Help! Confused about 6800 Ultra & X800 XT PE

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astondg

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Jul 24, 2004
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I am looking to buy either of these cards, the 6800 Ultra or X800 XT PE, very soon but with all the talk and benchmarks recently I am a bit confused about which one to get.

In the initial benchmarks the ATI card had a significant lead when AA & AF were turned on but since then there have been some new drivers from NVIDIA & ATI and it has been stated that ATI is using some AF optimisations. Also the ATI card is based on older technology and when SM3.0 is used in FarCry it seems that the NVIDIA card catches up, but now I have read that using the ATI supported SM2.0b (I think?) can give the ATI card similar improvements. The NVIDIA cards are also as fast or faster in OpenGL games even with AA & AF, and ATI cards are faster in Direct X games, but I play both so this doesn't really help.

Then the Doom 3 benchmarks were released and it seems that the NVIDIA cards pulled ahead, but ATI haven't had a chance to update their drivers yet so maybe the Doom 3 benchmark is not completely representative? I also want to play Half-Life 2 and I have no idea how either of these cards perform in this game.

I have already purchased FarCry and I have Doom 3 on order, supposedly to be released at the start of August, so I would like to buy one of these cards soon. I actually haven't played FarCry yet because it just doesn't look right on my Geforce 2 GTS.

Some other differences are the NVIDIA card taking up an AGP and PCI slot and that it needs a good power supply but I have a spare PCI slot next to the AGP slot and I have a 550W power supply. Also the ATI cards have built in VIVO but I have found the XFX 6800 Ultra that is also supposed to have VIVO.

All this information and talk is too confusing and making the decision too hard for me so if anybody could give me some ideas or information that might help my decision I would be very gratefull.

Thankyou,

Aston
 
Dude !!

You have waited all the time with your geforce2 !!

Wait more one or at least two months and 512mb cards will come out ( Like me :p )
 
One thing I forgot to say was that I live in Australia and we are only getting both these cards for the first time in a week or two so even if the 512MB cards are released in another month it will probably 3 or 4 months before we get them.

The Geforce 2 is a great card, I have been able to play all the new games I have tried, it even runs FarCry at 30fps but the detail is not so good and the high quality lighting effects don't work properly.

Having the Geforce 2 in my computer is a little embarrasing though, I have an Athlon 64 3800+, 1GB Corsair 3200XL RAM, and some other fairly decent parts incl. a Samsung 172x.

Aston
 
What games do you play, or planning to play. That can make a difference.
 
You actually seem to have a pretty good handle on things. The XTPE still has the lead at 1600x1200 with full aa/af in directx games...but it's a slim lead and that's the only place it takes any kind of remotely decisive victory.

Also the XTPE and the Ultra are almost impossible to find due to the shortage of high-end graphics memory, which pretty much limits you to the X800Pro or the 6800GT. Between these 2 the GT is the clear winner and that's why it's so popular right now. With the GT you get support for newer features, 16 pipelines instead of 12, and a core that is almost guaranteed to overclock to Ultra levels.

Another thing you mentioned is OpenGL performance. This isn't a simple case of ATi's drivers needing an update, they need to be completely rewritten, and that takes time. Basically, if you're upgrading to play doom3 the GT is gonna be the card for you.

So in conclusion, if you can find an XTPE it's a badass card. But for the money the GT is a pretty awesome deal and is actually available for sale whereas the XTPE is practically non-existant.
 
You are in a similar place that I was just recently. I was ready to buy the X800XT just based on the last generation of cards, but after reading all the benchmarks, and espcially the Doom 3 benchmarks, I decided to order the 6800 Ultra. I think you really can't go wrong with either card though, so whatever you choose you should be happy.
 
jonesad said:
You are in a similar place that I was just recently. I was ready to buy the X800XT just based on the last generation of cards, but after reading all the benchmarks, and espcially the Doom 3 benchmarks, I decided to order the 6800 Ultra. I think you really can't go wrong with either card though, so whatever you choose you should be happy.
Click to expand...

If you can find an XTPE for MSRP, it's definitely an amazingly fast card...it just gets embarrassed in OpenGL...other than that it's pretty tough to beat...
 
I too am in the same position as you. I don't know whether to get the X800XT or 6800U. In Doom3 the 6800U wins and sometimes has a lead of 10+ FPS over the X800XT but if in HL2 the X800XT wins and has a lead of 1-5 FPS then i'll be getting the 6800U. If the X800XT rapes the 6800U in HL2 as 6800U did in doom3, then I'll get whichever is in my reach.
 
br1zz0 said:
I too am in the same position as you. I don't know whether to get the X800XT or 6800U. In Doom3 the 6800U wins and sometimes has a lead of 10+ FPS over the X800XT but if in HL2 the X800XT wins and has a lead of 1-5 FPS then i'll be getting the 6800U. If the X800XT rapes the 6800U in HL2 as 6800U did in doom3, then I'll get whichever is in my reach.
Click to expand...

