FX5800 or 9700PRO

[JamesC]

I am looking into getting a new graphics card.
From what i have been looking at i can get either card for a similar cost (not the ultra obviously) so what do you reckon i should go for!
I have heard that there have been some issues with the 9700 should i be concerned (my mobo is asus p4b533-v, p4 2.4).
All advice much appreciated,
James

 

[Dulanic]

In a short bit when Anand and others review actual 5800 shipping cards you might wanna ask. Right now who really knows, drivers may have gotten better etc.. Too hard to call right now especially when we dont even know the final costs of the FXs.

 

[Lonyo]

Neither yet. Try waiting 9 days for the announcements on the new 9xxx cards and the NV31/34, for one thing the 9700 prices should drop around then.

 

[JamesC]

Thanks,
I will wait a bit then, any idea when the reviews will be out?

Too hard to call right now especially when we dont even know the final costs of the FXs.

I based my costs on those at www.komplett.co.uk on a Asus v9900 FX 5800 @ £254.75 vs a Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis Pro @ £254.63 Komplett

What are all these problems i have heard the 9700 suffers from, are the Nvidia drivers that much better, am i asking for trouble with the 9700?

Cheers
James

 

[faye]

what kind a problem does 9700 pro has.?

read somewhere saying FX 5800 should be on the shelf by March 6th.

I want to get a new card too... but my case has only 230watts of power, what do u think.?

thanks

 

[kylebisme]

if the fx was worth getting we would see reviews of it plastered all over the place by now. best we have is a few previews that were obviously done under tight restrictions from nvidia. their product does not compeate and they dont want us to know. :disgust:

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
if the fx was worth getting we would see reviews of it plastered all over the place by now. best we have is a few previews that were obviously done under tight restrictions from nvidia. their product does not compeate and they dont want us to know. :disgust:

I don't think that's true, I mean they do have it on lock down. But it can compete (obviously) but for a card that comes out MONTHS after it's compition, it shouldn't compete it should whoop a$$, which I honestly don't think will happen here. We wait all this time for a card that really even isn't as fast as what we could already get elsewhere? Oh and to top it off, it will cost MORE money to boot. There is no logic there. Nividia does have 1 thing going for them. They have a very loyal fan base who will only buy their cards. They seem to be stuck on some old ATI (rage era) having horrible drivers. Personally I don't give a daam who makes my card as long as it's A. fast B. has good drivers.

Nividia's problem is they've gotten to comfortable being on top, look back at 3dfx when Voodoo1 & 2's came out. If you had said Nivida would put out a better card, a lot of people would have laughed at you. I think if they don't get the nv35 out on schedule and have it kick some a$$ they are in big, big trouble.

All I know is I want to get some cash so I can afford a Crucial 9700pro!

 

[kylebisme]

it can compeate? i think the truth of the matter is more that it can be made to look like it can compete and that very loyal fan base who will only buy their cards will be mislead into buying an inferior product at an exorbent price. take a look at the preview on beyond3d and note how the card doesn't even compeate with a gefoce4 in multiple situations. also take note of the impact on preformace when high image quality settings are enabled and look back to beyond3d's covrage of the 9700pro on a lesser system to see how the geforce fx stacks up when playing a game the way it is realy "ment to be played".

 

[bunnyfubbles]

MSRP of the 9700 Pro has dropped to $299, the FX5800 will have to find a way to make some major headway to compete with that.

Right now I'd have to say the 9700 Pro would be the way to go, especially with the $100 drop...

 

[rulepunk1]

I'd go with the R9700. The GF FX is too loud!

 

[nRollo]

"and note how the card doesn't even compeate with a gefoce4 in multiple situations. also take note of the impact on preformace when high image quality settings are enabled and look back to beyond3d's covrage of the 9700pro on a lesser system to see how the geforce fx stacks up when playing a game the way it is realy "ment to be played"."

LOL- the situations I saw where it was on the same level as the GF4 4600 were all situations at low res where either card ran it as fast as the cpu could push it. I don't think you understood the review......

