Next gen video cards. Will you upgrade in time?

[Sars]

I remember when i first discovered that HL2 was coming out. I thought, okay i am going to need some serious upgrades to run the game the way it's meant to be played (no Nvidia pun intended). So in about mid september i upgraded my rig to an absolute bad boy, the best MY money could be at the time, including an official ATI 9800 Pro.
Sure i am happily playing great games at high specs now but i felt a bit ripped off when i heard that my one true love (HL2) was going to be delayed. :sniper:
I am now debating with myself over wether or not to by the next gen ATI video card, X800 or X800XT, in order to play HL2 at its absolute best. If anything i won't upgrade my card until the game is actually on the shelves just in case.
I also find it quite a coincidence that ATI is releasing brand new cards around the same time that the game is rumoured to be released (Summer). I could just be skeptical. What are you planning to do?

 

[.5c0ut-WHoR3.]

You shouldn't need upgrade for ages.

I'm still using a Geforce 2 and i heard it will run hl2 on medium quality and you have a top of the line card so don't worry about it

 

[tmod]

I plan on waiting until Nvidia and ATI release multiple cards (revisions, Pro models, etc.), and decide which one is best for me.

 

[Reven]

upgrading to the next gen cant really be that much better then an 9800 pro, 9800 pro can handle every thing the next gen one can, the next gen will just prob have more fps, and you'll have to upgrade your mobo and case to BTX Form Factor, soo..your basicly making a new computer....hehe :rolling:

 

[Darkside55]

I'm waiting to see the benchmarks between the X800XT and the 6800 Ultra, then make a decision on whether I need either of those. I'll probably just go with a 9800 Pro, and that'll be good for HL2.

Edit: Next-gen cards also have features like Direct X 9's 3.0 shaders, asdf. HL2 won't be using those initially anyway (but maybe later down the road). And the 6800 Ultra and X800 XT come in AGP flavors too, not just PCI Express for BTX boards. Those technologies won't replace current AGP slots and ATX boards for at least another year-and-a-half, anyway.

 

[Reven]

I'm waiting to see the benchmarks between the X800XT and the 6800 Ultra, then make a decision on whether I need either of those. I'll probably just go with a 9800 Pro, and that'll be good for HL2.

i would expect the ATI to be better, having 2 more pipelines, but who knows heh.

 

[SaltyCrackers]

Of course he could play on a Geforce 2, but I don't think he wants to run the game at 800x600 with low settings. The 9800 Pro, while it is a good card, it is not AS good as the 6800u or the X880XT. Didn't the Pro get 60fps at 1024x768 with no AA? These next gen cards are said to give double the performance as any card currently on the market.

I'm waiting for the comparison between the 6800u and the x880xt before I decide on which I want to get with my new PC. I too want to play HL-2, Stalker, and D3 in all their glory. This is an aweesome time to be a gamer, and the stellar lineup of titles that are going to be released soon are just begging me to shell out on a 6800u or a x880xt. :thumbs:

EDIT:

i would expect the ATI to be better, having 2 more pipelines, but who knows heh.

This is incorrect; the 6800u and the x800xt both have 16 pipes. It's the x800 pro that has 12 pipes.

 

[Reven]

Of course he could play on a Geforce 2, but I don't think he wants to run the game at 800x600 with low settings. The 9800 Pro, while it is a good card, it is not AS good as the 6800u or the X880XT. Didn't the Pro get 60fps at 1024x768 with no AA? These next gen cards are said to give double the performance as any card currently on the market.

I'm waiting for the comparison between the 6800u and the x880xt before I decide on which I want to get with my new PC. I too want to play HL-2, Stalker, and D3 in all their glory. This is an aweesome time to be a gamer, and the stellar lineup of titles that are going to be released soon are just begging me to shell out on a 6800u or a x880xt. :thumbs:

EDIT:


This is incorrect; the 6800u and the x800xt both have 16 pipes. It's the x800 pro that has 12 pipes.

oh ok, i just heard that one of the ATI cards had 2 more piplines, and HL2 hasnt been optimized yet has it? so it might not be 60 fps, if so i wonder what my 9600xt turbo will get..hmm

 

[tmod]

PCI Express won't be BTX exclusive - in fact, we are likely to see PCI Express on some of the ATX motherboards for the upcoming socket 939 versions of the AMD 64-bit processors. ATX will be far more common than BTX for another year at least, and BTX will be more important for Intel users in the future.

