6800NU/GT and x800pro review

[bobmanfoo]

LINK (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_6800_performance_and_overclocking/default.asp)
sorry for the repost

[Nightingale]

hmm so it seems the 6800 isn't to bad of a performer but it lacks in the bandwidth deparment. The X800Pro beast the 6800, but seems to struggle to keep up with the 6800GT. As it looks now the X800XT's main competitor might actually be the 6800GT unless new drivers can get those 3dmark scores up on the ATI side. I might have to put my money on the V9999 instead of the AX800.

[termin@tor]

Finally some real benchmarks. Not those stupid made up ones created by ATi fan boys.
This is exactly what I though would happen. Exactly. The only thing these benchmarks lacked was the x800 XT and 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition in it. The 6800 UEE would definitly take the cake as the best card, followed by the 6800 Ultra, and the x800 xt somewhere inbetween the ultra and the gt, winning over the ultra in some places, but nowhere near the ultra extreme edition. That's my view on this.

[theELVISCERATOR]

Finally some real benchmarks. Not those stupid made up ones created by ATi fan boys.
This is exactly what I though would happen. Exactly. The only thing these benchmarks lacked was the x800 XT and 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition in it. The 6800 UEE would definitly take the cake as the best card, followed by the 6800 Ultra, and the x800 xt somewhere inbetween the ultra and the gt, winning over the ultra in some places, but nowhere near the ultra extreme edition. That's my view on this.

x800 still beats everything but the ultras hehe

and they still leave the IQ settings LOW so the nvidias can keep up


why not 6/16 huh?

[JigPu]

Because 4/8 is still great IQ :)
Though I would like to see the impact increasing AA and AF have on each card's framerates.

EDIT: Actually, from what I can tell, either a. the 6800 dosen't have 6xAA, or b. it uses supersampling in 6x mode (or something else slows it down (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/geforce-6800ultra/index.x?pg=20) when 6xAA and above are on)

JigPu

[bobmanfoo]

Because 4/8 is still great IQ :)
Though I would like to see the impact increasing AA and AF have on each card's framerates.

EDIT: Actually, from what I can tell, either a. the 6800 dosen't have 6xAA, or b. it uses supersampling in 6x mode (or something else slows it down (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/geforce-6800ultra/index.x?pg=20) when 6xAA and above are on)

JigPu

i think the only real conclusions that we can get from this review is that the 6800nu is a bit lacking and OCing it does next to nothing, i wonder if this is the same for the GT an Ultra as well :-/ only time will tell.

[micamica1217]

Because 4/8 is still great IQ :)
Though I would like to see the impact increasing AA and AF have on each card's framerates.

EDIT: Actually, from what I can tell, either a. the 6800 dosen't have 6xAA, or b. it uses supersampling in 6x mode (or something else slows it down (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/geforce-6800ultra/index.x?pg=20) when 6xAA and above are on)

JigPu

yep, the 6800 cards use a mix of multi/supersampling and all the framerates tank, no matter what 6800 card.

so it's 4xAA or less for the 6800NU/U/GT

mica

[Voodoo Rufus]

Eh, not bad for a run of the mill review. I like the image quality screen shot comparisons. The difference in the AA is small enough it's hard to tell if you were to do a blind test, let alone humming along in a game fragging other people online.

Make sthe 5950 a budget card without the budget price now.

I still want a GT. :D

[PCGUY112887]

I'm just waiting for that darn GT to be easielly found on Newegg for like $300 :P

Or if a normal 6800 can mod into all 16 pipes I may do that because I am VERY tight on cash.

[-=Ambush=-]

I'm just waiting for that darn GT to be easielly found on Newegg for like $300 :P

Or if a normal 6800 can mod into all 16 pipes I may do that because I am VERY tight on cash.

Arn't we all. :p

I just hope someone will put out a cooler equlivlient to the arctic cooler for ATI 9800's.

Since heat seems too be a issue with these cards, I bet we'll have to upgrade cooling for Ultra+ speeds.

