a plus for Nvidia

[Vimp]

After much consideration I'm finnally under the opinion that the FX5700 Ultra is the card for me. I had been originally looking at the Radeon 9600 Pro and then was finnally setteling on the Asus 9600 XT. However after looking over two paticular reviews I feel the FX5700 Ultra is the best performing card among the middle-range cards. As for value the Radeon 9600 XT may still be slightly better then the FX5700 Ultra for one reason only, and that is because even though the FX5700 Ultra performs better they are both the same price but yet the Radeon comes with Halflife 2 compared to the 5700 only coming with Morrowwind at best. But I'm still gonna go with the 5700 due to its better performance. To see the 2 reviews that changed my mind go here:

Review of Nvidia's newest drivers - <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1374389,00.asp" target="_new">Here</A>

Review of Nvidia's and ATI's latest cards - <A HREF="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1361645,00.asp" target="_new">Here</A>

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Vimp on 11/26/03 06:10 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[cleeve]

When DirectX 9 titles come out in full force in the next 6 months, you will regret your decision...

But if you must go with the FX line, do yourself a favor and go 5900 non-ultra. More longevity there.

------------------
Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055

 

[Vimp]

Can you provide anything substantial to support your reasonings? The reviews I linked seem to speak for themselves and would contradict what your saying.

 

[ecar016]

Believe it or not, whose articles are outdated. Espescially the Nvidia VS ATI one. The 5700 and 9600XT's arent even really out yet. If you are goint to decide based a review, at least wait till both are finally out and compare each. The 9600XT is supposedly being respun for higher clocks. Dont get caught with new stuff that is re-released.

Wait and recheck the 5700 VS 9600XT.
it will be clear in about 2-3 weeks

EC


<font color=red> Quantum Computers! - very interesting </font color=red>

 

[shadus]

nvidia attempted to push the industry a certain way with the fx line of cards, that said even with the new forceware drivers without specific opts the fx5700 doesn't play dx9 games at a rate that compares favorably to the 9600 pro/xt. I'm not saying the 5700 is a bad card or that the fx's are bad, but they just don't perform quite on par (image quality wise) with the radeons presently. The other thing to consider is that the radeons do antialiasing at a higher quality and faster than the fx line of cards. You won't be disappointed in either card I would guess, but do be aware you may be missing out on some performance in dx9 and aa.

Shadus

 

[Vimp]

I hope you guys can appreciate my skepticism in your comments. It truly appears as if you guys have biased opinion based on your comments. For instance:

<b>Cleeve said</b> <i>"When DirectX 9 titles come out in full force in the next 6 months, you will regret your decision"</i>
I see nothing to support this. The reviews show dx9 games and the 5700 Ultra is still beating the Radeon 9600 XT. So what would make me believe that the 5700 Ultra isn't as good as the Radeon 9600 XT when it comes to dx9 games?

<b>ecar016 said</b> <i>"Believe it or not, whose articles are outdated. Espescially the Nvidia VS ATI one. The 5700 and 9600XT's arent even really out yet."</i>
Those articles were both made this month and both after th realease of what was being reviewed as oppose to reviewing pre-release stuff. And what do you mean by not really out? The 9600 XT has been available in my area for for well over a week at least. The 5700 cards are most recent and have been available in stores where I am for about a week. You'll rarely find reviews of cards that are made anymore then a few days after something has been released.

<b>shadus said</b> <i>"even with the new forceware drivers without specific opts the fx5700 doesn't play dx9 games at a rate that compares favorably to the 9600 pro/xt." "radeons do antialiasing at a higher quality and faster than the fx line of cards." "be aware you may be missing out on some performance in dx9 and aa."</i>
Again its being said that ATI cards play dx9 games better then Nvidia cards yet Im seeing just the opposit in the reviews. Additionally your saying that the ATI cards do AA faster then Nvidia cards yet in the review I linked it shows the 5700 Ultra beating the 9600 XT both in dx9 performance as well as AA performance.

So I'm curious. Is there some well known info that shows that the 9600 XT plays dx9 games better then the 5700 Ultra? Cause I have yet to see it.

 

[shadus]

newbs can't live with them and can't hunt them with high powered weapons... legally.

Fact is, we've only rehashed this exact subject in various forms about 300 times in the last 3 months. On top of that is the entire nvidia cheating fiasco where they degrade image quality to increase frame rates. On top of that, the radeons have a better fsaa alg that causes less jaggies in vertical lines. Yawn, but here's some crap for ya.

see bottom chart:
<A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031023/nvidia-nv38-nv36-42.html" target="_new">http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031023/nvidia-nv38-nv36-42.html</A>
Summary:
No fsaa/aniso on 5700u is:
dx8: 2 Games Faster, 4 Games Same, 0 Games Slower
dx9: 2 Games Same, 1 Game Slower
4xfsaa 8xaniso
dx8: 2 Games Faster, 2 Games Same, 4 Games Slower
dx9: 1 Game Faster, 2 Games Slower
So by that article it's slightly faster in dx8, slower in dx9. Unless you turn on fsaa and aniso in which case it is always slower.

