- Mar 7, 2003
- 12,012
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- 40,790
<b>Which card is to be crowned KING?</b>
Here's what I gather from the reviews:
<b>SHADER STRENGTH:</b>
The X800 is the new king of shader power. It slaughters the 6800 in Far Cry, and that's with the 6800 still using the FX's cheating path... unless PS 3.0 makes a huge difference in speed (I doubt it if it can't even handle 2.0 shaders as fast), the X800 will still be the gorilla.
<b>ADVANTAGE: ATI</b>
<b>RAW SPEED:</b>
This is a close one, but with the X800XT doing notably better at high resolutions with AA & AF, and the X800 PRO beating the 6800 Ultra in many tests, I'll give it to Ati
<b>ADVANTAGE: ATI</b>
<b>IMAGE QUALITY:</b>
Another close one. I do admire Nvidia's ability to turn off their Anistropic filtering optimizations in the driver, but Ati's Temporal AA and Nvidia's old tricks of butchering IQ for speed tips the balance to Ati in this round.
<b>ADVANTAGE: ATI</b>
<b>FUTURE-PROOFNESS / FEATURES:</b>
Nvidia has the advantage here, although you have to wonder... if the X800 has more raw shader power, then which wll be more usable in the future? But still, Nvidia can do things that the X800 series cannot with shaders, and the 6800 has the capability of doing them in 32 bit precision. The 6800 deserves the nod in this round.
As far as features, this is the first major Ati card release that didn't accompany a major feature list of video/rage theatre upgrades. More to come in the near future? Hopefully. But Nvidia had some improvements in the 6800 there, too.
<b>ADVANTAGE: NVIDIA</b>
<b>OVERALL:</b>
Looking at the individual categories you'd think that Ati has it in the bag, but I'm not so sure. Here's why:
Raw speed isn't really much of a factor in these cards because they ALL play uber-high resolutions with high image quality at very playable framerates. Image quality isn't really as much of a factor anymore either because they're more or less on par now. (although Temporal AA is nifty you have to wonder how long it will take Nvidia to implement their version)
That leaves SHADERS as the most important thing... especially when you consider future games in the equation. And here, we have no clear winner... yes, Ati has the brute strength, but until we see what speed/quality advantages PS 3.0 offers, we have no idea the impact it will have.
We need more DirectX 9 games in general, and more DirectX 9 games that use PS 3.0 specifically, to make this call IMHO.
But at this point, both the 6800 and X800 series look VERY attractive to me. I'd be very surprised if an owner of either was dissapointed in their hardware 6 months from now.
<b>ADVANTAGE: TO BE DECIDED</b>
________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 340/310)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2750+</b></font color=red> <i>(2400+ @2.2Ghz)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b>
Here's what I gather from the reviews:
<b>SHADER STRENGTH:</b>
The X800 is the new king of shader power. It slaughters the 6800 in Far Cry, and that's with the 6800 still using the FX's cheating path... unless PS 3.0 makes a huge difference in speed (I doubt it if it can't even handle 2.0 shaders as fast), the X800 will still be the gorilla.
<b>ADVANTAGE: ATI</b>
<b>RAW SPEED:</b>
This is a close one, but with the X800XT doing notably better at high resolutions with AA & AF, and the X800 PRO beating the 6800 Ultra in many tests, I'll give it to Ati
<b>ADVANTAGE: ATI</b>
<b>IMAGE QUALITY:</b>
Another close one. I do admire Nvidia's ability to turn off their Anistropic filtering optimizations in the driver, but Ati's Temporal AA and Nvidia's old tricks of butchering IQ for speed tips the balance to Ati in this round.
<b>ADVANTAGE: ATI</b>
<b>FUTURE-PROOFNESS / FEATURES:</b>
Nvidia has the advantage here, although you have to wonder... if the X800 has more raw shader power, then which wll be more usable in the future? But still, Nvidia can do things that the X800 series cannot with shaders, and the 6800 has the capability of doing them in 32 bit precision. The 6800 deserves the nod in this round.
As far as features, this is the first major Ati card release that didn't accompany a major feature list of video/rage theatre upgrades. More to come in the near future? Hopefully. But Nvidia had some improvements in the 6800 there, too.
<b>ADVANTAGE: NVIDIA</b>
<b>OVERALL:</b>
Looking at the individual categories you'd think that Ati has it in the bag, but I'm not so sure. Here's why:
Raw speed isn't really much of a factor in these cards because they ALL play uber-high resolutions with high image quality at very playable framerates. Image quality isn't really as much of a factor anymore either because they're more or less on par now. (although Temporal AA is nifty you have to wonder how long it will take Nvidia to implement their version)
That leaves SHADERS as the most important thing... especially when you consider future games in the equation. And here, we have no clear winner... yes, Ati has the brute strength, but until we see what speed/quality advantages PS 3.0 offers, we have no idea the impact it will have.
We need more DirectX 9 games in general, and more DirectX 9 games that use PS 3.0 specifically, to make this call IMHO.
But at this point, both the 6800 and X800 series look VERY attractive to me. I'd be very surprised if an owner of either was dissapointed in their hardware 6 months from now.
<b>ADVANTAGE: TO BE DECIDED</b>
________________
<b>Radeon <font color=red>9500 PRO</b></font color=red> <i>(hardmodded 9500, o/c 340/310)</i>
<b>AthlonXP <font color=red>~2750+</b></font color=red> <i>(2400+ @2.2Ghz)</i>
<b>3dMark03: <font color=red>4,055</b>
: why do we need money when we can just stay in our room and have sex all day?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Willamette_Sucks on 05/04/04 12:19 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
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