[Steven4563]

Finally some real benchmarks. Not those stupid made up ones created by ATi fan boys.
This is exactly what I though would happen. Exactly. The only thing these benchmarks lacked was the x800 XT and 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition in it. The 6800 UEE would definitly take the cake as the best card, followed by the 6800 Ultra, and the x800 xt somewhere inbetween the ultra and the gt, winning over the ultra in some places, but nowhere near the ultra extreme edition. That's my view on this.

and i suppose your not a Nvidiot:rolleyes:

[termin@tor]

and i suppose your not a Nvidiot:rolleyes:

I see a hot chick in my avatar, not a video card company. This is just how I think things stand. I don't favor either ati nor nvidia. They're both good, and they've both had their times. All I care about is what's going to be the best choice for my new PC, giving me the best performance possible in games and benchmarks. And so far, it seems it's going to be nvidia :burn:

[Steven4563]

YOU always have commented on Nvidia better than ATi and everything else in other threads so its obv u are a Nvidia fan. The REASON i have Powered By Ati Radeon 9700pro in my avatar is because that a peice of hardware ive got like when i had AMD Athlon XP there not because im a ATi Fanboy :rolleyes:

[snyper1982]

who really cares if someone else is a fanboy, i swear. i really dont see the point in arguing over who is more of a fanboy. EVERYONE is entitled their opinion even if it differs from yours. what makes your opinion right, and not his? lol.

as it stands right now, i wouldnt get either card, they both seem to be doing things a little to shady for my taste. i will be waiting til at least the next revisions come out.

[dreIU]

YOU always have commented on Nvidia better than ATi and everything else in other threads so its obv u are a Nvidia fan. The REASON i have Powered By Ati Radeon 9700pro in my avatar is because that a peice of hardware ive got like when i had AMD Athlon XP there not because im a ATi Fanboy :rolleyes:


Didnt you have the lovely Britney Spears up there? I mean, a different shot than the one I have, but still a great one. I remember it was one of the Stevens on this board. :beer:

[CandymanCan]

I still wont be mooving to Nvidia, I still dont trust them over what happend to Visiontech, and the Power hungry massive heatsinked noisy 5900's, and thier cheating so called Optimised drivers.

Na 15 fps diff over the 2 i will still be going ATI.

[dreIU]

I still wont be mooving to Nvidia, I still dont trust them over what happend to Visiontech, and the Power hungry massive heatsinked noisy 5900's, and thier cheating so called Optimised drivers.

Na 15 fps diff over the 2 i will still be going ATI.


And I too agree with this. Like many have said in the past, nVidia will have to pull something crazy in order for me to return the their dark side. :D

[FIZZ3]

What I find strange is that Ati has only the super-high end X800XT PE and sub-top X800 Pro for the AGP bus. The competitor to the 6800 GT is the X800 XT (vanilla); full pipelines, less clockspeed. Yet, they list this for PCI-Express only.
I guess that's one reason to wait for PCI-Express...

http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx800/radeonx800series/index.html

[Steven4563]

dreIU yeah i did have britney there once shes so fit :p:D

anyway back on topic i wont be getting any card soon ill be buying a A64 socket 939 before i upgrade my video card

[bobmanfoo]

Post from other threadAi, there is too much speculation based on these reviews. plus these NV drivers being used aren't even official yet. so as of now i say the x800xtpe is KING. remember the poor chaps that went out and bought the fx59XX series for full price over the ATI counterpart based on borked driver reviews and benches. im suprised that these new cards aren't approached with caution. ill believe when i see it with my own eyes.......which i will as soon as my 6800GT ships :attn: as for the new NV drivers, it would be wise to wait and see them be heavily scrutinized........

[termin@tor]

YOU always have commented on Nvidia better than ATi and everything else in other threads so its obv u are a Nvidia fan. The REASON i have Powered By Ati Radeon 9700pro in my avatar is because that a peice of hardware ive got like when i had AMD Athlon XP there not because im a ATi Fanboy :rolleyes:

If you would read most of my posts, I have recommened 9800pro's all over the place. It's just lately that I've been favoring nvidia on the new cards. ATi had the advantage the last wave of new good cards, with the coming of the 9700pro. I've had both ati and nvidia, and I don't pick by brand name, as I said above, I pick by what I think is best for me.

