Geforce 6800 ultra or ATI X800 XT PE...which one is better and why?

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big_mike

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Hey guys, ive been hearing back and forth about which card is better. Now is game time. I am ready to buy my comp and I want to make the best decision. So here it is...which card is better and why? I want to know why which is better based on facts...or maybe even bench marks. I don't want to hear that the ATI is better because you have one...I want to know what sets each card apart from eachother. I also want to know for future reference which card will be better in the long run.
Thanks for your help guys
 
check out these benchmarks:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/cs-source.html

reason i choose these is because they are using ATI's 8.07 beta driver, which gives some performance improvements instead of the latest non betas.

as of now, nvidia and ati are very close, nvidias got some great drivers lately, ATI may have something instore for source performance with the 4.11 release, which im guessing is coming out near the same time as halflife2. we'll have to see.

besides that the 6800u has sm 3.0 support, unlike the x800 series which is notable, and more future proof than an x800, BUT not a good reason alone to get a 6800u. personally id take whatever the best deal is out of the two. my 2 cents.

oh and also, as of now, opengl performance with the 6800u is superior, although ati is probably going to improve their opengl support, knowing that doom3 engine games are on the horizon.
 
if i wasn't going to upgrade though anytime soon id probably get a 6800, but i plan on retiring my x800xt for an SLI setup in early 2005.
 
What kind of games do you play? Paying that much for a graphics card, would you use the AF (texture filter which sharpens images as they grow farther away) and AA (gets rid of jagged or stair-stepped edges)?

Between the top of the line cards, I would choose the X800XT PE because of it's DirectX performance across all games, 100+ FPS in OpenGL games and it's performance with AA and AF.
Personally I don't play OpenGL games and having more than 100FPS in those games is more than enough for me. The 6800U's wins are invisible to my preference because they are wins in what I do not care about. The X800 is the opposite. You have to look at the benchmarks and features and make a choice that would match your own interests best.

I do play DirectX games a lot like HL2 based games, Battlefield games, Joint Operations, and Thief etc. I also use AA and AF a lot because with the extra performance from these cards I can turn on filtering to make the game look a lot better and use the high refreshrates on my mointor.

Now if this was between the 6800GT and X800Pro, my answer would be different. The 6800Ultra is just so close to the GT's performance, which is a good and bad thing depending on your point of view.

A review with the most variety of games
A look at ATI's A.I. with the X800XT PE and 6800Ultra
3Dmark2005
FarCry Version 1.2 with 3.0 support
R420 is the X800XT PE and NV40 is the 6800Ultra. 3.0 does indeed perform better than 2.0 on Nvidia cards. ATI supports 2.0b which is similar to 3.0, a boost in support for more instructions over 2.0. ATI's better performing Pixel and Vertex shader engine can do great without full 3.0 support.
HL2 VST and CSS
"Why X800 series run so "bad"...
Reply
We believe there was an issue with ATI CATALYST drivers. We will find out whether any new drivers improve performance of ATI RADEON X800 hardware in our future reviews." -from Xbitlabs' latest CS:S review
HardOCP review on CPU scaling between ATI's and Nvidia's top cards.
 
100+fps in quake3 engined game maybe, but not doom3, and lets face it, this engine is the future of opengl games.
 
I would have to say though that the 6800 ultra performs very similar to the x800 xt in directx games now.
 
poseyjmac said:
100+fps in quake3 engined game maybe, but not doom3, and lets face it, this engine is the future of opengl games.
Click to expand...

Like he said....its all about what games you play.
 
Doom3 is only faster on nvidia when you benchmark in a timedemo. In game the engine is capped at 60fps hence both cards hit the 60fps cap and stay there unless you play at 1600x1200 with 8x fsaa and 4x aniso which is overkill imo! Play at a more realistic resolution such as 1280x1024 with 4x fsaa and 2x aniso and both cards run at the same speed! :p
 
Since links to benchmarks and such have already posted, I'll make this short with my opinion. 6800 all the way. I strongly prefer nVidia - love the GeForce drivers, I also hear about compatibility issues less often with nvidia cards, and it also appears to be better for OpenGL. And OpenGL is highly professional, NOT only for the Windows platform... with a 6800, you'll probably be able to run Quake 4 fairly well, too.
 
The newer nvidia drivers also seem to run aa and af better then ati's more recent drivers in cssource.
 