<A HREF="http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTQw" target="_new">http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTQw</A>
Summary: The ATI 9600XT/9500Pro outperform the 5700Ultra, but the Ultra is still a hell of a good card. They also note the driver isn't doing what it should be with trilinear filtering and while they notice no iq degrades its possible they're just missing them.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1910" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1910</A>
Summary: Vast majority are a tie, but wins more than it looses overall, but doesn't have fsaa aniso on at all.

No matter where you go if you look at them with fsaa/aniso on you are going to see the ati cards take the advantage. Anytime you see IQ compared you are going to see th ati card take the advantage. Yes, the new 5700 ultra card can keep up (unlike the older 5600 ultra) but for the most part it can't perform as well with the eye candy turned on and in anything dx9 it will generally loose to the ati card. Shrug. Buy what you want mano, we've argued this into the floor several times, go read old threads if you want all the links and sh!t. General consensous is-- 5950 and 5700 are upgrades to be sure, but they're still a bit underpar, the 5700 slightly and the 5950 more significantly and until nvidia is in the clear from cheating for several months (by lowering IQ to get higher frames) I don't honestly thing hardly anyone who is responsible will recommend a fx presently. Personally, I've owned geforces since the geforce256, but as a professional custom pc builder and a person who takes responsibility for the suggestions he makes to people, I can't recommend the current generation of cards due to 1) Performance in DX9, 2) Performance with FSAA, 3) Cheating, 4) Image Quality. ATi is just presently the better choice. Shrug take it how you like it, if that's biased so be it. Personally I'm waiting for another generation of cards (Q1/Q2 2004) before I purchase anything... the 9600xt and 9800xt are just mhz ramped versions of the older cards and hte 5700 and 5950 aren't much better.

Shadus

 

[rain_king_uk]

Why come here asking for advice and then just attack people when they give you an opinion? Clearly you are set on buying nVidia and will defend that decision with your life, so what's the point of this thread? Enjoy your 5700 troll, personally I will stick with the industry leader ATi until nVidia cleans up it's act and produces some decent tech.

Edit: My grade for nVidia is C-

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by RAIN_KING_UK on 11/25/03 01:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[dunno]

How much are you getting the 5700 ultra for? The 5900 non-ultra can be had for $200 from Newegg and is quite a bit better.

 

[Vimp]

Why ask for advise? Cause its the smart thing to do. Am I attacking anyone? Hardly. I was simply pointing out how everyone that had commented was clearly in favor of ATI and I was atempting to find out why and show that they weren't supplying me with any advise that had merit since like you said it was just their opinion. I was hoping for more evidence then that. Seeing as I have been clearly in favor of the Radeon XT up till now I don't see what your getting at in saying I'd defend my decision with my life. I havn't yet made a finnal decision which was the purpose of this thread. I wanted to know if there was any merit to people's clear favor of ATI on this forum by showing that the 5700 Ultra won almost every test in the review I showed. And whats a 5700 troll anyways?

 

[cleeve]

The GeforceFX vertex and pixel shaders are well known to be much waker than their Radeon r3xx counterparts.

This is due to a number of factors, architectural and otherwise. As a result, the GeforceFX line does well in DirectX 7 / 8 titles, but very poorly in true DirectX 9 titles. (i.e. Tomb Raider: AOD, Half Life 2, etc.)

In fact, in true DirectX 9 titles, the Radeon 9600 PRO will often outpace the GeforceFX 5900.

Here are a few links to demonstrate the point. First of all, the well known limitations of the GeforceFX line in Half Life 2, a DirectX 9 title:

<A HREF="http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030912/half-life-03.html#halflife_2_1024x76832" target="_new">http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030912/half-life-03.html#halflife_2_1024x76832</A>

Shadermark 2.0 benches demonstrate the weak GeforceFX shaders very well:

<A HREF="http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_fx_5700_ultra_review/page4.asp" target="_new">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_fx_5700_ultra_review/page4.asp</A>

Add to this the fact that the FX cards are incapable of displaying in the high dynamic range, and that they are incapable of displaying true DirectX 9 precision (defaulting to 16 bit instead of DX9's 24 bit because they are too slow to run it faster).

The GeforceFX is a bad DX9 card. As DX9 titles become more preavalent, the Radeons will become more and more clearly the superior cards.

If you do a little more reseacrh into the GeforceFX architecture you will have a clearer picture of what is going on.