[micamica1217]

I see a hot chick in my avatar, not a video card company. This is just how I think things stand. I don't favor either ati nor nvidia. They're both good, and they've both had their times. All I care about is what's going to be the best choice for my new PC, giving me the best performance possible in games and benchmarks. And so far, it seems it's going to be nvidia :burn:

and this is based on what? this vid card revew?
wow, I can't believe you sit here and can't see how borked the review is?

let me see if I can show, that your making a choice based too much speculation....

looking at other review sites we see scores based on the 60.72 drivers....
the x800pro is able to beat the 6800u in many tests.
forget the 6800gt, it still can't keep up with the x800pro.
infact it would need to be OCed to the 6800u speeds to be competitive with the ATI card.

then with the 61.11 drivers, we hear lots of "see nVidia can get better over time" remarks...yet the drivers are crap, with lots of IQ problems, and are mostly just benchmarking drivers, IMHO.
the 6800gt was reviewed in many of the x800pro review tests...
still, with the benchmark drivers, the 6800gt has a hard time keeping up with the x800pro.
only, Q3A engine type games is it (the 6800gt) truly competitive against the x800pro (and maybe X2).
but what I find odd is that many people here don't care that the 61.11 drivers that are used for testing, are flawed or have massive performance inhancements, do to IQ reduction in many games such as farcry.
it's like nVidia can do no wrong.
based off the last 2 years, this should be a warning sign.

then we have this review from firingsquad.
Oh my, what can I say?
new drivers? cool.
but wait, something(s) don't look right.

the x800pro scores look fishy to me...man, I have one, I should know.
the 6800gt beats out the x800pro in just about everything but farcry and TR:AOD???
if that's not odd to you, then listen up closly....

looking back at the review from the x800pro from the same site, here. (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/x800_pro_pentium4/)
do you see what I see?
look. (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/x800_pro_pentium4/page15.asp)
with the cat3.5's and a 2.4c system, to a 3.2c system, you get only a...
wait, you don't even get a 1fps increase in performance at 4xAA and 8xAF at 1280x1024...?????
that's not odd, that's wrong.
you shout get about 1fps for each 100mhz increase in CPU speed.

then going to the review of the 6800np, we see that with a A64 3800+ CPU and the cat4.6 drivers, we only get 1fps increase from the 3.2c system scores....WHAT???
now, how can that be right???
you AMD boys are now going to tell me that a A64 3800+ chip is realy no better in gaming then a 3.2c intel chip????
HELL, the 4.6 drivers give a nice boost in farcry.... yet basicly nothing in this review? WHY???

and do I see the 6800gt beating the 6800u in LOMAC at 1024x768 ???
oh my, it's close, but realy...this doesn't look right.
(btw, I have the game, LOMAC)

btw, how did firingsquad test all the games listed???
did they use costume tests that they made?
or did they borrow the benchmark demos from another site?
no info, and no d/l's means I can't even compare the results from them.
so why should I even trust such a site????

better yet, why should you trust any of the tests I just talked about???

in most cookie cutter reviews, it's nice to know the system used/the games tested/the drivers used/the results......
yet there is still so much info left out of the review that it's hard not to look closly and ask quite a few questions.

like:
ok, we see the avg fps scores, but what was the minimum framerate at that res ???
(if it was lower then 30, then it's unplayable at that res.)

how come you get a nice boost in speed from the nVidia drivers, yet get nothing from the ATI???
man, you get about 1000 extra marks from going from the cat4.5's to the cat4.6's in 3dmark03 !!!!!!111one

how can you only get 1 extra frame from going from a 3.2c intel system, to a A64 3800+ system in farcry??? (with the new ATI drivers no less)

strange.

it's time to start asking questions if you ask me.

mica

[snyper1982]

man now we have a all out ****ing contest(not aimed at you mica). lol. you guys should just drop the whole fanboy thing.