[Matt] said:
Doom3 is only faster on nvidia when you benchmark in a timedemo. In game the engine is capped at 60fps hence both cards hit the 60fps cap and stay there unless you play at 1600x1200 with 8x fsaa and 4x aniso which is overkill imo! Play at a more realistic resolution such as 1280x1024 with 4x fsaa and 2x aniso and both cards run at the same speed! :p
Click to expand...

realistic? uhh with the newest cards, many people are running at 1600x1200, including me. its definately realistic and smooth for those who can afford it..

crabcakes66 said:
Like he said....its all about what games you play.
Click to expand...

yes but hes downplaying nvidias opengl performance by comparing it to 6 year old games and not to the current opengl engines.. very fanboyish.
 
No I'm talking about most current popular OpenGL games. If I was talking Quake3 then I would have said 200+ FPS.
Overall OpenGL games have a higher FPS than current popular DirectX games. I want the games that seem to be more demanding to perform better on the card I pick. I don't mind if it performs slower with games that have a higher Framerate.

Also, generally the lower FPS games can hover around 60FPS depending on the settings you use. If I want to use VSync @ 60Hz and maintain that framerate I might have to lower the settings. If I get the card that does better I can turn up the AA/AF a little more. Also playability and lowest FPS comes into play. Check out the HardOCP link.

Again, it's all what you play and your point of view.
I played D3 once...I don't play Quake3 based games either.

Everyone is bias. Don't pretend you aren't. I'm supporting my PoV, not ramming yours. :D

Notice the framerate.
OpenGL game
CoD
DirectX 9 game
TRAOD
Now look find a list of games and count how many DirectX games there are compared to OpenGL.

Notice I do have a Nvidia card, it was what I choose at that price point. Comparing the 499$ price point I would choose differently.
 
god, i wish CS:S's benches look liked TRAOD's. the way it should have been!

anyway, yea, maybe im bias a little, but basically im bias to any card being ganged up on in a forum. gotta admit there is some ati bias in this forum.on hardforum.com its nvidia bias.

but doom3 out of all these games(opengl or d3d) is the hardest on the system yet, giving the lowest frames of any game i know. which is why i think its important to have the best opengl performance possible going into next year. the difference between 60fps and 50fps is quite noticeable. im referring specifically to very high resolutions though, after getting an x800xt, i don't even consider anything below 1280x1024.
 
Its a tried and true fact that if you are after the mid range card (6800gt or x800pro) the gt is better value as there is less of a performance hit compared to the ultra as there is to the XT from the pro.
 
This is true, the X800pro lacks the full 16 pipelines that helps those cards perform as well as they do at the highest resolutions. The architecture really holds though if you look at a number of benchmarks where the X800pro does not lack.

I think his choices are limited to the X800XT PE and 6800Ultra through.
 
Asus said:
This is true, the X800pro lacks the full 16 pipelines that helps those cards perform as well as they do at the highest resolutions. The architecture really holds though if you look at a number of benchmarks where the X800pro does not lack.

I think his choices are limited to the X800XT PE and 6800Ultra through.
Click to expand...

I am not necessarily limited by those two, I am simply stating that I want the best video card on the market bar none. It does not matter how much I spend, I am just torn between these two because I keep hearing different things from different people...I just need a super clear cut answer...
Or maybe im looking a little too deep into it.
 
well the thing i usually dont see in cs:S benches is the minimum FPS.
a 6800gt runs pretty fast, but drops to like 35-40fps sometimes. my friends x800pro, doesnt get a HIGHER MAX fps, but has a better average and only drops t045-50 fps, and i think thats more important.
 
If you want the best videocard with money no object then the 6800 ultra extreme is probably it. And befor anyone says that there is no such thing, there is. Monarch computers seems to get shipments once in a while but not very often. I have heard of a couple other online retailers getting shipments also. The MSRP if only $50 more then the regular 6800 ultra but every place that seems to have the extreme are selling it for atleast $100 over the MSRP. If the 6800 UE where selling in quantity at their MSRP it would probably be the best card on the market.
 
i heard the 6800UE comes with duke nukem forever bundled with it. of course no one can confirm this ;)
 
Well, clock speed for the 6800 doesn't mean quite as much. What I mean is that the GT is clocked lower and yet it doesn't perform 100$ worse. The Extreme is the same way except above the 6800Ultra. It doesn't perform that much better.

Gainward's 6800Ultra Extreme - 450MHz Core/ 1200MHz memory
6800Ultra - 400MHz Core/ 1100MHz memory
6800GT - 350MHz Core/ 1000MHz memory

And just for comparison. Don't compare across chips, they work differently. Just compare between models of the same chip.
X800XT PE - 520MHz Core/ 1120MHz memory
X800Pro - 475MHz Core/ 900MHz memory

Review with Gainward's water-cooled Nvidia 6800 Ultra Extreme card (800$) and ATI's X800XT PE (500$)
Buy eVGA 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition here
 
Check it out. Link
The expensive 6800U EE sitting at 95 frames, 500$ 6800Ultra at 87 frames (7.5 FPS lower), the 400$ 6800GT at 78 frames (8.9 FPS lower). That's 8.9 or 16.4 more frames for quite a bit of money, depending on if you stop at the offical 6800Ultra or look up to the EE.

