6800 Ultra or X800XT Platinum

[Massive Coronary]

He He my first post. Did you guys know you were cached by google? Of course you did.

I am running an X800XT PE and for me the choice was rough to buy this or the ultra. I took this card for a couple of reasons.

1. Not as power hungry, I am running a truepower 430 but it is rough even giving up one molex in this rig, let alone two.

2. Slots. The 6800 ultra wants two slots and I really didn't feel like giving up two.

3. I am an ATI fanboy LOL. Not really, I have used cards from both sides. I usually go for perfrmance vs cost. ATI was cheaper this time around, and the benchmarks are very close with Nvidia squeaking by in one and ATI squeaking by in antoher.

Buy whichever one you want. You can't go wrong. I will disagree with the poster who doesn't trust ATI's drivers. That was fixed a long, long time ago. That is really what helped ATI get the market share they have today. Was a time only a hardcore gamer could deal with the driver issues. That time has passed.

 

[imported_JeReMY]

I guess it depends on which of games you play. But, I personally would choose the x800 because it is single slotted, it doesn't take up a lot of power, and it's better with AA and AF. But, I do like the fact that you can hook up two 6800s together.

 

[mwmorph]

yeah but they have to have the exact same bios and everything. when you feel like going sli cause you can pick up a 6800 for cheap, it might not be possible anymore cause the bios changed or the company moved on to other cards.

 

[rednar]

I thinK I'll get the 6800 Ultra.

There's no real reason to go with the ATI for me (not bothered about the space the Ultra uses up etc) and it's running the better technologies from what i see. (SM 3.0 etc). I'd rather be able to use that later on than end up without it and with the ATI card.

 

[fstime]

Nvidia's AA/AF is also garbage compared to ATI's.

8AA/16AF Nvidia = 4AA/8AF ATI

I am a 6800 owner and I must say, there are TO many drivers, with my old ati card, I would go to atis site and get the newest driver which is usualy the best.

 

[rednar]

I thought ATI "cheated" with the temporal AA?

Also... isn't there just one most up to date ForceWare driver?

Nice to hear some anti Nvidia points though... I'm not sure which to get now heh

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BouZouki
Nvidia's AA/AF is also garbage compared to ATI's.

8AA/16AF Nvidia = 4AA/8AF ATI

I am a 6800 owner and I must say, there are TO many drivers, with my old ati card, I would go to atis site and get the newest driver which is usualy the best.

FUD

Depends on the game, depends on the setting, and mostly, pointing out trivial differences that you'd never notice in game. Get a life.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: rednar
I thought ATI "cheated" with the temporal AA?

Also... isn't there just one most up to date ForceWare driver?

Nice to hear some anti Nvidia points though... I'm not sure which to get now heh

BOTH companies cheat with their driver tweaks now. Nividia has the problem with trilinear(brilinear according to Tom's Hardware Guide) filtering among others too.(though both cards are MUCH better than the FX series about image quality.

 

[Elfear]

Here is a link to some benchies I ran when between my 6800GT@Ultra and my X800XT PE if you're interested.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...03&highlight_key=y

I have some benchies of a few other games (FarCry and UT2004) that I haven't had time to post yet. I'll see if I can get that done today.

 

[McArra]

ASUS V9999Ultra Deluxe is singel slot. It looks great and cools quite well. It has the same cooler my 6800Gt has, which silent while idling (must use smartdoctor ASUS utility for fan speed auto control). The fan runs @2100rpm in idle and around 3100-3300@ full load.

 

[nRollo]

To me, this breaks down to how long do you keep your cards and do you use linux?

If you keep cards a long time, has to be nV40 for the DX9c feature set, because we don't know when/if that will matter.

If it's Linux, nVidia.

If you replace cards all the time like me, flip ye olde coin.

 

[MrDave]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
sm3.0 will be used a lot probably. both cant brag too much about image quality anymore since they both use performance enhancing, image degrading tricks like brilinear optimization.(semi bilinear textures passed off as trilinear). the XTPE seems faster though, but the AMD64's sheer power may pull the 6800U to the top over the slightly slower P4s.(Yes get over it even the P4EEs cant overpower the FX55.)