As far as the greater performance hit when features are enabled, that is still up for debate as well. A. "ment to be played". Er, I have a P4 2.53/Asus P4PE with 512MB PC2700/ R9700Pro/21" monitor. I play all games at 12X10X32, 4X Aniso, no FSAA. Is that how they are "ment" to be played? No? I think it is. B. Drivers are new, chip is new, and there are a lot of configurations for GF FX aniso.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Rollo
LOL- the situations I saw where it was on the same level as the GF4 4600 were all situations at low res where either card ran it as fast as the cpu could push it.

ya i saw some of that too, but i also saw the dungonseige scores where the fx has a preformace ratio to the 4600 of -13% to -24% and the rtcw where it sits anywhere from -7% to -21% across all resolutions and never takes the lead in either benchmark. did you miss those?

I don't think you understood the review......

well it was a preview, and i have to wonder if you even read it, let alone understood it.

As far as the greater performance hit when features are enabled, that is still up for debate as well.

maybe if you did not read the preview and compare it to the review of the 9700pro on the same site like i suggested above. if you did and you still think things are debatable, you apparently have information i don't, so lets here it eh?

A. "ment to be played". Er, I have a P4 2.53/Asus P4PE with 512MB PC2700/ R9700Pro/21" monitor. I play all games at 12X10X32, 4X Aniso, no FSAA. Is that how they are "ment" to be played? No? I think it is.

unless your 21" is a wide-screen, which best i can tell don't even exist, then most definitely no, that is not the way it is meant to be played. you are using a 5:4 aspect-ratio resolution on a 4:3 aspect-ratio monitor, hence you are distorting the image. you may like to play like that but it is not the way the designers intend it. furthermore, the settings you mention can be used with respectable performance with a geforce4 or 8500 on nearly every game out there; best i can figure games were meant to be played at the highest detail settings possible while still maintaining acceptable performance. the simple fact is that 9700 can run with higher quality settings than the fx while maintaining acceptable performance.

B. Drivers are new,

so are you saying the driver team has been on vacation for most the last 3 months while nvidia has not released any new drivers for their other cards? also, what about all the time they had before that? twiddling their thumbs perhaps?

chip is new,

the design was started years ago and final silicone taped out last year at least early enough for them to claim it would be ready for christmas, that isn't exactly new.

and there are a lot of configurations for GF FX aniso.

the fx has 3 methods with 3 levels of sampling each, as opposed to the 9700 which has 2 methods with 4 levels of sampling. so, one more possibility than the competition equals a lot? furthermore, did you even look at the examples of the various configurations? there isn't even any anisotropy going on until the second or third mipmap in the balanced and aggressive modes, that is a pretty loose interpretation of the term anisotropy.



i am sorry, in retrospect that all came out a bit harsh; but i will let it stand as i believe that i have a right to be angered when you laugh at me and call me misunderstood while i am only trying to provide honest and helpful information so that people will not spend more money on lesser preforming hardware. i don't want people going out and spending their hard earned dollars on substandard hardware as it will only upset them and make them less pleasant to interact with in the future, not to mention it will hold back the advancement of 3d rendering if the market is flooded with hardware incapable of keeping up with the competition in any other way than the pr rhetoric and the many blatantly skewed reviews that are currently misleading much of the community. if you see flaws in the arguments presented above i would be like to hear them, but if your intentions are to be anything but honest and helpful would you please reconsider your position?

 

[JamesC]

Seems to me as if nvidia have had to overclock their chip in order to make it outperform the 9700pro and hence the vacuum cleaner on top of it to try to keep it cool. The non ultra seems more indicative of what the chip is actually capable of as i understand this does not have a small hurricane blowing over the top of it to keep temps down nor does it take two slots (could be wrong). Thats why i am seriously interested to see how these 2 cards perform against each other, i reckon to make the ultra tests fair they should also include an overclocked 9700PRO that has the same amount of cooling as the ultra!!