Now look at the 500$ X800XT PE at 100 frames and down to the 400$ X800Pro at 77 frames, a full 23 frames difference.

The X800pro is on par with the 6800GT in this particular benchmark but you will notice how much of a difference the Pro to XT PE is compared to the GT to Ultra and even Ultra EE.
 
Ya but now this is getting ridiculous we are looking at single bencmarks instead of the cards as a whole. Singling out one bencmark from the rest isnt very usefull because the next bencmark could be a completly different story. Theyre is so many beta drivers floating around right now its making my head spin and the accuracy of a lot of websites is being brought into question and two websites can have completly differnt results with the same drivers and bencmarks.

But for the difference between the ultra and the ultra extreme you could look at a halo bencmarks and see a 19% difference between the two and then go look at a farcry bencmark you may only see a 10% difference between the two. So I think instead of singling one game out from the rest people should start looking at everything, wheter its and opengl game or a directx game, wheter its farcry or halo. Im sure there is going to be great mods for doom 3 or some great games on the engine but most people right now are saying oh no doom 3 is the game I will only play once. And theyre are nvidia users saying that they are only going to play through the single player of half life 2 once. But they to forget that theyre will be some great games on the engine and some great mods for hl2 also.

Anyway With ATI having fixed their memory effieciency problem I would like to see a "proper" review done none of this optimization on for one card optimization off for another card or any of this other bullshit that is appearing in some reviews lately. I would like to see some more bencmarks then just farcry and halo. I also want a final verdict on each card about how they perform in the bencmarks and not wheter it has ps3.0, needs a 4800 watt powersupply or wheter or not its a single or dual slot cooling option. I would also want in the review to see all the drivers (including the betas to date) from the x800 xt and 6800 ultra launch to show the performance improvements of the two cards. I dont think that is too much to ask.
 
poseyjmac said:
realistic? uhh with the newest cards, many people are running at 1600x1200, including me. its definately realistic and smooth for those who can afford it..
Click to expand...
....for those who can afford it! In the valve steam survey less than 1% were using 1600x1200. Its still a resolution only available to a select few.
 
I use 1024x768...
CSS just isn't playable with my 6800GT at higher resolutions with 4xAA/8xAF. Infact in Aztec even at 1024x768 it pushes playable with those settings. Those dips are killing me.

And I don't think you will get your review wishes. It is too much to ask considering their goals are not your goals.
They will use ATI's newest drivers once they become WHQL next month. Maybe in a christmas shootout. hehe
 
Asus said:
I use 1024x768...
CSS just isn't playable with my 6800GT at higher resolutions with 4xAA/8xAF. Infact in Aztec even at 1024x768 it pushes playable with those settings. Those dips are killing me.

And I don't think you will get your review wishes. It is too much to ask considering their goals are not your goals.
They will use ATI's newest drivers once they become WHQL next month. Maybe in a christmas shootout. hehe
Click to expand...

I can't use higher than 1024 by 768 in CS:S or the VST. I get severe texture corruption if I bump up the resolution anymore. Oh well, I'm stuck using 4AA and 16AF. ;) Even 6AA is perfectly fine, but I don't notice a difference in visual quality of frame rates at all.

As for the super high-end video cards, if you can get your hands on one, its probably worth your money. Even with the 6800 Ultra, you have enough horsepower to run current and future games at all settings max. It would be nice if they re-benchmarked the cards again to see how drivers have affected performance.
 
well the 70.41 drivers have been leaked from NVIDIA, so I think I might give them a try and see what i get for bencmarks.

One guy on the hardocp forums said:
Preliminary reports are that Ultrashadow is finally enabled in these drivers, and Doom 3 may see 150% of the performance of the 66.81s
Click to expand...

I dont understand what he means buy 150% increase because that is just impossible. I dont know wether doom 3 is the only game that uses ultrashadow or not. While I think its great that NVIDIA has enabled this feature I think they should be concentrating on areas of other concern instead of just increasing their lead in doom 3 even more. Im going to give them a try though and see what I get for performance after I get back from work.
 
blackeye said:
One guy on the hardocp forums said:


I dont understand what he means buy 150% increase because that is just impossible. I dont know wether doom 3 is the only game that uses ultrashadow or not. While I think its great that NVIDIA has enabled this feature I think they should be concentrating on areas of other concern instead of just increasing their lead in doom 3 even more. Im going to give them a try though and see what I get for performance after I get back from work.
Click to expand...