[Voodoo Rufus]

Yeah, we should argue something more fun, like the purpose of life. We might make progress in that area rather than vid cards. :D

:beer:

[micamica1217]

man now we have a all out ****ing contest(not aimed at you mica). lol. you guys should just drop the whole fanboy thing.

I know your not aiming anything at me....
I'm just trying to warn people to take everything they see with a grain of salt.
so many flaky reviews latly, and people just look at the benchies as if they were golden.

I will say that I may just buy a 6800gt too, for testing.
then the odd card just gets sold off.

mica

[snyper1982]

the purpose of life, that one is easy, everyone was born to serve MEEEEE!!!! mwaahhahahaa.

[CircuitBreaker8]

The 6800GT has so much more potential then the X800 though. Besides the core clock and mem freq, whats teh diff between the GT and the ultra? Can you say BIOS flash?! w00t! Plus it supports PS3, which is a huge plus.

[Jarlax]

I know your not aiming anything at me....
I'm just trying to warn people to take everything they see with a grain of salt.
so many flaky reviews latly, and people just look at the benchies as if they were golden.

I will say that I may just buy a 6800gt too, for testing.
then the odd card just gets sold off.

mica

Now you see that is what I am talking about! Since I don't have the cash flow to be top of the line, I let you people get all these fun exciting cards and bench them, oc them, modify them until finally a winner is put on top (like the 9800 pro of last generation). This site is my ultimate review!

So keep up the good work for all of us broke po'boys out there! :p

[Dragonprince]

it's time to start asking questions if you ask me.
mica

Awesome reply mica. Cant see anything you missed. I always wonder why no one challenges a review that shows the opposite results of everyone elses reviews....without any reason provided. Like termin@tor said "Finaly" a review that says what I want to hear, instead of the truth. :-/ I just dont get it.

[termin@tor]

and this is based on what? this vid card revew?
wow, I can't believe you sit here and can't see how borked the review is?

let me see if I can show, that your making a choice based too much speculation....

looking at other review sites we see scores based on the 60.72 drivers....
the x800pro is able to beat the 6800u in many tests.
forget the 6800gt, it still can't keep up with the x800pro.
infact it would need to be OCed to the 6800u speeds to be competitive with the ATI card.

then with the 61.11 drivers, we hear lots of "see nVidia can get better over time" remarks...yet the drivers are crap, with lots of IQ problems, and are mostly just benchmarking drivers, IMHO.
the 6800gt was reviewed in many of the x800pro review tests...
still, with the benchmark drivers, the 6800gt has a hard time keeping up with the x800pro.
only, Q3A engine type games is it (the 6800gt) truly competitive against the x800pro (and maybe X2).
but what I find odd is that many people here don't care that the 61.11 drivers that are used for testing, are flawed or have massive performance inhancemets, do to IQ reduction in many games such as farcry.
it's like nVidia can do no wrong.
based off the last 2 years, this should be a warning sign.

then we have this review from firingsquad.
Oh my, what can I say?
new drivers? cool.
but wait, something(s) don't look right.

the x800pro scores look fishy to me...man, I have one, I should know.
the 6800gt beats out the x800pro in just about everything but farcry and TR:AOD???
if that's not odd to you, then listen up closly....

looking back at the review from the x800pro from the same site, here. (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/x800_pro_pentium4/)
do you see what I see?
look. (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/x800_pro_pentium4/page15.asp)
with the cat3.5's and a 2.4c system, to a 3.2c system, you get only a...
wait, you don't even get a 1fps increase in performance at 4xAA and 8xAF at 1280x1024...?????
that's not odd, that's wrong.
you shout get about 1fps for each 100mhz increase in CPU speed.

then going to the review of the 6800np, we see that with a A64 3800+ CPU and the cat4.6 drivers, we only get 1fps increase from the 3.2c system scores....WHAT???
now, how can that be right???
you AMD boys are now going to tell me that a A64 3800+ chip is realy no better in gaming then a 3.2c intel chip????
HELL, the 4.6 drivers give a nice boost in farcry.... yet basicly nothing in this review? WHY???