There are some benchmarks running around on the half-life 2 alpha that show the 6800 keeping up with the XTPE quite nicely, and an overclocked ultra beating the xtpe decisively...so either way, it shouldn't be a blow-out...
 
Go with a 6800U or 6800GT. They offer the best balance of performance and features. You will be missing out on eye candy in FarCry with the X800 series (HDR), and Doom3 is best on the 6800 as well.
 
wait maybe 3-4wks price should come down as supply ramps up but more importantly HL2 will go gold and the benchmarks should soon follow. Thats what Im doing anyways. I can imagine spending 450 for a GT only to see the price drop to ~300 within a few months.
 
What with all these people assuming 512 megs cards are coming out in a couple of months? 256 meg cards are stil quite new.
 
What's the point in waiting?
Those 512mb version will be more expensive and performance diffrence will be probably same as beetween radeon 9800 with 128 and 256 MB.
 
astondg said:
I am looking to buy either of these cards, the 6800 Ultra or X800 XT PE, very soon but with all the talk and benchmarks recently I am a bit confused about which one to get.

In the initial benchmarks the ATI card had a significant lead when AA & AF were turned on but since then there have been some new drivers from NVIDIA & ATI and it has been stated that ATI is using some AF optimisations. Also the ATI card is based on older technology and when SM3.0 is used in FarCry it seems that the NVIDIA card catches up, but now I have read that using the ATI supported SM2.0b (I think?) can give the ATI card similar improvements. The NVIDIA cards are also as fast or faster in OpenGL games even with AA & AF, and ATI cards are faster in Direct X games, but I play both so this doesn't really help.

Then the Doom 3 benchmarks were released and it seems that the NVIDIA cards pulled ahead, but ATI haven't had a chance to update their drivers yet so maybe the Doom 3 benchmark is not completely representative? I also want to play Half-Life 2 and I have no idea how either of these cards perform in this game.

I have already purchased FarCry and I have Doom 3 on order, supposedly to be released at the start of August, so I would like to buy one of these cards soon. I actually haven't played FarCry yet because it just doesn't look right on my Geforce 2 GTS.

Some other differences are the NVIDIA card taking up an AGP and PCI slot and that it needs a good power supply but I have a spare PCI slot next to the AGP slot and I have a 550W power supply. Also the ATI cards have built in VIVO but I have found the XFX 6800 Ultra that is also supposed to have VIVO.

All this information and talk is too confusing and making the decision too hard for me so if anybody could give me some ideas or information that might help my decision I would be very gratefull.

Thankyou,

Aston
Click to expand...

Contrary to popular belief on this forum, the XT PE will run D3 perfectly, just 7fps slower......noone here will beable to notice the difference lol

Yes the 6800GT is a very good card, but if you want the best check this out for the top games

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews...est setup.htm

APPARANTLY we will be seeing a lot more XT PE in the next few weeks, so IF you can find one, and have the cash....go for whats best in EVERY game bar D3, you know it makes sense......Oh and youll be able to play D3 at full everything too :p
 
yeah your link doesn't work, and 7fps when you are only getting 50-60 will make a difference when it hits the really laggy parts.. Just my 2 cents

PS - I heard that we'd be seing a lot more of the XT-PE for weeks now, thats why I cancelled mine and got a GT. ATI's loss.
 
There are almost no XTPE and 6800Ultras out there. X800pros and 6800GTs are a little more common, but still hard to find.

Nvidia and ATi will probably have 512MB boards out before year end, but none that will actually hit the shelf before next year.

A few X800pro/XT's from addin board makers should start showing up with the two slot cooling solutions with ramsinks as stock cooling soon though, probably in direct response to Nvidia finally beating ATi in a game, which is a good thing IMO.
 
DruSi3r said:
wait maybe 3-4wks price should come down as supply ramps up but more importantly HL2 will go gold and the benchmarks should soon follow. .
Click to expand...

err.. where is the evidence of this? There are just rumors of it entering to beta, then there will be RC's, then gold, then production. Somehow I doubt this is happening in the next few weeks.

There is also little evidence that ATI supplies will 'ramp up' anytime in the next 3-4 weeks either.