Ultrashadow is a hardware feature on FX and 6800 cards (like 3Dc is on ATI cards). I don't think you need to have drivers to enable it. Anyways, taking a feature (that has been highly touted no less) to be implemented is horrible. The first FX5800 was supposed to have ultrashow already activated. That means they have been lying to the public for over a year about Ultrashadow.

Ultrashadow works on all games that use stencil shadows. Basically, Doom 3 is one of the few games that will benefit from it because it has so many shadows involved. A game like Far Cry will benefit far less from Ultrashadow.
 
well i have a 6800Ultra and I'm loving it. Cuts through both doom 3 and CS:Source with ease on max settings.
 
rocketman, can u post pics of you running HIGH FPS in heavy battle CS:S? cause if you run HIGH FPS in CS:S with ease, i'd love to see it.
i'd probably go get a ultra too.
 
Im glad I havent finished farcry yet and spent all my time with call of duty multiplayer. This 1.3 patch with HDR makes farcry look much more alive. Especially the skys. More blueness to them and it just makes the game seem so much more like paradise. Although Some areas look a bit overdone (can be fixed though buy adjusting the settings).

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=824369

http://www.aloofphoto.com/mod_perl/.../www.aloofphoto.com/lithium726/FarCry0023.jpg
I wish more games would start implementing these features.
 
I'd expect a good 1-2 years before anything like we have with 2.0 now. Think of how long it took since the 9700 launched.
Most of the current DX9 games are not even full 2.0 but use 1.1 as well.
 
If any game in the near is going to implement some of the features that far cry is doing my guess would be medal of honour. Although There was one flight sim game that had support for sm3.0 You where only allowed either 1.1 or 3.0 not 2.0

3.0 looked so much better, but that is to be expected.

Although the links I posted above where for hdr not sm3.0

Anyway here is another shot http://www.aloofphoto.com/mod_perl/.../www.aloofphoto.com/lithium726/FarCry0023.jpg

The only other games that come to mind that might implement this stuff is FEAR, stalker and maybee the some of the bigger MMORP's coming out like everquest 2.
 
That's supposed to look good? To me, it looks like a radioactive sky and sorta out of place.

I am glad that I have long ago finished that game. I don't think I'll be picking it up anytime soon, just like Doom3. It was a good game but only once or twice for me.
 
Asus said:
That's supposed to look good? To me, it looks like a radioactive sky and sorta out of place.

I am glad that I have long ago finished that game. I don't think I'll be picking it up anytime soon, just like Doom3. It was a good game but only once or twice for me.
Click to expand...

Amen, to that. I don't like radioactice skies. :p

Far Cry is the type of game I show to my console friends who think PC gaming is dumb. They see the graphics in Far Cry and change their mind about PC Gaming in about 2 seconds.
 
I *really* dislike ATI's customer support and drivers. Now, not everyone will agree, but I have a 9600XT right now so I do speak from experience.

You can get great performance with either card.
 
No offense but I am betting both of havent played farcry for 5 minutes or so with HDR on because the screen shots are nothing near the quality in the game. It looks much better in action.

And blah if you say the skys look radioactive with HDR but then you say farcry is the type of game that you show to your friends to impress them with graphics arent you kinda contradicting yourself.
 
blackeye said:
No offense but I am betting both of havent played farcry for 5 minutes or so with HDR on because the screen shots are nothing near the quality in the game. It looks much better in action.

And blah if you say the skys look radioactive with HDR but then you say farcry is the type of game that you show to your friends to impress them with graphics arent you kinda contradicting yourself.
Click to expand...

thats not a contradiction at all, there are plenty of unrealistic cool looking things. i think the HDR is overdone in some scenes in farcry, but in others it makes it look very very nice. although the performance hit doesn't seem worth it...id be more inclined to wait for a newer generation or an SLI setup that can handle openexr hdr better(ie 1600x1200 with HDR and decent framerates)... and also, no AA is kind of a drag.
 
blackeye said:
And blah if you say the skys look radioactive with HDR but then you say farcry is the type of game that you show to your friends to impress them with graphics arent you kinda contradicting yourself.
Click to expand...

I said my friends, not me. ;) Most console gamers think a game like GTA or Halo look good, then they see Far Cry or Doom 3.

Anyways, we haven't seen a game truely integrate HDR into a game yet. What tangible feature does it add to Far Cry? Nothing, I would probably find it more annoying than anythiing. WIth dynamic lights, at least I can shoot the light to make it move - now that is cool. ;)

I've said this before, give me more polys or higher resolution textures than something like HDR. HDR isn't worth it and is only used infrequently. Not to mention the performance hit.
 
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