------------------
Radeon 9500 (hardmodded to PRO, o/c to 322/322)
AMD AthlonXP 2400+ (o/c to 2600+ with 143 fsb)
3dMark03: 4055

 

[Vimp]

The price of the 5700 Ultra I've been looking at is $279 Canadian. The 9600 XT I been looking at is $269 and the cheapest 5900 np I've found is is $290. I'm deffinitly interested in the $290 5900 np from Leadtek but I'm concerned because I can't help think that theres something wrong with it since out of the 6 5900 np on the site I'm looking at only the 1 is $290 where as the other 5 range from $350-$570. Though excluding the 1 thats 570 the other 4 range from $350-$390 so obviously I'm hesitent to believe that the $290 one performs as well as the typical 5900 np concidering the signeficant price difference.

 

[Vimp]

I appreciate your more inlightening response Cleeve. It certainly sheds light on some things. So, I think I'll wait a while longer to see how things go.

 

[ecar016]

The reason I say the article is outdated because they used the reference cards available at the time. Although only a few weeks have passed, the new 9600XT's are just now being avaiable with faster ram and hight clock speeds. Usually this doesnt make a big diff but take into consideration overdrive. I dont know about you but I hate not getting what I paid for because I bought a card only to have a faster one release less than a month later for the same price or even cheaper.

I know that cards eventually are replaced but I'm suggesting to wait till the 9600XT is out fully and compare. I bought a 9800pro at the beginning of october only to have an XT avalable 3 weeks later for CHEAPER and it comes with HL2!!!!.

All im suggesting is to wait for 100% accurate info. Not the initial PR hype.

EC


<font color=red> Quantum Computers! - very interesting </font color=red>

 

[rain_king_uk]

Yeah, your choice of thread title really shows how impartial you are, plus your posts in other threads linking to the same review stating "Look how nVidia kicks ATi's butt" etc, even though the review counts them as neck and neck at best in the conclusion. Like I say, enjoy your 5700, god knows I wouldn't touch it with a large stick.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by RAIN_KING_UK on 11/25/03 02:45 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[shadus]

Typical newbie troll

Shadus

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Basing your decision on 2 articles from the same source is pretty week. I posted more reviews upon their release. The more you read the more you'll understand the limitations with the FX line and DX9.

The FX5700U is a very nice card, and the run-time compiler is a nice bit of work, but look at any review that shows the FX5700's performance in un-optimized games (like MaxPayne2) and you will get an idea of the 'out of the box' performance you should expect on most new games (call me a cynic but nV's likely only going to optimize the games that are likely to become a benchmark platform). Look at review that use even last years games, that aren't often used in benchmarking, and you'll see what I mean.

The FX5700 is a much better DX7 class card (especially with an OGL game like Q3), and an equal DX8 card, and a significantly slower dard in actual DX9 function.

Want my info to back this up, just read any of the threads I've posted with benchies and screenies. Want a good overall view take a look at Digit-Life's review <A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gffx/nv38-36.html/nv38-36.html" target="_new">HERE</A>, which is likely one of the best review out there. The info there also doesn't correspond to Extremetech's findings.

Beyond that it's your money, and the prices you've given don't seem like much of a bargain either way.
The main thing for most here it seems is to make sure others understand that your limited review experience, and what appears to be your steadfast mindset, don't reflect the views of the others here. Kinda like a warning sign.

I'd still take an R9600XT over the FX5700U because it hase more headroom for overlocking in most cases, and the latest cards are coming out with the memory they should have released with from the start. But then again I've already picked the right refresh cycle IMO, and I'm happy until the next generation cards come out. By which time it's likely to be a whole new ballgame.


Oh well so be it.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <b>RED GREEN</b> GA to SK

<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/" target="_new">-NEW PIC IN THGC ALBUM-</A>

 

[Guest]

Captain Obvious gives Shadus, Cleeve and The Great Ape a big thumbs up for useing logic and rational thinking!

<b><font color=red>Captain Obvious To The Rescue!!!
Captain Obvious: Pointing out the Obvious and not so Obvious!</font color=red></b>

 

[TheCoLd]

another vote for the 5900 np

 

[coolsquirtle]

do realise most/all the people taht posted in this thread are fanATics.

RIP Block Heater....HELLO P4~~~~~
120% nVidia Fanboy
FX5700Ultra, the next Ti4200? seems so

 

[sargeduck]

as are just about everybody else in other threads. Fact is, ATI just beats Nvidia this time around. Plain and simple. Next product cycle could be different, but why are we going to suggest getting an inferior card that is more exspensive?

