video card advice

[seperatist]

i am going to upgrade my video card and i trying to decide between the 8800gts or the x1950pro. i will be using vista so is it worth the extra $80 for the gts or should i just go with the x1950?

 

[epk]

if you can afford it i think the gts is a better choice...

 

[Petros]

Ditto.

 

[seperatist]

thanks, i will get the gts.

 

[LordOfLA]

I'd say the x1950 at the moment. ATI seems to have their eye more on the ball at the moment.

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

No way its a no brainer the GTS is the way to go its the only DX10 card on the market the ATI is old school and no one should buy old tech, that or you wait to see the next gen ATI otherwise its Nvidia 8800 series all the way

What ball is that your talking about?

I have the 8800GTS and it is a killer in all games and I have over 70 major titles installed , if your talking about Vista ATI is not even in the game with DX10 yet never mind eye on ball they have no ball to play with .

 

[Aprox]

Gts.

 

[LordOfLA]

why do I or anyone want a DX10 card when there is nothing making use of DX10 at the moment?

Why do I want an nVidia card (putting aside the technical prowess of the card) when the DX10 drivers are such a complete disaster?

nVidia lost my trust on that issue I wont spend £300-£700 on a video card when the driver team cant get drivers completed during the 2 year period that vista was available to the public, never mind the IHV's. I dont and wont recommend anyone else does for atleast 12 months.

However I cannot deny the cards a pretty powerful for DX9 if you are using XP and XP drivers are pretty sound. But that wont do you any good if you want to play Crysis, etc in all the DX10 glory they are supposed to provide.

 

[epk]

well... they still have the unified shader tech...
and looking at lastest games benchmarks the new gen is faster than the last one, and i think the difference is only gonna get bigger as time passes

 

[Shamus MacNoob]

why do I or anyone want a DX10 card when there is nothing making use of DX10 at the moment?

Why do I want an nVidia card (putting aside the technical prowess of the card) when the DX10 drivers are such a complete disaster?

nVidia lost my trust on that issue I wont spend £300-£700 on a video card when the driver team cant get drivers completed during the 2 year period that vista was available to the public, never mind the IHV's. I dont and wont recommend anyone else does for atleast 12 months.

However I cannot deny the cards a pretty powerful for DX9 if you are using XP and XP drivers are pretty sound. But that wont do you any good if you want to play Crysis, etc in all the DX10 glory they are supposed to provide.

The DX10 cards in Vista with the drivers are making great progress , they are not yet at full speed but nobody is with any card not just the 8800 lines and not just Nvidia , the whole Vista thing is still in baby steps ATI does not have the exact 100% performance levels it had in XP with Vista either do dont use that as a reason its smoke and mirrors

The 8800's are the cards to buy unless you wait to see the new AMD cards for DX10

 

[Aprox]

why do I or anyone want a DX10 card when there is nothing making use of DX10 at the moment?

Why do I want an nVidia card (putting aside the technical prowess of the card) when the DX10 drivers are such a complete disaster?

nVidia lost my trust on that issue I wont spend £300-£700 on a video card when the driver team cant get drivers completed during the 2 year period that vista was available to the public, never mind the IHV's. I dont and wont recommend anyone else does for atleast 12 months.

However I cannot deny the cards a pretty powerful for DX9 if you are using XP and XP drivers are pretty sound. But that wont do you any good if you want to play Crysis, etc in all the DX10 glory they are supposed to provide.

You have partially answered your own question there, the dx9 performance of the card is phenomenal. If you look at the card as not a DX10 card, but as a state of the art DX9 card, then its really a no brainer. The XP drivers are pretty solid, but they have issues however that is to be expected with such a radical new technology such as the 8800 series. As with the Vista drivers it will only get better, since Vista's release the drivers have gotten a lot better. There have been various high's and low's in driver release quality but overall they are getting better. Considering Crysis is the first true DX10 title, and it does not come out till June of this year. Nvidia has the better part of 3 months to get the drivers shaped up. Nobody knows how well the 8800's will handle DX10, but I seriously doubt we will have another FX series fiasco on our hands. It is rumored all the Crysis video's & screenshots we have been seeing are taken on 8800 GTX's. The game appears to run pretty well, especially since its just began to go into the optimization stage before release.

Point being, the 8800 is the best DX9/DX10 gpu in the world. Period. It has issues at the moment, sure they could have done a better job in the driver department up to this point. But I feel we should cut them a little slack on it, since they are develping new drivers for not only a new OS, a new GPU architecture but also a new API. Oh, and those last two are across two radically different OS's. No thanks... I don't envy them.