The X800 is here

[Wildcard]

Dunno why anyone can say one is the "king" both cards are neck and neck in most cases. Doubt anyone can see the difference between a couple of fps which is what it boils down to if you look at the benchmark scores

[HeavyTwenty]

from HardOCP

Same price as the x800 Pro yet wont even play in the same ball park?

:no:

Read Extremtech.com's review instead of HardOP. They actually have benchmarked the Geforce 6800 GT. They don't post pure speculation.

Actually, I'll post what they had to say:

Given the $200 sweet-spot for price/performance cards, there's kind of a no-man's land that exists between $200 and $450-500. This type of in-between product is often dubbed a "'tweener" by marketing types. Traditionally, 'tweeners get squeezed, and die on the vine. They're too expensive for the budget-minded buyer, and they don't offer the full spread of performance for the hardcore enthusiast. We'll be curious to see if this segment actually develops into something viable. nVidia's 6800 GT is the winner when stacked against the X800 Pro, but again, it's a close race.

Also, HardOP's benchmarks seem to be a little fishy to me. Maybe its Extremetech's problem; I think they used the latest 61.11 drivers.

[ForeverUnknown]

i read the extremetech review and the 6800gt is looking pretty nice. i was thinking about getting the x800pro b/c it's 399 but maybe the 6800gt now. hmmmm

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Sorry, but ATi is the undisputed leader, for now at least:

Conclusion Tom's Hardware

See?

[sarcasm] I like how you, among other people on this forum, have taken the conclusions from various websites and just underlined and or bolded only the positive words they are saying about the ATi X800 cards, and not about the Nvidia 6800's. That is a very, very clever way of presenting your facts, as you are leading one to believe that the underlined or bolded words are the most important part of what you have quoted. You should all go into corporate advertising.

Even more clever are the people that only take the words of praise about the ATi X800 and eliminate the words / paragraphs about the Nvidia 6800 altogether. You folks should be writing speeches for George W Bush.[/sarcasm]

Thanks to you all for providing me a chuckle.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Both cards look great... but nVidia again has issues with image quality and alleged cheating. nVidia has more features but less image quality - ATi goes for speed and a more honest approach. Still, it all depends on how it pans out in the shops - if OEM's are still abandoning nVidia and their cards are hard to get hold of then it doesn't matter if they're slightly faster in some tests [a LOT faster in OpenGL].

[ANova]

nVidia:

1. Shader 3.0 support.

2. Higher Color Precision.

ATi

1. Lack of Shader 3.0 Support

2. Lower Color Precision.

ATI

1. 3Dc support

2. less power draw

3. smaller design

4. extremely good AA and AF

5. Temporal AA

nVidia

1. none

2. higher

3. bigger

4. poor performance in 6x and above

5. none

And if you looked at the specs of the X800 you would have noticed 128 bit color precision (FP32) is supported

PS2.0b + 3Dc > or = PS3.0

Oh and yeah, nvidia's 61.11 drivers fail to render fog and other various shaders. Kind of reminds me of the NV30 days.

:sleep:

[giga Veteran]

Wow both these cards are great. I dont really care if ATI or Nvidia is leading by a several frames. Im looking for best bang for buck.

[Tran]

Less power consumption... yum... :drool:

[adamp2p]

[sarcasm] I like how you, among other people on this forum, have taken the conclusions from various websites and just underlined and or bolded only the positive words they are saying about the ATi X800 cards, and not about the Nvidia 6800's. That is a very, very clever way of presenting your facts, as you are leading one to believe that the underlined or bolded words are the most important part of what you have quoted. You should all go into corporate advertising.

Even more clever are the people that only take the words of praise about the ATi X800 and eliminate the words / paragraphs about the Nvidia 6800 altogether. You folks should be writing speeches for George W Bush.[/sarcasm]

Thanks to you all for providing me a chuckle.

Well let me see here... The last time I checked the bottom line is of the most significance...

:devil:

[ForeverUnknown]

Less power consumption... yum... :drool:

wouldnt matter for me. running a new antec 550 truepower :)

ati's 3Dc support is lookingn really promising though.

[Wildcard]

Well let me see here... The last time I checked the bottom line is of the most significance...

:devil:

Well the problem is that most people have only posted that and have omitted some parts. Has anyone actually looked at the benchmarks ? Its an extremely close race

[b3ta]

The scores were close when the Radeon 9700 went against nVidias best. But now it's quite clear to me that ATi is the winner. And it will continue to dominate when they release the PCI Express Video Adapter too. Since it's designed for PCI Express and not patched to work with PCI Express. :p

I may also be a touch harsh towards nVidia since what they did with 3Dfx. :crazy:

[Chode]

I admit I am impressed by how much of a performance boost ATI has given from their last card.

And also the fact that it is $100 cheaper.

But NVIDIA can claim to have the most advanced architecture, because of SM3.0 This will prove to be a sour point, I believe.

Anyways, random benchmark to show how neck and neck it was, with NVIDIA just BARELY the winner

[Redestium]

I really like how nvidia adds video processing with the card (for encoding purposes).

[Hypoxiaicon]

Lets just wait a bit ;)

[Chode]

Lets just wait a bit ;)

Smartest post in this entire thread.

[Kuja]

I?m betting Nvidia isn?t going to go down without a fight. This was supposed to be there crown, and I thought (and im betting a lot of other people did too) they would annihilate Ati's next offering. They didn?t. They tied some, they beat some, they lost some benches. All in all, they average each other out. One in D3D, one in OpenGL, this one in that, that one in this... etc, etc. Now I want to see what Nvidia have up there sleeve right around the corner, if anyt:sng. :s I'm going to wait at least a month or two, before both sides cool down and release everything they have to release. Then, and only then, I'll go buy the best card that stands:)MO. :)

[Danrarbc]

I really like how nvidia adds video processing with the card (for encoding purposes).