 

[Reven]

PCI Express won't be BTX exclusive - in fact, we are likely to see PCI Express on some of the ATX motherboards for the upcoming socket 939 versions of the AMD 64-bit processors. ATX will be far more common than BTX for another year at least, and BTX will be more important for Intel users in the future.

Oh, that would be wonderful, i just made a new computer, and id hate to have to make a new one just for the new card, i really hope they make a BTX one, then i can sell my mobo and buy a atx
if they make it for 64bit oh well, i guess having 64bit wouldnt be bad

 

[mad max]

The Source engine is scalable so i won't worry much about hardware requirements, unlike Far Cry.

 

[umop]

Right now I am saving up all I can to buy the best computer I can in time for HL2, D3, Stalker, etc. I have like 1,300 saved up so far, and plan on getting the 6800 ultra (unless ATI's r420 is better), a socket 939 (no idea what speed/model yet), a 22" crt, and some other goodies (new mobo, ram, case, speakers). I just can't wait... this is torture.

 

[Moto]

I'm buying my Radeon X800 as soon as possible. I can't wait to turn all the settings to max on Far Cry. Not to mention I will get the most out of HL2, Stalker, MoH: Pacific Assault, and a bunch of other games.

First I wanna see benchmarks for the Geforce 6800 series in comparison with the X800 series. I will make a decision at that point. However, as I said at the beggining of this post, I will most likely get the X800.

 

[Crusader]

I heard from a disreputable source that Half-Life 2 runs on a 650 Duron, GeForce2mx and 256 MB ram... Apparently it even looks good. :O

 

[XenoSpirit]

I say just wait for the Nvidia vs ATI bench marks on the vinersnistal Shistas Ati cards and the 6800 ultra... but i highly recommend Nvidia cards

#1 they have nice and stable cards

#2 if you got a problem then Nvidia(best support) will help you with it

~XenoSpirit~

~EDIT~

In the end its not my $ so you will need to pick

 

[Reven]

Some one buy me one of the new cards when they come out? :rolling:

Hehe, my dog is having puppys, so i should have enough money to buy one when they come out, they cost so much thou :/

 

[Rupertvdb]

sell the puppies

 

[Reven]

sell the puppies

i am silly :E

 

[EVIL]

I say just wait for the Nvidia vs ATI bench marks on the vinersnistal Shistas Ati cards and the 6800 ultra... but i highly recommend Nvidia cards

#1 they have nice and stable cards

#2 if you got a problem then Nvidia(best support) will help you with it

~XenoSpirit~

~EDIT~

In the end its not my $ so you will need to pick

dont see why you needed to type that in colour

Ati will offcource have the best image quality.. thay have the best image quality for years.. nvidea is going to base thier card for speed intead of image quality. so it seems so thats is not my type of card.

i dont care about that 12 fps performance.. over Ati

 

[Jackal hit]

dont see why you needed to type that in colour

Ati will offcource have the best image quality.. thay have the best image quality for years.. nvidea is going to base thier card for speed intead of image quality. so it seems so thats is not my type of card.

i dont care about that 12 fps performance.. over Ati

i'm glad SOMEONE brought this up. i'm not sure how reputable tomshardware.com is but jesus i saw some of the screen shot comparisons, and while nvidia's new card is screaming fast... the image quality was still shitty, most especially in farcry. sorry, but to me the little extra pixelizations = utter shit. ... but then i'm sensitive to that because i'm an artist so ehhhh... i'd take image quality over speed any day(as long as the game is playable with the good image)

 

[Rupertvdb]

grr that confuses me, i want to get the card which shall give the best image quality but i don't want a goddamn lagging game, whats your point? sorry i have little knowledge of hardware i'm still using a geforce 2 so help me out here.

 

[kalayq]

I'm waiting to see what the x800se and pro models (the first two being released) do and if you can unlock the pipelines. If not I'll get a 9800 pro on the cheap and oc it.
I'm not upgrading b/c of HL2, but because my radeon 9100 is just working with most newish games. I can't even play halo for more then 20 min w/o it freezing.
Radeon 9100
Athlon xp 2000+ @ 1803 MHZ
512 DDR 2700

 

[crabcakes66]

Alot of the IQ problems with the 6800 will be solved with drivers.
At this point there is no reason whatsoever for nvidia to have such inferior IQ.