and do I see the 6800gt beating the 6800u in LOMAC at 1024x768 ???
oh my, it's close, but realy...this doesn't look right.
(btw, I have the game, LOMAC)

btw, how did firingsquad test all the games listed???
did they use costume tests that they made?
or did they borrow the benchmark demos from another site?
no info, and no d/l's means I can't even compare the results from them.
so why should I even trust such a site????

better yet, why should you trust any of the tests I just talked about???

in most cookie cutter reviews, it's nice to know the system used/the games tested/the drivers used/the results......
yet there is still so much info left out of the review that it's hard not to look closly and ask quite a few questions.

like:
ok, we see the avg fps scores, but what was the minimum framerate at that res ???
(if it was lower then 30, then it's unplayable at that res.)

how come you get a nice boost in speed from the nVidia drivers, yet get nothing from the ATI???
man, you get about 1000 extra marks from going from the cat4.5's to the cat4.6's in 3dmark03 !!!!!!111one

how can you only get 1 extra frame from going from a 3.2c intel system, to a A64 3800+ system in farcry??? (with the new ATI drivers no less)

strange.

it's time to start asking questions if you ask me.

mica


I don't trust review sites either. This is what I'm trying to say. This site says the x800 is better, and then that site says the 6800 is better. It's all a war of fan boys and no real results. I wish I could just spend the money and get the x800 pro, x800 XTPE, 6800nu, 6800ultra and 6800 ultra extreme edition and just bench them myself. And no, I wouldn't share the scores with anyone, I just want to see for myself how these cards perform. And it's not all about performance. You have to consider the price, the company you're buying it from, the differences, and which would overclock better. I can't say for certain that something is better than something else before it's even out. And I'm not trying to say that. And I'm not a "nvidiot" I don't give a **** whether it's ATi or nVidia. All we can do it wait and see more and more results until these cards finally come out and most people like us start buying them. I'm just p***ed at people saying "x800 is better when it mght not be"
NO ONE can know which is better yet because NO ONE even has a card like that. All people have is x800 pro's and they just go around telling other people how much a** their cards kick!
While this is true, you can't say say that your card's better than something THAT'S NOT EVEN OUT YET!!! I'm not talking about you, I'm just talking in general. I don't trust any of the reviews until ALL of these cards start shipping out in large quantities. When that does happen, there will be more and more benchmarks and the true "champion" will pop out.

There's a ton of things to consider when buying a card so expensive. A very important factor is the price itself! I wouldn't want to pay $500 when I could get basicly the same performance I could get with $400. But it is kind of unbelievable that that's true because video card companies know what they're doing. They can't release something $200 cheaper than something else and expect people to believe it's the same thing.

Ati and nvidia use totally different technologies and there's a million differences to comprehend to able to just make a prediction of what's going to be better.

What I see, and it is not from crappy reviews, is that nvidia has integrated new hardware support for PS 3 and DX 9.0c. While this doesn't sound like anything, it's just like the A64's 64 bit support. Once applications using it start coming out, it will take the lead unless the competeing companies come up with a "counter attack"
Ati has basicly pumped out their previous winning technology and has brought it to the max. It's not the same thing, but as some people say, the x800 pro is a 9800xt on steroids. The x800 XTPE takes the lead as the "fastest" card, and based on the reviews IT IS the fastest card right now. It's core clock speeds are very high and it is damn fast!
On the other hand, nvidia, seeing that their FX series got BLOWN AWAY by ATi, decided to develop a somewhat new technology to "counter attack" ATi.
All we can do is wait and see how that new technology is going to perform against the old one. It's most likely going to be better, and when PS 3.0 and DX 9.0c applications do come out, we might see nvidia take the lead. And with the huge power requirements of the 6800 ultra, it should supposedly overclock a lot. And as we all know, overclocking matters A LOT.

I can go on and go on all day, but I think I'll just stop.

