bfg 5900non-ultra or a 9700Pro??

[bizzy420]

im building a new pc for my cousin and rite now we are deciding on vid cards.
should we purchase a BFG 5900non ultra or a 9700pro? they are both in the same price range.

i also heard that u can flash a 5900nonultra ito a 5950. after this flash would the 5900 be better than a 9700pro?

also does nvidia really suck at DX9 and AA and AF? thx

 

[Paintballer]

From the benchmarks I've seen, the 5900NU outperforms the 9700 pro, just make sure you get the 256bit memory version of the 5900 (not 256mb, 256bit). I have the 5900NU and it performs great in all DX9 games so far, and I get just as good time demos in Halo with PS2.0 as people with 9800 pros. The 5950 mod is hardly worth it, unless you NEED that performance. If you get a 5900 with some nice cooling though, then go ahead and flash it to a 5950 because in some cases you can get ~100mhz more out of the memory compared to OCing stock.

Either card will be great. I found my 5900 for $195, and there are some nice ones on newegg for ~200.

 

[crabcakes66]

9700PRO ....it wins hands down.....


image quality and dx9 performance are alot more important than 20 more fps in quake 3....

if your looking for something for hl2/doom3 ect ....go for a 9700pro....... if you play quake 3 ...get the 5900

 

[Dr. Freeman]

9700PRO ....it wins hands down.....


image quality and dx9 performance are alot more important than 20 more fps in quake 3....

if your looking for something for hl2/doom3 ect ....go for a 9700pro....... if you play quake 3 ...get the 5900

nothing more to add than what crabby has said.. it all depends on what games u wanna play..

 

[RandomPING]

Well since this is the halflife2 forum, i'd have to say Radeon 9700 Pro would be your best bet for Half life 2. Then again Doom 3 will probably run better on the 5900 Non-ultra. Though you're only talking maybe 10-20 FPS of difference, if you scale back some of the features you should get any of the next gen games to run beautifully on either one.

 

[crabcakes66]

i doubt the 5900NU will run doom3 any faster....and if it does it will be with reduced IQ

 

[Maskirovka]

yes nvidia really does suck at dx9 and AA and AF.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTE5LDE=

i realize that's pretty old (sept 11th last year) but it contains the report from valve that started all the "nvidia sucks for dx9" hubbub. if you read that story entirely as well as the nvidia statement at the end (the link) i think you'll get a sorta-clear picture of what's going on.

and as far as i know, none of nvidia's newer drivers have changed a thing. but of course...hl2 isn't out yet...and not too many dx9 games are...and don't say halo because that's just a terrible game altogether and i wouldn't include it in a benchmarking suite for anything.

basically, any GFFX card purchased right now isn't a very good buy, imo...even if they're cheap. they're just not going to run the next generation of games very well. that's not to say that the 9700pro will run them flawlessly either...but it should run games like hl2, stalker, far cry, and the growing list of hl2-comparable-or-better-graphics games better than any of the GFFX cards.

 

[dawdler]

Personally I think the 5900 is much more worth it now at least... Before it was way too expensive for what it delivered. But up against the 9700 Pro (which is probably still cheaper) it still not good. Even if the 5900 is faster in *some* game (read "2-3 year old OpenGL games or crappy coded ones"), 9700Pro still at the very minumum keeps up, and has vastly greater IQ while doing so.

 

[Arno]

www.newegg.com :
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro -> $202
BFG GeForceFX5900 -> $175

Although the BFG is out of stock at the moment.

 

[crabcakes66]

even with a 30$ price differance id still say go with the 9700pro if its for "tomorrows" games

 

[dawdler]

www.newegg.com :
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro -> $202
BFG GeForceFX5900 -> $175

Although the BFG is out of stock at the moment.

You can get the 9700 Pro (oem) for $195 there
And then again, you can get a 9800 non pro for $170. 9800 Pro for $220. And both of those where in stock

 

[Arno]

Where did you find those?
The cheapest Radeon 9800np I could find was $259.

 

[dawdler]

Sapphire 9800 np
Sapphire 9800 Pro

It aint retail, its low as you can get (refurbished, oem and barebone), but hey, you get a fast card fairly cheap
You could also get a 9800SE for $108.75, swing it and hope the softmod will work (will get near 9800 Pro performance for that price then).
Reatil are more expensive of course. The retail 9800 Pro (also sapphire) is $279.00.

 

[un om bun]

Really, dudes ! Where the heck did u get those low prices ???????????????????

 

[crabcakes66]

newegg... best place to order hardware if you live in the USA

i didnt even look dawdler, glad you did :thumbs: :....i havent looked at any hardware prices in a while.

 

[dawdler]

i didnt even look dawdler, glad you did :thumbs: :....i havent looked at any hardware prices in a while.

I've been keeping myself updated so I can counter Arno if need be :cheese:

 

[Paintballer]

actually the newer NVidia drivers increased my Halo performance by up to 100%. With the newest drivers my card beats the 9700 in Halo PS2.0 hands down. Those september benchmarks are really really old. The forceware 50's completely blow the detonator 40's away.

i haven't tried the older drivers on 3dmark03, but I think that 5300 points is good for a system running a not-so-good gigabyte mobo and crappy pc2100 ram.

 

[bizzy420]

yeah the thing is, the card is going to be used for a long time. he cant just go and get a new video card whenever he wants, so the card we get, will be used for awhile.

i know many of you say that the 5900 sux in DX9, but others have told me that they get like 44,000pts in aquamark and 5300+in 3dmark. arent those DX9 benchmarks?? so if they score that high, that means they'll do good in DX9 games rite??

 

[Shuzer]

yeah the thing is, the card is going to be used for a long time. he cant just go and get a new video card whenever he wants, so the card we get, will be used for awhile.

i know many of you say that the 5900 sux in DX9, but others have told me that they get like 44,000pts in aquamark and 5300+in 3dmark. arent those DX9 benchmarks?? so if they score that high, that means they'll do good in DX9 games rite??

AquaMark3 is more of a DX8 benchmark with very very few DX9 shaders thrown in. It should be labeled as a "DX8 benchmark with 5 DX9 shaders!"

As for 3DMark03, I think it lost its credibility when it had nVidia optimizations that put nVidia cards ahead of the game in it. The latest patch seems to have removed the optimizations, but people still don't put very much faith in it.

 

[Asus]

Completely agree with the 9700 Pro.
BTW isn't the 5900(non-ultra) the exact same thing as the 5900ultra except 128mb instead 256mb?

If you plan to play HL2 and games similar to it that demand PS2.0 and other shader performance, you would go with the 9700pro/9800.
Valve has said they use shader bandwidth on the FX cards (which is bad as it is) for fixing the graphics glitch if you remember. Even slower then. They said they don't need ATI's shader bandwidth which leaves that fast shader performance untouched for HL2 and alike games.