Valve and ATI are really a match made in heaven. Both full of emtpy promises and the uncanny ability to instill hope for those waiting.
 
well ATI does well in D3D and Nvidia does well in OpenGL. In openGL games Nvidia obviously owns ATI yet in D3D, they're pretty close. so from that im aiming towards a 6800U unless ATI ruins the 6800U in hl2
 
br1zz0 said:
well ATI does well in D3D and Nvidia does well in OpenGL. In openGL games Nvidia obviously owns ATI yet in D3D, they're pretty close. so from that im aiming towards a 6800U unless ATI ruins the 6800U in hl2
Click to expand...

good call. I like the ATI fan's who claim the X800 will 'own' HL2 when there is zero evidence except the Alpha tests showing the PE and U tied @ 1600x1200.
 
br1zz0 said:
well ATI does well in D3D and Nvidia does well in OpenGL. In openGL games Nvidia obviously owns ATI yet in D3D, they're pretty close. so from that im aiming towards a 6800U unless ATI ruins the 6800U in hl2
Click to expand...
I can promise you at most the difference will be like the difference in Far Cry (probably less) - as in the XT will only perform better with (high) AF.
 
Hehe, I'll probably just end up playing Doom3 single player on somone elses computer (with a 6800 ultra) when one comes in to be fixed, and leave it at that.

Don't know how much appeal the multiplayer aspect is going to have, but a max of 2vs2 with no-coop mode would limit the replayability.

No way I'd get an X800XT or 6800Ultra right now considering their above retail prices, and PCI-E just around the corner.
 
Thanks for the replies.

It looks like the 6800 Ultra is the way to go. I have spoken to a retailer here that says he has already had 2 XFX 6800 Ultras come in and be sold. He thought that he should be getting more in a week or 2 and if I order now I should be first on the list.

There are some other retailers that say some X800 XT PE cards should be available in the first week of August. I don't know if any of this is correct but I don't think the retailers would have too much to gain by lying to me, if the cards aren't here when they say they will be then I will cancel my order.

Is full AA & AF a big difference in quality from what I should be able to use if I get a 6800 Ultra? Can the 6800 Ultra use the same AF optimisations that the X800 XT uses? I am not so worried about the 1600x1200 performance because my Samsung 172x has a naitive resolution of 1280x1024

Aston
 
kcthebrewer said:
I can promise you at most the difference will be like the difference in Far Cry (probably less) - as in the XT will only perform better with (high) AF.
Click to expand...

Thers like 10fps + differnece in FarCry actually! If thats the case, then its more than the difference than Doom 3 and therefore....by your own conclusion, Nvidia are 'owned'....jesus, it makes me laugh when the card you have owns everything at one game, yet you tuen a blind eye when its getting owned at everyting else.....there is 50+ fps differnec in UT2k4....thats being owned......

look at the graph 2nd to bottom.....thats the XT PE beating the Ultra in FarCry by the same distance as the reverse in Doom 3....yet u say it isnt so??? thats even when the Ultra is using the *ahem* faster PS3.0 path....and the Ultra doesnt surpass the XT PE at all....

Oh and the guy saying he could notice the differnece between 50 and 60fps....BS complete BS. Yes you can tell the differnce between 10 and 20. MAYBE 20 and 30.....but dont talk shit about being able to see the difference between 50 and 60....

At the end of the day, they are ALL good cards....enjoy your purchase and know that you havent bought a stinker like the old FX line, what pisses me off is when ppl talk shit.......yes D3 is better on nvidia cards,,,but everything else is better an ATI....fact....just admit it and enjoy the games :)

Oh and heres the link that didnt work

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/6800andX800XT/test setup.htm

50fps+ in ut2k4!!!lol the only time the 6800U beats the XT PE is when u turn the AA and AF of @ 1600x1200, but then who spends that money on a gfx card and doesnt use aa and af!!!
 
So if the only thing making the X800 XT faster with AA & AF turned on is that it uses AF optimisations? Then is it possible (like changing a setting or something) to use the same AF optimisations on the 6800 Ultra that are used on the X800 XT? Will this bring the AA & AF performance up to the X800 XT level?

Aston
 
astondg said:
So if the only thing making the X800 XT faster with AA & AF turned on is that it uses AF optimisations? Then is it possible (like changing a setting or something) to use the same AF optimisations on the 6800 Ultra that are used on the X800 XT? Will this bring the AA & AF performance up to the X800 XT level?

Aston
Click to expand...

Nvidia has tri filtering/AF optimizations as well, but they can be disabled in the driver control panel unlike ATI's. When they are enabled, they aren't as fast as ATI's though. We may see some driver work on this in the future.
 
@trapine said:
Here's an intresting review that DH did between the 6800U Watercooled and the Connect3D X800XTPE ;) I will let you judge for your self!
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/6800andX800XT/test setup.htm
Click to expand...

I was able to judge for myself without even going past the first page:

Driverheaven said:
*NOTE: All optimisations were disabled using the Nvidia drivers; this included tri-linear optimisations. With the ATI drivers it is not possible to disable some optimisations and therefore they are enabled.
Click to expand...

Can we say biased? DH ran the tests with trilinear optimizations + AF optimizations on with the ATI cards, and off with the nvidia cards, real fair :)

Driverheaven should be considered an ATI fansite that pretends they're not.
 
tranCendenZ said:
Driverheaven should be considered an ATI fansite that pretends they're not.
Click to expand...