[9mmCensor]

All I care about is who makes the best overclocking cheap (~200$) card.

[termin@tor]

All I care about is who makes the best overclocking cheap (~200$) card.

Yes, exactly. In the end, all that matters is that you get the kind of performance you want for the price you pay. It's not like you would see a difference while playing UT2004 on a 6800 UEE, or a x800 XTPE. Well of course you might see some difference in fps and quality (I'm not saying whose will be better because I simply don't know) but in the end, just fragging ppl on-line, there's isn't going to be a huge difference as long as you get the fps supported by your monitor at all times at the highest quality settings.

[micamica1217]

The 6800GT has so much more potential then the X800 though. Besides the core clock and mem freq, whats teh diff between the GT and the ultra? Can you say BIOS flash?! w00t! Plus it supports PS3, which is a huge plus.

I see your points, yet be forwarned....

to OC the 6800gt to the 6800u speeds you might need added cooling.
I don't see any outstanding HSF forr the 6800 cards like the vga silencer ati cards have.

you may also run into problems with a lack of power....
you only have one molex to work with, and the 6800u's might need two for OCing. the same might be for the 6800gt.
(I'm not saying you wont be able to OC it at all, just maybe not past ultra speeds...if that.)

SM3.0 suport is nice, but it might get passed up by many developers like PS1.4 did.
only odd/rare vertex saders are performance inhancers, and we still don't know just how well they perform.
basicly, most SM3.0 can be done with PS2.0 and VS2.0....
and the 6800 cards still lack alot of SM2.0 suport.
33% of tests can't be run in shadermark with the new 6800 cards. (sad, but something you should know)

mica

[micamica1217]

I don't trust review sites either. This is what I'm trying to say. This site says the x800 is better, and then that site says the 6800 is better. It's all a war of fan boys and no real results. I wish I could just spend the money and get the x800 pro, x800 XTPE, 6800nu, 6800ultra and 6800 ultra extreme edition and just bench them myself. And no, I wouldn't share the scores with anyone, I just want to see for myself how these cards perform. And it's not all about performance. You have to consider the price, the company you're buying it from, the differences, and which would overclock better. I can't say for certain that something is better than something else before it's even out. And I'm not trying to say that. And I'm not a "nvidiot" I don't give a **** whether it's ATi or nVidia. All we can do it wait and see more and more results until these cards finally come out and most people like us start buying them. I'm just p***ed at people saying "x800 is better when it mght not be"
NO ONE can know which is better yet because NO ONE even has a card like that. All people have is x800 pro's and they just go around telling other people how much a** their cards kick!
While this is true, you can't say say that your card's better than something THAT'S NOT EVEN OUT YET!!! I'm not talking about you, I'm just talking in general. I don't trust any of the reviews until ALL of these cards start shipping out in large quantities. When that does happen, there will be more and more benchmarks and the true "champion" will pop out.

There's a ton of things to consider when buying a card so expensive. A very important factor is the price itself! I wouldn't want to pay $500 when I could get basicly the same performance I could get with $400. But it is kind of unbelievable that that's true because video card companies know what they're doing. They can't release something $200 cheaper than something else and expect people to believe it's the same thing.

Ati and nvidia use totally different technologies and there's a million differences to comprehend to able to just make a prediction of what's going to be better.

What I see, and it is not from crappy reviews, is that nvidia has integrated new hardware support for PS 3 and DX 9.0c. While this doesn't sound like anything, it's just like the A64's 64 bit support. Once applications using it start coming out, it will take the lead unless the competeing companies come up with a "counter attack"
Ati has basicly pumped out their previous winning technology and has brought it to the max. It's not the same thing, but as some people say, the x800 pro is a 9800xt on steroids. The x800 XTPE takes the lead as the "fastest" card, and based on the reviews IT IS the fastest card right now. It's core clock speeds are very high and it is damn fast!
On the other hand, nvidia, seeing that their FX series got BLOWN AWAY by ATi, decided to develop a somewhat new technology to "counter attack" ATi.
All we can do is wait and see how that new technology is going to perform against the old one. It's most likely going to be better, and when PS 3.0 and DX 9.0c applications do come out, we might see nvidia take the lead. And with the huge power requirements of the 6800 ultra, it should supposedly overclock a lot. And as we all know, overclocking matters A LOT.

