BEST Graphics card for your BUCK!

LordOfLA said:
Nvidia Geforce 6800GT - reason: ATI 's OpenGL drivers are really crap unless you want me to send you the opengl .dll file from the 4.10 cats :D

Also alot of games are developed on and mainly for nvidia cards even now. Just makes sense after spending a while with a 9800Pro from ATI.

All the games work great provided you have the pipelines and memory.

OpenGL drivers from ATI are not great. I agree. Omega solves most of the issues with his rewrite of the drivers especially opengl - and packs a max of 30% increase in performance. (only 18% on my machine)

ATI owns Nvidea on many levels. I really enjoy reading your posts Lord. So much crap, so little time to point it out.

http://www.gidforums.com/t-1740.html guy installed 9600xt and problems disappeared. ;) I'll provide more examples if y'all need em.

Mlakrid, to be honest, wait until you can put a PCIX card in.
 
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I Love ATI, I have never had a problem with their cards, but the last 2 cards I have had from ATI has made me start second guessing them. I have both an ATI powered Powercolor 9100 and an ATI 9600XT 256MB model. The 9600XT was CLEARLY the better card, but only performed slightly better, at least to me it seemed I never ran video testing software to get raw numbers.

My dilemna: I had no problems until recently when I swapped Mobos. I went from an Asus P4B 266C to a P4C 800-E Deluxe mobo.. I Love Asus too if it isnt obvious.. anyway... I did a clean OS Install (WinXP Pro) and my games have been running ok... the game I play most (World of Warcraft) seems much more choppy since I moved it from the older mobo to the new one. Driver Issue? Im hoping so, I would hate to think that I have had this card I would say 1 year, and it is on its way out. I havent yet tried the new catalyst release... we shall see
 
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mlarkid, you will see the same problem with even top of the line cards now.

I was going to sell my 9700pro AIW but didn't simply because there was nothing about the nextgen cards that truly wowed me.

Yes it was faster but it didn't look any better and performance, though great, was not mind-blowingly superior.

My 9700pro could handle all the games out today, at a lower resolution, with the SAME effects and it sort of numbed me. You will likely notice a similar thing if you are at all jaded by all the upgrades and stuff we are constantly indulging in. There is an obvious difference in performance but seriously, is it worth laying down the dough for that alone?

I didn't think so and find myself playing more stuff on my 9700pro AIW (because of the tuner functionality) than on the Ultra. Go figure, maybe I am just wired differently :D

Wrt drivers, I think people give ati's drivers a really bad rap for the early 8500 drivers and before. I have not noticed anything different in functionality or performance. Obviously OGL is slower and doesn't have the same calls but its hardly as bad as it once was.
 
I don't have that much knowledge with regard to hardware. However I would like to say that for certain video cards you may need a powerful power supply unit. Especially if your planning to use 2 video cards in the future.


Kind regards,
eNuffSaid
 
I'm an Nvidia fan, and I have been leaing towards a set of GTs for an sli setup, but since you want an AGP card, that is null.

One thing I would like to toss out into this discussion is the benchmarks. Don't make a judgment solely on benchmarks. Seriously, have your really looked at the differences? For example, one card will run a dx9 game set at 1024x768 at 107fps, the other card will run it at 112fps. Woo-pee-doo. They are pretty much all in line with one another. I can see if one card was greatly outperforming another card for its performance range, but that isn't happening. In most games, you don't have a constant FPS anyway, its all about averages, but most importantly, its about not "lagging" in that huge firefight while keping the scenery looking nice. Do I need 107 fps? No, I only need about 60 sustained.

Untimate decision maker is price and present setup. And both brands render beautifully, and both brands have simular priced products. I'd be looking into what they offer, opengl 2.0, Sm 3.0, HDR, decent memory..... Also other not so common attributes like TV in :) Having a PC Tivo is incredible, and I greatly miss my MSI card with it.
 
In reply to all 3 of the last three emails in order of post...

Sazar Yea I know, I probably should wait, and I might since I just spent almost 1K on the purchase of my 2405fpw :D
The driver issue has been the same ever since Diamond left the graphics card scene. I LOVED their cards and drivers, and I hope they make it back into the fray of things with their new ressurgence into the video card market... come on DIAMOND!

Enuff, yea I know, I have plenty of PSU, especially since Im not going SLI...

Blue Jack you are 1000% correct, play with the numbers enough and you can make a turtle look as fast as a horse.... Benchmarks are only as good as the totality of the tests performed to reach those benchmarks. I have to say I like ATI better for the ease in which they PnP and can be tweaked.... that is of course if they get bacxk to REGULAR releases of the catalyst drivers...
 
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Blue Jack brings up an excellent point, though many benchmarks don't bare this point out. 108 vs. 112 fps isn't going to make a whole lot of difference. But what about the minimum frame rate. I forgot the name of the bench, but there used to be a 3rd party bench one could load into Quake II which gave a better representation of what one would see under a "worst case scenario" type graphics situation...

One could easily run into a situation where the card that pulls a 112 fps benchmark might see dips in frame rate (during actual game play that's 35 fps), but the other card that only peeks at 108 fps might not dip below 38 or even 40 fps... In this case the card with 108 fps benched, could well be smoother due to more consistent frame rates that don't dip quite so far worst case...

As to World of Warcraft, haven't played it, so can't speak from experience. However with other Blizzard games (read Diablo II here) I have experienced situations in which things could be a bit choppy (especially in that game if zoo keeper necros, now called "lag-o-mancers" :D and firewall sorces were abundantly present) :D Even on the comp I have now, 2, let along 3 of these necs all with 20 skells + 20 skell mages + 20 revives, and a gollum makes it hard to play.

It was a coupla generations of hardware upgrades I went through before that game seemed smooth to me...
 
I broke down and went Nvidia... God I Hope I dont regret this...

I paid $335 for a BFG 6800 Ultra 256Mb AGP version card... not bad...

Nvidia only let me down once before, I hope this time aint it...
 
I would open my mouth..

Grrrrr... its a GT NOT an ULTRA... I repeat.... NOT an ULTRA...

A friend of mine who is not so computer saavy told me it was an Ultra imagine my dismay when I see it aint.... still not TOO bad a price for a BFG GT...

still $10 cheaper than I found at any other site... :)

Tell me what you guys think? I make the right decision? Does it matter?

Hehe
 
Don't trust Ebay it has gone to hell! The EBAY one will be without warantee since you are buying it second hand and not from a dealer. Also it is a PCI-X which sells about $20 cheaper than the AGP version. And the prices on Ebay don't mean anything until the auction closes. There is an automatic bid response that doesn't kick in until the last minute.

The Ultra is not that much faster than the GT so no big deal. And the word is the GT's overclock fairly well so why buy an Ultra... A buddy just got a 6600GT after being on ATI's for years and he's happy. No issues with video quality or anything else and speed is much faster than comparable ATI mid-range cards.


FYI When he installed the card it defualted his monitor to 100 Hz and the image looked really bad. Check to make sure what the refresh rate is after you install. It may be a quirk with the latest nvidia drivers.
 
LeeJend said:
The Ultra is not that much faster than the GT so no big deal. And the word is the GT's overclock fairly well so why buy an Ultra... A buddy just got a 6600GT after being on ATI's for years and he's happy. No issues with video quality or anything else and speed is much faster than comparable ATI mid-range cards.
FYI When he installed the card it defualted his monitor to 100 Hz and the image looked really bad. Check to make sure what the refresh rate is after you install. It may be a quirk with the latest nvidia drivers.

Thanks for the info... Reps + I cant wait to install it today...
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
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