The thing that seems a bit weird to me is that at the moment i am thinking of buying a much older card, despite the fact that there is a newer card on the market at the same price, this is a situation i have never really been in before!!! And to top it off the new card is Nvidia and the old is ATI, seriously wierd!

I was looking at Motherboards.org yesterday and they have a review of quite a cool MSI geforce 4ti600 and i was kinda thinking to myself would this be a good option, at the end of the day am i going to really notice a 10% increase in frames per second when i am playing games? Funny thing though, i was looking at costs over here in the uk and i cant find a geforce 4 ti600 on any of the sites i usually buy from, all i can find is the 4800 SE which i understand is only the ti4200 chip which i DONT want, just wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

Thanks for the help and advice as always
James

 

[kylebisme]

actualy, the non-ultras i have seen so far are mostly two slot solutions, and many of them do have the vacuum cleaner attachment. i know evga claims to have a single slot solution but that is not what they are currently selling.

 

[nRollo]

"i am sorry, in retrospect that all came out a bit harsh;"
<slinks away to die>

No problem, I did have the "LOL" in there....

Anyway:
"but i also saw the dungonseige scores where the fx has a preformace ratio to the 4600 of -13% to -24% and the rtcw where it sits anywhere from -7% to -21% across all resolutions and never takes the lead in either benchmark. did you miss those?"
Nope. Every new card that comes out runs some games better than others. It seems to me when the R8500 came out, it didn't run SS well. Dungeon Siege: I didn't even know this was a game until reviewers started benching it. In any case, it's a DX7 game, so I'm doubting the nVidia driver team is saying, "It's almost lauch time for our DX 9 board, men. We better be damn sure we're optimized for DX7 RPGs!" As far as RTCW, oh well, again it's a few years old, and Ti4600 level is probably good enough. No one is buying a GF FX Ultra to play Dungeon Siege or RTCW would be my guess. I'd think it's more about Doom 3, Unreal2, UT2003, etc..

"well it was a preview, and i have to wonder if you even read it, let alone understood it"
I skimmed it, no R9700 comparison, so it's less interesting.

"As far as the greater performance hit when features are enabled, that is still up for debate as well."
Some fine FSAA/Aniso benchmarks
Who cares if the performance hit is greater if the performance is still comparable?

"best i can figure games were meant to be played at the highest detail settings possible while still maintaining acceptable performance. the simple fact is that 9700 can run with higher quality settings than the fx while maintaining acceptable performance."
My point with that was to me, those are optimal settings. I only play online FPS games. (99% UT2003) Sure, I could run them at max aniso and FSAA, but I'm not going to trade 30-50% of my framerate to do it. So for me, the small victories of the R9700 on some settings are fairly irrelevant. That is how games "are meant to be played" to YOU.

"so are you saying the driver team has been on vacation for most the last 3 months while nvidia has not released any new drivers for their other cards? also, what about all the time they had before that? twiddling their thumbs perhaps?"
I don't write drivers, but you must, since you seem to know how long it should take?

"the design was started years ago and final silicone taped out last year at least early enough for them to claim it would be ready for christmas, that isn't exactly new."
It's not exactly "old" either. There is also some debate about whether the chip was redesigned due to the 9700, so it may be newer than you think.

"did you even look at the examples of the various configurations"
I'm not a huge fan of screenshots of IQ, would prefer to experience them.

"i believe that i have a right to be angered when you laugh at me and call me misunderstood while i am only trying to provide honest and helpful information so that people will not spend more money on lesser preforming hardware"
Well, I apologize for the "LOL". I don't agree with your perspective on the FX ULTRAs performance however. The ONLY other card you could buy now that would deliver this level of performance is the 9700. (Dungeon Siege notwithstanding)
I think the Ultra is getting bad word of mouth in general, and that's too bad, because in may ways it's a triumph. It's the first .13 card. It can run longer DX9 instruction sets. It has faster core and memory then we've ever seen. It's faster than anything out there, by and large. Etc.

