6800 GT for HL2

[shapeshifter]

When ATI comes up with something new other than recycling their tech, they are going to make nvidia run for their money again as was done a year ago.

That would be the R500/R520 which the xbox next will also be using.

 

[Asus]

I have a 6800GT personally and it is a little better than the X800pro as far as average framerates and the benchmarks go. (X800XT PE > 6800Ultra)

But I always dip with framerate in CSS and Battlefield games. It's good framerate and all but it just drops and makes the gameplay feel laggy at times. Granted I never had that high of framerate, I never had this 'lag' with my previous 9800pro either.

I've been thinking about going ATI, as I've always love the experience. Although each time I think about it I remind myself it will cost me a lot of money to switch cards and get what I like about ATI. hehe

 

[Razak]

I have a 6800GT personally and it is a little better than the X800pro as far as average framerates and the benchmarks go. (X800XT PE > 6800Ultra)

But I always dip with framerate in CSS and Battlefield games. It's good framerate and all but it just drops and makes the gameplay feel laggy at times. Granted I never had that high of framerate, I never had this 'lag' with my previous 9800pro either.

I've been thinking about going ATI, as I've always love the experience. Although each time I think about it I remind myself it will cost me a lot of money to switch cards and get what I like about ATI. hehe

Im not sure if that has to do with the VGA or just the CPU chugging along. I have a 9800 pro atm and when i play Red Orchestra mod for UT2k4 i would chug a bit sometimes. The lastest drivers fixed it though, much more smoother.

 

[Asus]

I'm just talking Battlefield and CSS specificly. There are other games I play where the 6800GT flys.

 

[deep8832]

what brand of 6800 gt is the best? there are a lot and to me they all look the same. There's PNY, xfx, bfg, etc. Asus, which do you recommend I get?

 

[Acert93]

what brand of 6800 gt is the best? there are a lot and to me they all look the same. There's PNY, xfx, bfg, etc. Asus, which do you recommend I get?

BFG has a lifetime return policy, has good support, and comes stock OCed (though do not OC well over what they do).

Leadtech puts massive heat sinks on their cards and I hear they OC well.

eVGA is the brand I got. I heard all the reports about them OCing well... Coolbits said I could go to 420MHz and 1.14GHz on the RAM. To compare, GT is 350/1.0, and the Ultra 400/1.1. I tested 3DMark05 at the 420/1.14 settings and was rock solid.

Asus has a 128MB card... I would avoid that. You save $50, but 128MB of extra RAM = more eye candy/performance in the future.

 

[shapeshifter]

BFG has a lifetime return policy, has good support, and comes stock OCed (though do not OC well over what they do).

Leadtech puts massive heat sinks on their cards and I hear they OC well.

eVGA is the brand I got. I heard all the reports about them OCing well... Coolbits said I could go to 420MHz and 1.14GHz on the RAM. To compare, GT is 350/1.0, and the Ultra 400/1.1. I tested 3DMark05 at the 420/1.14 settings and was rock solid.

Asus has a 128MB card... I would avoid that. You save $50, but 128MB of extra RAM = more eye candy/performance in the future.

You'll find when a company says "lifetime" warenty/returns.

They don't mean for your life. Just the life of the product, so once it stops being sold on shelfs, or they phase it out. They no longer have to do their warenty.

 

[Asus]

You'll find when a company says "lifetime" warenty/returns.

They don't mean for your life. Just the life of the product, so once it stops being sold on shelfs, or they phase it out. They no longer have to do their warenty.

Yeah, I'm not sure but some classify it as the life time of the product on the shelf plus 1 year, or something like that.

I know PNY has a 'Lifetime' warranty.

 

[Sanius]

bfg (omg not enough lettars)

 

[Acert93]

I'm just talking Battlefield and CSS specificly. There are other games I play where the 6800GT flys.

It may be your PC2700 Ram. I had a Radeon 9700 with 512MB of PC2700 in my system until 2 months ago. I play DC every day (DCF rocks!), and while my system flew, I would chug at times. This was online and offline.

I now have 1GB of DDR400 (PC3200) RAM and the 6800GT and NEVER go below 70ish in Desert Combat. The RAM alone really smoothed things out, so I know the faster RAM makes a difference.