I don't usually like to point the finger and call sites biased...but if anyone is...it's definitely driver heaven. Their benchmarks are wildly skewed in ATi's favor. Not to mention thier articles all seem to throw FUD at Nvidia which isn't true.
 
^eMpTy^ said:
I don't usually like to point the finger and call sites biased...but if anyone is...it's definitely driver heaven. Their benchmarks are wildly skewed in ATi's favor. Not to mention thier articles all seem to throw FUD at Nvidia which isn't true.
Click to expand...

Ditto, also like that article with the 6800u with all filtering optimizations off, vs the x800 with them on, alot of people might not bother reading the entire article, just looking at the benchmarks. How will they know the opts where turned off?
 
rancor said:
Ditto, also like that article with the 6800u with all filtering optimizations off, vs the x800 with them on, alot of people might not bother reading the entire article, just looking at the benchmarks. How will they know the opts where turned off?
Click to expand...

I had this exact problem...someone eventually set me straight and told me the optimizations were off. If this had happened the first week the cards were out it would have been understandable...but as it stands driverheaven decided to go against the tide of every other review site and they ended up with some useless benchmarks AND managed to make themselves look stupid in the process...
 
Astondg go with the nvidia this time. Last round I picked ati over nvidia and I am not biased with video cards at all, I only choose whats better. I have also learned how ati was getting higher fps in d3d games because they used low quality textures,af. If ati wants to win my pick in the future they must stop thinking its all about fps.
 
I'd have to say nvidia has won this round. If you're gonna hold on to this card as long as you held on to your last one get teh 6800 because sm3.0 will come around and you won't be able to take advantage of it with the x800.

Myabe wait for the 4.8 cats? Any one have an eta on em?
 
can any1 link me to what the difference is between optimized and with them off? Screen shots would be nice. Im sure every card maker turns on all the tweaks and squezes all the performance out of their cards. But does it matter to me?
 
I just figured i would thow this out there. for any games released before the 6800 came to light i think the x800xt will win because its basically an r300 with higher clock/mem freq. what this means is the drivers that are already optimized for those games are going to work perfectly because technically speaking its still teh same architecture. now in regards to the 6800 its a completely new architecture and there for i dont believe the drivers are going to work as efficiently as they would on the 5800/5900 architecture. Yea sure they will work but probably not as well and its taking a perfomance hit because of this.

ok nice speculation but wheres the proof?

well for those people asking that question here it is. Look at doom 3 and H/L 2. 2 new games. In doom 3 so far it whoops on the x800 and in h/l 2 its running with it if not beating it, and with some new drivers to up the performance im sure by the time its released it will be ahead of the game, especially if it still has an opengl path.

Architecture
 
Tigerblade said:
Thers like 10fps + differnece in FarCry actually! If thats the case, then its more than the difference than Doom 3 and therefore....by your own conclusion, Nvidia are 'owned'....jesus, it makes me laugh when the card you have owns everything at one game, yet you tuen a blind eye when its getting owned at everyting else.....there is 50+ fps differnec in UT2k4....thats being owned......

look at the graph 2nd to bottom.....thats the XT PE beating the Ultra in FarCry by the same distance as the reverse in Doom 3....yet u say it isnt so??? thats even when the Ultra is using the *ahem* faster PS3.0 path....and the Ultra doesnt surpass the XT PE at all....

Oh and the guy saying he could notice the differnece between 50 and 60fps....BS complete BS. Yes you can tell the differnce between 10 and 20. MAYBE 20 and 30.....but dont talk shit about being able to see the difference between 50 and 60....

At the end of the day, they are ALL good cards....enjoy your purchase and know that you havent bought a stinker like the old FX line, what pisses me off is when ppl talk shit.......yes D3 is better on nvidia cards,,,but everything else is better an ATI....fact....just admit it and enjoy the games :)

Oh and heres the link that didnt work

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/6800andX800XT/test setup.htm

50fps+ in ut2k4!!!lol the only time the 6800U beats the XT PE is when u turn the AA and AF of @ 1600x1200, but then who spends that money on a gfx card and doesnt use aa and af!!!
Click to expand...
They used the farcry 1.2 patch which had problems on ATI hardware...
 
Some people can tell a diffrence from 50 to 60 fps and some cant. The human eye is capable of seeing 60fps so its a fact. Maybe your one of the few that can't but, don't deny ones ability.
 
OblivionLord said:
Some people can tell a diffrence from 50 to 60 fps and some cant. The human eye is capable of seeing 60fps so its a fact. Maybe your one of the few that can't but, don't deny ones ability.
Click to expand...

actually the human eye can see well over 200 fps. Now most monitors only refresh at 85hz.
 
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