X800 hands 6800U its ass sliced up on a plate, garnished with a bitch slap!

[Acaila]

Title may be a little melodramatic.

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040504/index.html

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=517

Let me say "holy shit". Shame they didn't introduce ShaderModel 3.0 or 32bit precision. Should be interesting watching the drivers and new card releases over the next year.

[HunterKiller]

wait for better a card than x800.

[Electrofreak]

Actually, I've read several reviews comparing these cards. The 6800 Ultra typically outperforms the X800 at lower resolutions and without AA, but the X800 usually wins at higher resolutions with AA enabled.

So, I wouldn't say that the X800 hands the 6800 Ultra its ass on a plate, or vice versa. At this point they are pretty even, and you should pick one or the other depending on the graphic settings with which you normally play games. If you want the most FPS possible, run a game at 1024x768 with no AA on the 6800 Ultra. If you want the most FPS with high detai settings, crank the resolution as far up as your monitor can handle, turn on the AA, AF and all the graphical enhancments you can, with an X800.

It all depends on personal preferance.

edit- I would personally wait for the R423 card to come out, with PCI-Express. Both of these cards are great, but still only AGP 8x cards. The PCI-X versions will allow the cards to function at their maximum without being limited by the bandwidth of the AGP interface. ATI says that their cards will have a "true" PCI-X interface on their cards, as opposed to nVidia, who will be using AGP-style cards with a PCI-X "bridge" chip. It should be interesting to see how the PCI-X cards from each company stack up against one another.

[HunterKiller]

Actually, I've read several reviews comparing these cards. The 6800 Ultra typically outperforms the X800 at lower resolutions and without AA, but the X800 usually wins at higher resolutions with AA enabled.

So, I wouldn't say that the X800 hands the 6800 Ultra its ass on a plate, or vice versa. At this point they are pretty even, and you should pick one or the other depending on the graphic settings with which you normally play games. If you want the most FPS possible, run a game at 1024x768 with no AA on the 6800 Ultra. If you want the most FPS with high detai settings, crank the resolution as far up as your monitor can handle, turn on the AA, AF and all the graphical enhancments you can, with an X800.

It all depends on personal preferance.

edit- I would personally wait for the R423 card to come out, with PCI-Express. Both of these cards are great, but still only AGP 8x cards. The PCI-X versions will allow the cards to function at their maximum without being limited by the bandwidth of the AGP interface. ATI says that their cards will have a "true" PCI-X interface on their cards, as opposed to nVidia, who will be using AGP-style cards with a PCI-X "bridge" chip. It should be interesting to see how the PCI-X cards from each company stack up against one another.

when will these PCI-X cards come out?

[dscytherulez]

Actually, I've read several reviews comparing these cards. The 6800 Ultra typically outperforms the X800 at lower resolutions and without AA, but the X800 usually wins at higher resolutions with AA enabled.

So, I wouldn't say that the X800 hands the 6800 Ultra its ass on a plate, or vice versa. At this point they are pretty even, and you should pick one or the other depending on the graphic settings with which you normally play games. If you want the most FPS possible, run a game at 1024x768 with no AA on the 6800 Ultra. If you want the most FPS with high detai settings, crank the resolution as far up as your monitor can handle, turn on the AA, AF and all the graphical enhancments you can, with an X800.

It all depends on personal preferance.

edit- I would personally wait for the R423 card to come out, with PCI-Express. Both of these cards are great, but still only AGP 8x cards. The PCI-X versions will allow the cards to function at their maximum without being limited by the bandwidth of the AGP interface. ATI says that their cards will have a "true" PCI-X interface on their cards, as opposed to nVidia, who will be using AGP-style cards with a PCI-X "bridge" chip. It should be interesting to see how the PCI-X cards from each company stack up against one another.

Indeed, I agree with pretty much everything except for the PCI Express cards. X800 just obliterates everything at extreme resolutions with all the extra "quirks". On the other hand, at standard resolutions the 6800 seems to beat it. I myself plan on waiting for a while to buy a new video card. It's never usually good to be the guinea pigs with graphics cards. It's best to just wait for the second version which is usually a bit more fine tuned.

As for the PCI-Express, I personally don't plan on buying one for a while, until the major card companies learn what they are doing. As I said before, it's usually best to wait a little after a certain kind of card comes out before you jump on it. I don't feel like changing my whole system around before everything is fine tuned. That is just my opinion though.

[Rbstr]

I think the 6800 regular (16pipes but slower clocks thatn the Ultra and Platinum) will do the same thing as the 5900's aka BIOS flashing up to the better one

[OneManArmy]

yea 9800 pro here.. no need for one of these. I'll wait for the next generation. :)

[dscytherulez]

yea 9800 pro here.. no need for one of these. I'll wait for the next generation. :)

Exactly.

[Rbstr]

Those two cards are leaps and bounds above the 9800 pro, i don't think this big of a perfomance jump has ever happened

[Acaila]

I agree with electro, the title was just melodrama. I thought nVidia had it in the bag with the 6800, but the X800 seems to be a little in front. The frame rates it manages at high resolutions with the eye candy enabled is amazing.

[OneManArmy]

Those two cards are leaps and bounds above the 9800 pro, i don't think this big of a perfomance jump has ever happened


thats not the point. the point is the 9800 pro can run every game at max resolution with all the eye candy needed. hell games like Half-life 2 are gonna run damn pretty on this card. so the point being there is no need to get 160 fps when 120 do just fine :p at least not for another year or more

[HunterKiller]

i would go with 6800 (assuming they release games that support pixel and vertex shaders 3.0 quickly) because the X800 doesn't support pixel and vertex shaders 3.0

[OneManArmy]

we're just getting games now that support 2.0 for fucks sake...

[Rbstr]

Farcry and a few other support PS3.0 already

[HunterKiller]

we're just getting games now that support 2.0 for fucks sake...


you should worry about be able to play games in the future without having to worry to much about upgrading every time a new game comes out.

[Vitter]

With a 256mb Radeon 9800 Pro, im not too worried about upgrading to either of these cards. While I will admit that the jump is quite impressive, i'm enjoying every game I have at maximum settings.

I hope that jumps like this will become the norm. I think we can all hope for that.

[OneManArmy]

Farcry and a few other support PS3.0 already

bah. i say.

Until we start seeing titles explicitly written to take advantage of Pixel Shader 3.0 features, it really won't make any difference at all. We've already seen one title (Far Cry) patched to include 3.0 shader support - This may well have been recompiled to take advantage of some of the features listed above, and although it is unlikely to make a difference to image quality at all, we may see performance improvements using PS 3.0 over 2.0 - Something to test once we get some 3.0 shader capable boards in our hands...


good read. http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=4136&head=1&comments=1


Obviously, over the coming months there are many debates to be had (both technical and otherwise) over the merits and uses of 3.0 shaders, particularly once we find out for certain which features next-generation hardware does and doesn't support (and perhaps more importantly, how fast next-generation hardware can run these features). The next twelve to eighteen months, as were the eighteen months just past, should prove to be very interesting....

like is said at least a year, im not the only one who thinks so...
/me huggles his 9800pro with its 2.0 pixel shaders...