Another vote for the 9600xt. Of course, I might be slightly biased seeing as how I LOVE my 9600PRo

Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue

 

[fragglefart]

*Fact is, ATI just beats Nvidia this time around. Plain and simple. *

Very true, but still does not diminish some of the NV qualities.
i AM an Nv fanboy, purly because of my previous (very good) experiences. But i still tell everyone i know to go Ati, simply because right now they are better. That is a fact.
I got a sweet deal (free ) with a 5900U currently clocked at 550/1000
when softmodded into a quaddroFX, it scores 26.07 in specviewperf 7.1 3DSMax test. (NOT overclocked. yay!)
26.07. sweet.
slightly (massively!) off topic i know, but hey. im drunk
anyone wanting to run 3DSmax- you cant go wrong with NV.

If, on the other hand, you want to run all future GAMES titles as fast as possible (and choose not to wait until HL2/D ]I[ etc etc DX9 whatever are actually ON THE SHELVES IN FORCE!!!

i would heartily recommend that you choose an Ati card, simply because it will more than likely look better and run faster.
But that is just my opinion, and while i tinker with NV cards everyday, it has been a while since i played with some Ati cards. excluding stupid mobile GPU's
at various settings/ driver versions.
Even so..... for games, go Ati, but please... please... wait till the games you want to play are ON THE SHELVES!!!!



............................................
Render times? You'll find me down the pub...

 

[Vimp]

It seems as if many are taking offence to my thread which to be perfectly honest surprises me. I'm not in a hurry to waste money on an inferior video card so your claims and incinuations that I'm blindly following Nvidia is completly unfounded. In the very reviews that Cleeve linked the first one pits ATI against Nvidia in Halflife 2 but yet this is using the older nvidia drivers which are well known for not being good with dx9. It dosnt show comparisons with the latest drivers which based on the reviews I linked to show just how dramatic an increase the newer drivers have. The second link Cleeve linked shows the 5700 doing very poorly with pixel shader 2.0 compared to the 9600 cards yet in almost every game benchmark there after shows the 5700 Ultra beating the 9600XT for performance. I'll admit I have only read a few reviews of the 5700 Ultra but all of them with the exception of the one here on Tom's site have showed the 5700 doing better speed wise. The only reason I may be coming off as an Nvidia fanboy is because no one else here seems to be pointing out any of the Nvidia cards good points which makes for a one sided opinion. I don't want to buy a card based on a one sided opinion. I want the best card for my money so thats what I'm in search of. And granted what I think makes a card best won't be the exact same as what some one else thinks makes a card best. I'm more concerned with games running at high fps so as to last me a few years as games become more and more demanding. I'm not looking for overclocking abilities and VIVO features and the like. I am concerned with image quality but only to a point. If good image quality comes at the price of performance in even a moderate way then I'm not going to be happy about that.

As far as the prices go for the cards I'vementioned you have to realize that those are Canadian prices and also that even after the exchange rate between US and Canada the prices won't be the same. I only buy from places in and around Vancouver BC and the price I mentioned for the Leadtek FX5900 np for $290 is very cheap since as I mentioned the next one up is $350 all the way to $570. However like I said I dunno if its cheap because it performs bad in comparison to the other 5900 np cards or if its just a good deal. Heres the site with the lowest prices in Vancouver area - <A HREF="http://www.atic.ca/store/product$/frameset.htm" target="_new">ATIC</A>

 

[fragglefart]

Dude, whatever, i have an MSI 5900Ultra, and it whoops some butt.
I find pretty much every benchmark innaccurate. I run everything on full whack.The games look gorgeous, however i have it overclocked to 525/950 when i play (not bench)
I love my card, its fantastic. but i have a funny feeling the Ati equivalent (9800Pro) would be better.
Thats my advice.
But if you go with the higher end of GFFX cards you will NOT receive the sh***y performance many would have you believe.
Peace

edit- oh by the way, the reason game tests are good for Nv is that they run them in both 32 and 16 bit precision. often benches just run in 24bit (ati favourable)
While NV are optimising code for games they will run just will eventually vanish as there are too many DX9 games to fine and look sexy. However... some say the optimisations code for. There is NO EVIDENCE that this will happen, or to what degree NV replace/rewrite shader routines, so only time will tell, and by that time, you will be able to buy a new card

Even so, i still recommend the Ati card. There may be more glithes, but i think it will run smoother in most games.
Nv rule, but just by the Ati- i really doubt you will regret it. either way- you will get a sweet card

............................................
Render times? You'll find me down the pub...

 

[Vimp]

I have some questions.
1. On that ATIC site I showed just above, does anyone know of any difference between the Leadtek FX5900 $290 version and the Leadtek FX5900 $370 version aside from the more expensive one having VIVO?

2. Why do ATI cards say they support OpenGL 2.0 but Nvidia cards say they only support OpenGL 1.4? As near as I can tell the latest OpenGL right now is v1.5 so why arn't they both supporting it?