 

[JamesC]

Hi Rollo

No one is buying a GF FX Ultra to play Dungeon Siege or RTCW would be my guess. I'd think it's more about Doom 3, Unreal2, UT2003, etc..

do you reckon the lowest spec for playing Doom 3 will be the 9700pro or a FX, will a geforce 4 wimp out?
James

 

[BoomAM]

Carmack said that he`d make doom3 run on a GF3/8500 card as least, and try for a GF2GTS card.

 

[nRollo]

"do you reckon the lowest spec for playing Doom 3 will be the 9700pro or a FX, will a geforce 4 wimp out?"

Sorry James, any answer I would give you would be a guess. I don't have anything to base an answer on other than quotes like BoomAM noted.

I think that "run" is pretty subjective, and it's almost guaranteed you'll want as fast a card as you can get based on Carmack's past. Where a GF4 Ti will fall in the mix remains to be seen until a real demo comes out. :-(
Sorry I can't help.

(on the bright side, with 9700 regulars already at $248 new, it's not inconceivable you'll be able to buy sub $200 9700s by the time we see Doom 3 and be pretty well set)

 

[bunnyfubbles]

If a GF3/Radeon 8500 can run the game smoothly in an Alpha state, then I'd be willing to wager a LOT of money that a GeForce 4 should have no problems running Doom III at all. You may not get the highest FPS or you may not have the ability to change to high resolutions, but I would be surprised if a GeForce 4 Ti could not run Doom III @ 1024x768 with at least medium detail and 30FPS. Also keep in mind that insane FPS will not be required as Doom III will be much slower paced than your standard Quakes and UTs, Doom III is much more like Resident Evil from a 1st person perspective.

 

[kylebisme]

Rollo, how do you mean based on Carmack's past? from what i have seen, every game from id sense the advent of 3d-rendering with the original voodoo have you been able to stay very reasonably at 30fps+ with recommended system requirements and default settings. what are you referring to anyway? also, dismissing benchmarks directly from the suit of one of the most respected 3d hardware sites on the net seems unjustifiable to me. even if you do feel your reasons to disregard the views of B3D are valid, i figure that if you are posting here you must give some respect to Anand's ability to access the situation. you have noticed how blatantly indifferent Anand and his staff are about the product, haven't you?

also, the benchmarks at tom's show exactly how little extra performance you can get while running at quality settings which have been shown clearly to be much lower for the fx than the 9700. i freely admit that you are correct in saying that the best way to judge such quality is to see the difference in person, however i don't see how you can use that for justification to disregard the multitude of evidence in the forum of sreenshots presented at many sites across the internet. however most of those sites, like tom's which you pointed to yourself, present their cases in in such a way as to downplay the negative aspects of the product. all your comments of comments of the fabrication process, length of instruction set, and clockspeed do do nothing to disprove it is only marginally better that it's cheaper competition in some respects and severely worse in plenty of others. agree that the fx is getting "bad word of mouth" as well; but "bad" in the sence that many people are being misled into believing that the gefocefx is much better than it actually is.

 

[nRollo]

" Rollo, how do you mean based on Carmack's past? from what i have seen, every game from id sense the advent of 3d-rendering with the original voodoo have you been able to stay very reasonably at 30fps+ with recommended system requirements and default settings. what are you referring to anyway?"
When GLQuake came out, you needed the best VGA of the time to run it well. (V1) When Quake 2 came out , you wanted to have the best card of the time to run it. (V2 sli) Etc. What I'm referring to is Carmacks game engines usually inspire upgrades for a lot of people, because he pushes the limits of the hardware available.

