9400 vs 6800 starcraft 2

[jtisgeek]

My Buddie has a older core 2 2.8 and these are his video card options.

He is going to upgrade but for right now he has a old 6800 and i have a 9400 sitting around I not in use anymore.

Am thinking the 9400 is a better bet because it has the more ram 512 vs 256.

But being starcraft 2 is dx 9 does the older 6800 have more power?

 

[CurseTheSky]

What flavor of 6800? 6800 vanilla? GS? GT? Is it PCI-E or AGP?

The 9400 isn't meant for gaming, but the 6800 is pretty old. It's hard to determine just how much horsepower the 9400 has, though, so it's still a tossup.

 

[jtisgeek]

What flavor of 6800? 6800 vanilla? GS? GT? Is it PCI-E or AGP?

The 9400 isn't meant for gaming, but the 6800 is pretty old. It's hard to determine just how much horsepower the 9400 has, though, so it's still a tossup.

I think it's a ultra so it's really close.

Looked up specs

16 shaders on the 6800 and 9400 but 9400 is clocked alot higher
256 bus on 6800 vs 128 on 9400 so 6800 has more bandwith.

 

[toyota]

the 6800 has pipelines not really shaders like the 9400 so they are completely different architectures. a 6800 ultra should be a little bit faster but both are going to suck for any modern game.

 

[Insomniator]

The 9400 has horrible memory bandwidth (128 bit). I think regardless of how much more shader power the 9400 has, the 6800 Ultra will do a lot better in SC2. And by a lot better I mean get by barely at low settings instead of not play at all.

 

[toyota]

The 9400 has horrible memory bandwidth (128 bit). I think regardless of how much more shader power the 9400 has, the 6800 Ultra will do a lot better in SC2. And by a lot better I mean get by barely at low settings instead of not play at all.

well the 128 bit is only a problem because it uses really slow DDR2 memory.

 

[Insomniator]

well the 128 bit is only a problem because it uses really slow DDR2 memory.

yeah true... regardless of the reason the numbers are 12.8 GPS vs 35.2 GPS.

A 9800PRO (listed as a minimum requirement for SC2) has 22 GPS!

Now I'm not saying bandwidth is the only thing that matters but the answer seems pretty clear here.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I'd say the 6800 Ultra should handle SC2 on low without too much trouble. My 6800 GT played Doom 3 on medium / high settings, and while SC2 is much newer than Doom 3, I doubt it's a ton more demanding graphically.

There's only one way to know for sure - try it out and let us know.

 

[tcsenter]

9400gt = 8500gt

 

[Insomniator]

I'd say the 6800 Ultra should handle SC2 on low without too much trouble. My 6800 GT played Doom 3 on medium / high settings, and while SC2 is much newer than Doom 3, I doubt it's a ton more demanding graphically.

There's only one way to know for sure - try it out and let us know.

I agree trying it out is the only way to go but why would use doom 3 as a comparison? That game came out 6 years ago and runs on a Pentium 4 with a Geforce 3.

 

[jtisgeek]

Well my laptop with a 8600m can handle medium if you turn down some of the other stuff I say it will be able to medium when in custom. SC2 isn't that demanding.

 

[RussianSensation]

The 6800 U should be faster, unless the current drivers for it are crap. It has higher pixel fill-rate, higher texture fill-rate and higher memory bandwidth: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=578&card2=201

 

[nemesismk2]

IMO the 6800 Ultra would be faster

 

[Ancalagon44]

Look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar..._processing_units#GeForce_6_.286xxx.29_series

For a good overview of both. The 6800 Ultra is higher in both fillrate and memory bandwidth, so is a better choice. A 9600 or higher would be faster though.

 

[yepp]

Considering a 8600GTS out performs a 7900GTX in todays games, im not so sure.

 

[jtisgeek]

Considering a 8600GTS out performs a 7900GTX in todays games, im not so sure.

Yeah I know here soon I wondering how today's drivers are for a 6800 I but the newer card my win because of drivers .

 

[yepp]

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...compare,1668.html?prod[3149]=on&prod[3134]=on

6800 Ultra trade blows with the 8500GT. 6800 Ultra comes out on top overall from the games they benched but the 9400GT is clocked higher than the 8500GT, 100MHz on the core and 450MHz on the shader.

Edit: with AA it skew the score in favour for the 8500GT, without AA 6800 Ultra edges it.

 

[tcsenter]

6800 Ultra trade blows with the 8500GT. 6800 Ultra comes out on top overall from the games they benched but the 9400GT is clocked higher than the 8500GT, 100MHz on the core and 450MHz on the shader.

From those results, in many cases where the 8500GT leads, it leads by HUGE margins. I see several benchmarks where 8500 is nearly twice as fast as 6800 but no cases where the 6800 manages that kind of lead over the 8500. In the majority of cases where the 6800 leads, it leads by relatively small margins.

FWIW, the 9400GT is actually a tad bit faster than the 8500GT, maybe 10 percent. Plus it has vastly improved decoding of advanced and HD video formats over the 6800's semi-broken HD decoder, probably runs much cooler.

 

[RussianSensation]

From those results, in many cases where the 8500GT leads, it leads by HUGE margins. I see several benchmarks where 8500 is nearly twice as fast as 6800

I can't say 8500GT is a clear leader. Take a look at the results closely.

6800U wins in Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, the Last Remnant, Tom Clancy's End War. It loses to the 8500GT in HAWX, Left 4 Dead, Fear 2 with AA. However, once you disable AA, it's almost the same performance in HAWX and it's actually faster in Left 4 Dead. So if you take AA out of the equation, 6800 U is actually faster. Since neither of these cards will be able to run SC2 with AA on, I would say 6800U can still be better since we are talking about DX9 coded game.

 

[jtisgeek]

Well turns out it was a 9500 not a 9400 so it didn't do that bad getting around 30 with somethings on high other on medium.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Funny I run into this thread. I actually just dropped a 6800NU (AGP) into a friend's ancient Vaio specifically to help him out with StarCraft 2. He was originally running on *drum-roll* a GeForce FX5200 PCI, and what's even crazier is that the game would actually RUN.

Granted it was a slide show, couldn't be going any higher than 20fps on the lowest possible settings even when starring at a solid patch of dirt.

We haven't tested the 6800NU with StarCraft 2 just yet.

 

[SonicIce]

Funny I run into this thread. I actually just dropped a 6800NU (AGP) into a friend's ancient Vaio specifically to help him out with StarCraft 2. He was originally running on *drum-roll* a GeForce FX5200 PCI, and what's even crazier is that the game would actually RUN.

Granted it was a slide show, couldn't be going any higher than 20fps on the lowest possible settings even when starring at a solid patch of dirt.

We haven't tested the 6800NU with StarCraft 2 just yet.

well the minimum specs say 6600gt and 6800nu is at least 30% faster than that. maybe his cpu was slow

 

[toyota]

well the minimum specs say 6600gt and 6800nu is at least 30% faster than that. maybe his cpu was slow

perhaps you need to re read his comment. he was talking about the 5200 and clearly says he hasn't even tested the 6800 yet.

 

[SonicIce]

oops hehe

 

[ZipSpeed]

I have a 8400m GS in my laptop (64-bit memory bus with 128 MB DDR3) and it runs SC2 fine at low quality at 1280x800. The 6800 and 9400 will run the game. Just depends on how smoothly you want it to run if you decide to go above low quality.