I can go on and go on all day, but I think I'll just stop.

hmmmmmm, a far differant reply then:

""Originally Posted by termin@tor
Finally some real benchmarks. Not those stupid made up ones created by ATi fan boys.
This is exactly what I though would happen. Exactly. The only thing these benchmarks lacked was the x800 XT and 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition in it. The 6800 UEE would definitly take the cake as the best card, followed by the 6800 Ultra, and the x800 xt somewhere inbetween the ultra and the gt, winning over the ultra in some places, but nowhere near the ultra extreme edition. That's my view on this.""

and you do know that the FX5900 cards have SM3.0 suport too...right?
and the fact that when using SM3.0 suport you need to run at 32bit FP...
and that when running at 32bitFP as compared to 16bitPF you loose 30% performance in shaders, with the 6800u.
(btw, you lose 25% on the 5900xt)
so any performance inhancments from vertex shaders have to first override that speed bump first.
with out anyway of testing SM3.0 right now, we could be very well be talking about a marketing gimic.

with the 6800gt about the same price as the x800pro, it's a toss up as to, what card to get.
(and with nVidia's history, I hope they don't rip off the consumer again, with bogus drivers and benchmarks)

again, for the seconed time ATI beat nVidia out the door...this tells me something.
and with the newer cat4.6's, ATI card holders should be realy happy performance wise.
I get 10k at stock with the cat4.6 and 3dmark03...
farcry realy shot up, and so did BF:V

all I've been getting at truly is be carefull...
alot of the sites are realy showing some messed up results.
you could almost call them biased.

mica

[snyper1982]

terminator, i will NOT buy into the 3.0 and 9.0c like i did, ps 2.0 with the radeons. while it is true that the ati cards are far superior to the fx cards in 2.0, there is still NO 2.0 games out yet. farcry uses minimal amounts of 2.0. as for 3.0 bah, ill believe it when i see it. the main reason the 9800 is better than the fx line, is because it outperforms it in shaders regardless of what version they are.

as for the 2 new cards, i say flip a coin, thats how close they are in my eyes. get whatever one you can get for cheaper.

[bobmanfoo]

i dunno what the big hype about SM3.0 is all about. it is only a SMALL improvement over its Sm2.0, SM4.0 support is what you will want to have. don't let the marketing tactics fool you guys ;)

[Ysaric]

I got in on the $330 X800 Pro deal, but the 3.0 support is the one thing that was really, really bugging me. I sure as hell hope you guys know what you're talking about, and in 12 months I won't be kicking myself 'cause that becomes an important feature and games look a lot better on the 6800 series!! I guess I have until at least the 28th (if the card does ship then) to keep reading opinions and looking for a similar 6800 GT deal, 'cause when it's all said and done $330 is better than $420 for very similar performance.

I'm sad though that early reports aren't positive for hard-modding the visiontek.

[JigPu]

to OC the 6800gt to the 6800u speeds you might need added cooling.
I don't see any outstanding HSF forr the 6800 cards like the vga silencer ati cards have.
True, but then there are always the crazies who stick 1U or full sized CPU heatsinks on their cards. It's definatly not as common as using premade solutions, though not exactly rare either :)

you may also run into problems with a lack of power....
you only have one molex to work with, and the 6800u's might need two for OCing. the same might be for the 6800gt.
(I'm not saying you wont be able to OC it at all, just maybe not past ultra speeds...if that.)
That will have to be seen. I don't see how using two molexes will provide any more power to a card than using only one (AFAIK, the PSU does not have multiple 12V and 5V taps). They could have each molex providing power to two different areas of the card, though then one must ask how simple it is for nVidia to remove one connector and provide power there from the other. I definatly wanna see how they handled this when both the GT and Ultra are out :)

and the 6800 cards still lack alot of SM2.0 suport.
33% of tests can't be run in shadermark with the new 6800 cards. (sad, but something you should know
I always DID find that rather funny :D The 6800 supporting PS3.0, but still unable to complete all the Shadermark tests. What's up with that???