Dont me get me wrong. I still believe that ATI will keep a slight edge..but not as drastic as we are seeing now. As far as im concerned drivers are equal....anyone bashing ATI's drivers at this point have either NEVER used them or havent used them for several years. Nothing but fanboy issues.

This is pure speculation though....the x800 could be in a class all its own fron what we know. Even considering purchasing a card at this moment based on brand loyalty makes no sense whatsoever to me.

 

[Zapp$ter]

Exactly. Everything up until now is pure speculation. The best thing to do is to wait 2 weeks or so until the benchies come out for the X800pro. I believe it will be officially announced on the 5th of May. Compare the performance and features of the Graphics cards.

Then just buy whatever gives you the most performance and features you need for your buck. It's what I'll be doing.

 

[jonbob]

I agree with crabcakes, we will have to wait and see what nVidia do with Forceware with regards to image quality. I read that Far Cry was using the same NV3x methods with the 6800 as the 5900, this might explain the problems with IQ we have seen thusfar.

 

[mad max]

The new 6800 need good PSU, about 450watt. Same thing with ATI new product.

 

[Blitzy]

Haha, screw that idea then.

 

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

Yeah the new cards are insane! it needs 2 power inputs and a 480watt according to xbitlabs. However I wouldenjoy 90 fps in FarCry etc. as much as anyone. It probably makes a lot of noise as well though.

 

[Death.Trap]

Keep in mind that the new ATI x800's won't support PS 3.0 The 6800 will. So basically when the source is upgraded to PS 3.0 those with the x800 aren't gonna be happy =)

 

[mad max]

Isn't 480-500watt making the PSU hotter, an thus need better system cooling?

 

[AzzMan]

Wasn't it recently announced that the x800xt would support PS3.0?

 

[sharp]

The NV40/R420 chipset isn't quite the next generation gfx card. The next generation will be PCI express cards. They will be released somewhere in June this year. Ofcourse I will wait another year when the prices of the PCI cards drop

 

[Zerox]

If R420 turns out to be crap then I'll wait for R500 instead, maybe.

 

[Maxi]

Wasn't it recently announced that the x800xt would support PS3.0?

Just another rumer. AFAIK they haven't released anything officially yet, everything thats been "released" are either leaked documents or speculation.

 

[Gorgon]

ATI will not support PS3.0.

ATI500 which is coming next year will support it, we Still need to wait for one-two week/s till the final benchmanrks between the two card ATI423 and NV6800Ultra appear.

 

[dream431ca]

They will always come out with something new every 6 months or so. I say if your video card is good enough to run games well, don't waste your money.

 

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

Isn't 480-500watt making the PSU hotter, an thus need better system cooling?

Yes ofcourse, so I would recommend a very high quality PSU.

Or just a less demanding less crazy gfx, like the 9800pro !

 

[_-_-SELAS-_-_]

Grr double post because of bad code on the site (java-ish?)

it made me get a site isnt visible and then I went back and wrote it all again! luckily it stopped me the third time :-P

 

[tmod]

Unless the screens were altered, from what I've seen the 6800 has the same image quality as 9800 cards. Also, there is a (reasonable) chance that the 6800 to be released will be ~15% faster on both memory and core clock speeds. The fact that the ATI card supposedly runs at 600 MHZ core seems unlikely to me, as they are more conservative with clock speeds than NV. New drivers should also boost the 6800 some. It'll also be likely that not too long after the 6800 Nvidia will release a PCI Express card (which also could be bridged to AGP) that could have significantly higher clock speeds = even more FPS. I still expect the X800XT to outperform the 6800 Ultra, but I don't think that is where it ends.

 

[Zapp$ter]

As I understand it the R420 won't be fully compliant with Shader Model 3.0
It implements VS3.0 but doesn't implement PS3.0

However from what I understand VS3.0 is used for new graphics techniques or somesuch, while PS3.0 is all about branch prediction, flow control etc(more efficient shader instructions or something) all of which can be done in PS2.0 but with a greater hit to performance. I read about this on beyond3d, anyone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me. Though as I recall most of this is what people have concluded from the leaked ATI presentation notes.

It remains to be seen what the visual difference between 3.0 and 2.0 is.

What it boils down to though is that if say both sets of cards are withn a couple of FPS of each other and at more or less the same pricepoint, I will go with the 6800s, as I want as much as I can get for my money.