One thing you forget about the AMD Solution. Not every computing platform revolves around GAMES!

It is a well known fact that in Floating point operations, the Prescott CPU will be about 35 to 45% faster than the 'comparable performance rated AMD solution'.

Also, when it comes to Multimedia performanced, such as Video encoding, again equally 'performance rated' Opteron and Prescott CPUs, the Pentium 4 Prescott wins!

I watched the performance of an SSE3 PIV and a SSE2 (Northwood) PIV. In Video encoding the same material, the process went for 1.5 hours on the Northwood, to 15 minutes on the Prescott.

So please, don't base your opinions of a CPU's superiority only on GAMING performance. Again, the Video Card has more to do with Gaming performance than these CPU's do.

Really, Drop an X600 XT in a 3.0 Ghz Prescott CPU machine and then Put the X800XT in the same machine. You're going to see a larger increase in Video Gaming performance then if you stayed with an X600XT and went from 3.0 Ghz to 3.8 Ghz with the X600 XT only.

-A view from the other side of the fence-

 

[rednar]

I plan to keep it for as long as possible - replacing £300 graphics cards all the time isn't good for my wallet.

I'm not using Linux.

It's true that Intel is better at some things and I know this..but I wouldn't be considering the 6800 Ultra or the X800XT PE if I wasn't going to be using them for games...would I?

Looking like the Nvidia atm, more futureproof.

 

[fstime]

Get a life.

Hey how about you stfu.

 

[BFG10K]

and it's better with AA and AF.

With all optimizations off nVidia's AF will edge ATi's. ATi's 6xAA edges nVidia's 4xAA but nVidia does have the option of 8xAA which has SSAA so it's a nice option for older games.

8AA/16AF Nvidia = 4AA/8AF ATI

Nonsense. For a start 8xAA does SSAA will none of ATi's versions do.

I am a 6800 owner and I must say, there are TO many drivers.

Really? I see one when I click on nVidia's driver section. How many do you see? Now if you want to go hunting for beta drivers that's your choice, a choice you also have on ATi cards.

thought ATI "cheated" with the temporal AA?

I wouldn't call it cheating, more like a crappy gimmick. But hey, some people like it so that makes ATi more attractive to them.

The fact is the 6800U and the X800 XT are fairly equally matched and whichever you pick really comes down to personal perference more than anything else. It isn't like the last generation where the R3xx series totally creamed the NV3x.

It is a well known fact that in Floating point operations, the Prescott CPU will be about 35 to 45% faster than the 'comparable performance rated AMD solution'.

No way. Maybe for heavily SSE2/SSE3 FPU operations they'll be equal but for raw FPU the A64 will blow any P4 out of the water.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: BouZouki

Get a life.

Hey how about you stfu.

No! You STFU! :roll:

Your post was inaccurate, it's generally known ATIs AA is considered a little better and nVidia's AF a little better. I only replied because you made it seem like there is some HUGE difference, which there is not.

 

[Ackmed]

Uh, Temp AA is not a crappy gimmick, to attrack people to ATi. It works great in older games, as you suggest FSAA does. Which only works in a very few games, since its very hard to get playable FPS, but thats another story. You want a crappy gimmick? Try NV's hardware decoding.. yeah, nice.

There are too many beta drivers out. When a very popular game like Flatout DOESNT work (unless you use the latest patch released 3 weeks ago) with NV's official drivers, 66.93's, you're forced to hunt down beta drivers. Because the official drivers rebooted your system. Every beta driver is better for something, and worse at another. Unless you feel like reinstalling drivers all the time, its annoying.

To the topic poster, get whichever you prefer. Both cards are about on par with each other. Personally if they were the same price, I would get the XT/PE, simple because in the games I play, and the setttings I use, its faster. I dont think you will be unhappy with either card.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: rednar
Slightly off (my) original topic but...

Given the choice between the 3500+ Athlon 64 or the P4 3.4Ghz (Not EE) everyone'd take the AMD?

Yes.

unless you require strong multitasking...

