keep your eyes open you should have no problem finding one at the MSRP.
Bottom-line:
Pound for pound the GT is THE CARD TO BUY as evidenced by the large number of people on these forums that have them.
A word on Half-Life 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of people will say that ATi will significantly outperform Nvidia in Half-Life 2. This may very well be, but there is no solid proof of this yet. All we know is that one of ATi's PR guys made a vague reference to ATi cards being 30% faster and that leaked alphas from last year show the 6800s neck and neck with the X800s, so it's still anyones game.