My friend who I sold my RAM chip and 9700 to has a P4 2.533GHz. He is running CS:S at 1024x768 with 4xAA and 8xAF and I have not seen it chug. I have not spent much time watching him play, but I have watched a good 5-10 minutes straight and never noticed any hiccups. I am always watching for hiccups... I hate them. My goal is not for an average of 60FPS, but my minimum FPS being 60. I am not running CS:S at 1600x1200 because some maps, even with the high end cards, cannot play over 60FPS.

From all the sites out there with benchies, it seems CS:S can be CPU limited at low resolutions (usually in the 60-80 range). What this means is that CPU performance has a big affect on the game. If your RAM is a bottleneck, during extreme action your RAM or CPU may be the cause of the choppiness.

I do not doubt that some guys are having chugs with the 6800GT, but I have not had any issues like that. Computers can be frustrating that way... I hope that you can get this corrected without having to spend more $

 

[Acert93]

You'll find when a company says "lifetime" warenty/returns.

They don't mean for your life. Just the life of the product, so once it stops being sold on shelfs, or they phase it out. They no longer have to do their warenty.

While your statement may be true of other companies, this is NOT true of BFG. Check them out => http://www.bfgtech.com/ BFG has an AWESOME warranty. I was talking to a guy on Tomshardware.com today who had a BFG Ti4600 that went bad (that is a 3 year old card). They sent him a FX 5900XT for replacement.

Here is a blip from their own site about the fake warranties:

"LIFETIME WARRANTY.
Other vendors may claim to have a “lifetime warranty”, but closer inspection of their policy reveals that “lifetime” is defined as products currently on the shelf and in production."

They have a VERY strong reputation in this area. I would not have mentioned a life time warranty if it was a lame lifetime=1year deals. BFG backs up their products.

Ps- I took my last comment out, it was not polite--sorry. Btw, here is their warranty link:

http://www.bfgtech.com/tech_redux.html#warranty

 

[Alientank]

I have an XFX, it's great, it all really depends on what software bundle you want I guess. Most lifetime warranty cards youll replace anyways after 3 years.

 

[Asus]

Well, my PC2700 is not running at 166MHz but 192MHz @2-2-2-5 (faster than standard PC3200 memory). My CPU is also OCed to 2300MHz currently.

It is well known that ATI does very well in Battlefield games. HardOCP mentioned that the 6800U ran at lower settings because "in the situations where you were running through a forest zooming the GeForce 6800Ultra would droop into the 20's or lower..."
And if you look at a graph from one of the more recent scaling articles the 6800U dips to almost as low as the X800XT even with lower resolution and AF.

 

[VodkA-HLC-]

I'm thinking of buying a 6800 GT for my new PC, but my friend says that since HL2 was developed for ATI's shaders, the effects will look better on an ATI card.
Is this true? And how much of a differance would there be?

The answer is there is no answer. If you can afford either buy either. I have had amd and pentium asus boards and I can tell you from experience that ati runs better on my pentium boards and nvidia runs better on my amd boards. So there you go.

 

[Robinhood_01]

No matter what happens I'm getting a Geforce 6600 GT, it's a mid-range card but it's damn impressive for US$199.

Here's a review of the Gigabyte one:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/160/

 

[wilka91]

ATi Levels is the reason why you want a X800 heh

 

[Robinhood_01]

yeah but ATi levels are not ATi exclusive, they're just called that so that people associate ATi with high quality.

 

[Eon Blue]

I'm thinking of buying a 6800 GT for my new PC, but my friend says that since HL2 was developed for ATI's shaders, the effects will look better on an ATI card.
Is this true? And how much of a differance would there be?

I just bought my GT OC today. I got more than 100 FPS avg on the stress test at 1280/everything on high/4aa/8af. Good enough, I'd say.

 

[lar1r]

I ended up sending back my 6800 GT cause in HL2 there were white lines in random corners, and with AF the screen flickered like crazy. The wierd thing it was only in HL2, other games like MOHA ran okay except they were really choppy.

My buddies rig with an X800XT looked so much better and it was >100fps as well in HL2 so thats what I got instead.

If you're paying that much for a card - see them both (find someone who has the other card) and decide for yourself.

Plus the extra ATI levels are bound to use 3Dc and implementations that DONT work well on NVIDIA cards.