JigPu

[Steven4563]

wow :eek: mica u really sum things up good :D

[hUMANbEATbOX]

True, but then there are always the crazies who stick 1U or full sized CPU heatsinks on their cards. It's definatly not as common as using premade solutions, though not exactly rare either :)

i've got a sk6+ on my 9700pro, but i don't think something like that would be of much use to a 6800 line of cards.

the stock heatsink covers everything, including ram and whatnot, not sure what effect a smaller (in surface area) heatsink would have.

i bet the ram would get toasty quick..

[Dragonprince]

I got in on the $330 X800 Pro deal, but the 3.0 support is the one thing that was really, really bugging me. I sure as hell hope you guys know what you're talking about, and in 12 months I won't be kicking myself 'cause that becomes an important feature and games look a lot better on the 6800 series!!

I wouldnt worry about it since the 3.0 support does not really change anything except the length and number of the shader commands you can program. Graphicaly there is little, if any, difference between 2 and 3. I remember reading somewhere that a game developer was stating that currently most folks write less than 50 commands per instruction and that 2.0 provides for up to 500 or so commands, which the ATi hardware has fully supported since the 9700 was released. So basiclay ATi's hardware is running about 10% of its capability at worst case right now. I think by the time game developers write code to big for the X800's they will be old news anyway...

[jo3]

Eh, not bad for a run of the mill review. I like the image quality screen shot comparisons. The difference in the AA is small enough it's hard to tell if you were to do a blind test, let alone humming along in a game fragging other people online.

Make sthe 5950 a budget card without the budget price now.

I still want a GT. :D






dito to the max dood :D

[JigPu]

i've got a sk6+ on my 9700pro, but i don't think something like that would be of much use to a 6800 line of cards.

the stock heatsink covers everything, including ram and whatnot, not sure what effect a smaller (in surface area) heatsink would have.

i bet the ram would get toasty quick..
Well obviously the CPU heatsink won't even touch the RAM, but neither do most heatsinks that work with ATI. If you want to cool your RAM on an ATI, you buy ramsinks. Not a big deal, and the same can be done with the 6800.

JigPu

[kiyoshilionz]

How come there seem to be a lot of people here drooling over the 6800GT? Why not the 6800 Ultra? And is there still no verdict of the X800's vs. the 6800 series?

Not to mention that it's really hard to compare the millions of different versions like the X800, the X800 Pro, the X800 XT, the X800 XTPE, the 6800, the 6800GT, and the 6800 Ultra.....

Right now I've got a very young (3 months since I got it) 9600XT, and it's just not really cutting it and the card's holding back my system. I want to sell it, along with my old computer, and get a new video card, either an X800 line or 6800 line. I've liked ATI, I just still remember when it was supposed to be the FX5800 vs. the 9700, then the FX falls behind schedule, and it then comes out when the 9800 was coming out. So it was being compared to something a generation ahead of it, so it was being destroyed in benchmarks. Not to mention that it couldn't even beat the 9700's. So I'm still thinking ATI......

[Dragonprince]

Because the GT is cheaper and may be able to equal or surpass the Ultra when OC'd.

For the most part the "who's best" stuff continues because no one has a 6800GT/U to test yet....

As far as models, ATI has only 2 at this time. The Pro and the XT-PE.
nVidia has 3, the basic card refered to as the "nu", the GT and the Ultra.

[Nightingale]

The GT is supposidly going to be the bang for the buck card just like the X800 pros that are able to be modded to XT's are for there line(in most cases). I guess we will see in about another 2 and a half weeks when more people will be recieveing 6800's.

[micamica1217]

For the most part the "who's best" stuff continues because no one has a 6800GT/U to test yet....



there are plenty of peeps who have the 6800u cards right now....
yet I don't know of any 6800gt's.

mica