"also, dismissing benchmarks directly from the suit of one of the most respected 3d hardware sites on the net seems unjustifiable to me."
How's this for justification? I don't care if "Dungeon Siege" (or any other RPG/flight sim/war strategy game) exists at all, or if the GF FX Ultra transforms all their code into re-runs of Barney. In any case, whenever you see benchmarks of "games" of this ilk, they are all the same. LooK:
ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Woohoo! 45-50fps no matter what card you use, what res!
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz
Looks like Commance run at 45-50fps with some FSAA and aniso too! Wow, this is educational!
The Faeries will look the same at 70 or 80fps, so who cares?
"Dungeon Siege is quite a CPU intensive title in the first place, and not so much limited by a boards fill-rate, and here we can see that the GeForce4 Ti is outperforming the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra again, presumably due to a more stable and optimal driver code base or there may be some additional load that from something that GeForce4 handles better in hardware where the 5800 needs some CPU support."
Obviously Dave and crew don't have their finger on why the 4600 is faster here, since they make a couple presumptions after admitting this game isn't a great test of a VGA in the first place. Wow, look! R9700s run this game at 70 fps too! I can see why you're bashing the FX.......

For this stupid benchmark you dis one of the two best VGAs available?!

"i figure that if you are posting here you must give some respect to Anand's ability to access the situation. you have noticed how blatantly indifferent Anand and his staff are about the product, haven't you?"
Yes, and I think they are wrong, like you. I think the fact they ran all their benchmarks with FSAA/Aniso enabled, for the first time ever I might add, is biased and unfair to the reader. Like I said, to a FPS player, these features have FAR less import than they would to a Dungeon Siege player. I also think they are suffering from the same bizarre misconception that a lot of people seem to be suffering from:
That because the FX came out later, it should be a lot faster than the R300 for some unknown reason. I say NO. Here's why:
1. I think it need s to be a lot faster than nVidia's previous design, which it is. (and no, I still don't give a rat's a$$ about Dungeon Siege. I can buy a 9500Pro, a FX Ultra, a 4600, or a 9700 and it going to play about the same)
2. I think it need to offer parity with the ATI card it was made to compete with, which it does. Was the Rage Fury out/as fast when the TNT2 came out? No. Was the Radeon VIVO out/as fast as the GF2s that were available? No. Was the R8500 out/as fast as the Ti 500? No. Did ATI have anything to compete with the 4600 AT ALL for months and months? No.
Yet you and people like you harp away on how the GF FX gets beat at a few benchmarks here, isn't a whole lot faster there, WHEN IN GENERAL, THAT'S JUST NOT HOW IT WORKS. EVERY VGA CHIP RELEASE CAN'T BLOW AWAY IT'S COMPETITOR. It's never been the case.
I think people are revelling in this largely due to how boring it's been in this industry, with nVidia always the fastest and best, year after year after year.

"all your comments of comments of the fabrication process, length of instruction set, and clockspeed do do nothing to disprove it is only marginally better that it's cheaper competition in some respects and severely worse in plenty of others."
Sigh. If the FX Non -Ultra offers within 10 percent of the R300s performance with shipping drivers, and costs the same, you will probably say," So what? It's late! And...and...it's late!"

I'm not going to convince you of anything, so I'll stop trying. The things you consider "huge" (Dungeon Siege and FSAA performance) mean nothing to me, but you seem to be convinced they are the deciding factors. Ask an ex 3dfxer if it's smart to make FSAA performance your main selling point.

 

[kylebisme]

wow, sense you put it that way i suppose i will not attempt to continue this discussion as i don't really see how anyone could argue with logic such as yours.

 

[nRollo]

"i don't really see how anyone could argue with logic such as yours."
I could say the same.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Rollo
"i don't really see how anyone could argue with logic such as yours."
I could say the same.

well sure, but then you would be mimicking me and i don't see how that would be beneficial to any of us.

 

[nRollo]

This just in Snowman:
The 9800 will run Dungeon Siege at 75fps! It is CLEARLY the card to buy!

Oh, and I also read all the other reviewers are going to only post FSAA/Aniso scores for EVERY video card reviewed, now that they've been shown the error of their ways.

(Actually my apologies to Anand- I had forgotten there were a few "standard" benches in the review as well. My point here is that a "normal" review would have painted a much more positive picture of the card)