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: MrDave

Originally posted by: mwmorph
sm3.0 will be used a lot probably. both cant brag too much about image quality anymore since they both use performance enhancing, image degrading tricks like brilinear optimization.(semi bilinear textures passed off as trilinear). the XTPE seems faster though, but the AMD64's sheer power may pull the 6800U to the top over the slightly slower P4s.(Yes get over it even the P4EEs cant overpower the FX55.)

One thing you forget about the AMD Solution. Not every computing platform revolves around GAMES!

It is a well known fact that in Floating point operations, the Prescott CPU will be about 35 to 45% faster than the 'comparable performance rated AMD solution'.

Also, when it comes to Multimedia performanced, such as Video encoding, again equally 'performance rated' Opteron and Prescott CPUs, the Pentium 4 Prescott wins!

I watched the performance of an SSE3 PIV and a SSE2 (Northwood) PIV. In Video encoding the same material, the process went for 1.5 hours on the Northwood, to 15 minutes on the Prescott.

So please, don't base your opinions of a CPU's superiority only on GAMING performance. Again, the Video Card has more to do with Gaming performance than these CPU's do.

Really, Drop an X600 XT in a 3.0 Ghz Prescott CPU machine and then Put the X800XT in the same machine. You're going to see a larger increase in Video Gaming performance then if you stayed with an X600XT and went from 3.0 Ghz to 3.8 Ghz with the X600 XT only.

-A view from the other side of the fence-

and to add, having both platforms (tho the p4 is northwood rahter than prescott) i've found realworld performance differences in games is only about about 5-10%; not a huge difference and my not warrant giving up some other things.

also, i wouldn't agree regarding fp performance, rather as bfg suggested, it likely has to do with sse optimized apps.

 

[mwmorph]

well to me games performance is most important, i really only surf the net and play games on my gaming comp. i have a p4 solution at work to handle all the flops and other work related tasks and i never video encode.

the performance difference cant be really that big can it? up to about half? i thought AMD64 do more work through a single cycle than a P4. someone said in one of these forums a moderately overclocked AMD64 FX 55 can compete pretty well with a p4 in flops tests.

its all about useage.
you like hl2 and source? AMD,ATI
doom3/opengl? AMD,NV
workstation,encoding,cad,etc.Intel,NVQuaddro(if i spelled it right){the new $1500 dollar one}
multimedia,movies?intel, NV(if purevideo ever comes out)

 

[RichPLS]

I have the X800XT PE and love it. It is a solid performer and will remain my card for several more years.
Fluid game play at high resolution, and I use twin 21" CRT's which rox!

 

[PMA]

OK, let's check out performance first:

http://www.ixbt.com/video2/nv43-4.shtml

UT2004: Total leadership of 6800Ultra.
TRAoD: X800XT PE is slightly faster.
FarCry 1.3: In most GPU-dependent modes the winner is 6800U.
Half-Life2: 6800U was gained a crown in this game because of new Forceware 7x.xx Driver Set.
DOOM3: Absolute domination of NV based cards.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: PMA
OK, let's check out performance first:

http://www.ixbt.com/video2/nv43-4.shtml

UT2004: Total leadership of 6800Ultra.
TRAoD: X800XT PE is slightly faster.
FarCry 1.3: In most GPU-dependent modes the winner is 6800U.
Half-Life2: 6800U was gained a crown in this game because of new Forceware 7x.xx Driver Set.
DOOM3: Absolute domination of NV based cards.

OK- let's check out some other sites too- maybe even this one? (and preferably ones that are in ENGLISH)

 

[McArra]

Do Forceware 7x.xx give such an increase?? It looks quite strange to me but who knows. I'd love to know if those drivers really make such a big difference w/o cheating, it would be sweet.

 

[PMA]

2 Rollo:
OK- let's check out some other sites too- maybe even this one? (and preferably ones that are in ENGLISH)
??. You can post an oppositive results from other sites (i've nothing against this), but there must be used:

a) ForceWare 7x.xx Drivers;
b) self-made game demos.

About ENGLISH the article is about 6600GT AGP by Leadtek, so X800 XT PE & 6800U comparision presents only at the digramms, which are 100% English.

2 Mc Arra:
"Cheating"? I think if there were any image difference, it would be mentioned and shown at the screenshots. If there is no difference in image quality, for me as for the user, there is no interest, what kind of optimisations give such performance increase.