In ATi's defense they do have VideoSoap. While that doesn't do the actual encoding it can improve the video quality from an analog source so the CPU only has to handle the compression.

Not the same, but it does suggest that nVidia saw that and decided to one-up ATi. That can only be a good thing, because now ATi will come back and try to do something to beat nVidia's video encoder now.

Competiton, a beautiful thing - for both video processing and graphics chips :)

[Redestium]

In ATi's defense they do have VideoSoap. While that doesn't do the actual encoding it can improve the video quality from an analog source so the CPU only has to handle the compression.

Not the same, but it does suggest that nVidia saw that and decided to one-up ATi. That can only be a good thing, because now ATi will come back and try to do something to beat nVidia's video encoder now.

Competiton, a beautiful thing - for both video processing and graphics chips :)

Indeed. Now only if I didn't have to sell a kidney (you can get by with none right?) to buy them. :p

[rezza Veteran]

As soon as ATI start providing worthwhile linux driver's I'll consider them. Until then I'll stick with Nvidia, who have proven their dedication to providing solid linux support with drivers which wipe the floor with ATI's attempts. Also, Nvidia OpenGL speeds seem to be higher than ATI, and OpenGL is all I care about since DirectX is a proprietary windows only technology. Fair play to ATI for bringing out such great DirectX cards though, its just not what I care about.

[Arrowhead]

I agree, we should all wait until things have calmed down and these things have been on the shelves a while, then we can make an opinion of OUR OWN, instead of being reliant upon these reviews in which none of them prove to have concordant results, it seems to me the ppl who write these reviews are either biased to one card or another.

Simply wait, and see these cards for yourselves.

[Hypoxiaicon]

Smartest post in this entire thread.

Heh, thanks. I know all these really repsectable sites have reviewed the cards, but its early days.

The general public can't even buy them yet.

[adamp2p]

I agree, we should all wait until things have calmed down and these things have been on the shelves a while, then we can make an opinion of OUR OWN, instead of being reliant upon these reviews in which none of them prove to have concordant results, it seems to me the ppl who write these reviews are either biased to one card or another.

Simply wait, and see these cards for yourselves.

What are you talking about?! Do you know who Kyle Bennett is? Do you know his history with respect to computer hardware analysis? That's exactly what I thought.

Read carefully:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjExLDEw

Comparing IQ Technology:

Looking at the Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic image quality between the X800 series and the GeForce 6800Ultra we find them to be very comparable. There is one difference though. The X800 is so powerful, 6XAA is actually a useable Anti-Aliasing setting on the X800 series whereas comparable 8XAA on the 6800Ultra, is basically not usable, as it is too demanding in terms of performance because it is a super-sampling + multi-sampling technique.

The only shader quality differences we noticed were in FarCry where the X800 series is providing much better image quality. Compared to the 9800XT the X800 series have identical AA, AF and shader quality.

Temporal AA is an interesting feature, and one that you will simply have to judge for yourself. Some may like it some may not. Just keep in mind that it does enable VSYNC when it is turned on and if the framerate goes below 60fps it shuts off. Therefore in order to get the most benefit out of it you need to keep the framerate very high, the closer it is to your refresh rate the less shimmering you will notice. We are happy that ATI is evolving new techniques for improving image quality and providing a potentially better AA image quality with no performance hit impact.

Dueling Shaders:

So here we are at the question that we know everyone will be thinking about, what about Shader Model 3.0 versus Shader Model 2.0? Right now it isn?t even exposed on the GeForce 6800Ultra and won?t be until DX9.0c is out. There isn?t much to say except that both will look the same this year unless we see games with true displacement mapping implemented. Technically the X800 series, and going all the way back to the Radeon 9700 series, support point sampled Displacement Maps via N-Patches, while the 6800Ultra supports filtered Displacement Mapping via vertex texture lookups in VS 3.0. But it all depends on what developers use in games. If developers never use it, it is a useless feature. SM3.0 is an extension of SM2.0 and adds mostly performance enhancements, as well as possibly easier programming for developers. Again, it all depends on what the developers do, and we?ll stress again, SM3.0 versus SM2.0 image quality differences is really a non issue currently, and probably will be for this year of next-gen games.[/The Bottom Line:ine:

The X800Pro should be selling in major retail online outlets today, May 4th, and selling for an MSRP of $399. The X800XT Platinum Edition will begin shipping to retailers by May 21st and will be sold at an MSRP of $499. As usual, those MSRP prices will deflate somewhat quickly if the supply is available that ATI assures us therWhen it comes right down to it the X800Pro matches or beats the GeForce 6800Ultra in game performance and IQ. Compare the price, performance, and IQ of the ATI Radeon X800Pro with the GeForce 6800Ultra, and the X800Pro definitely stacks up as the better value than the 6800Ultra. NVIDIA is today launching an even higher clocked Ultra, no doubt in response to the X800XT-PE. We have yet to even see a retail 6800Ultra for any of the partners so currently I would consider these a non-issue. Also, a lower clocked 6800GT is being introduced but this card is simply not currnetly going to play in the same ballpark with the X800 series from ATI.

The Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition goes even further and burns through these games like a hot knife through butter, besting NVIDIA?s 6800Ultra by an easily noticeable real-world margin. If the flagship is what you want, be assured the ATI Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition was the top performer allowing us to play today?s demanding games at higher resolution and quality settings than any 3D graphics accelerator we have ever experienced.rienced.

[Chode]

:rolleyes:

[Spyder Veteran]

why is everyone getting so worked up. they're just stupid videocards. use what you want. end of story, right?