nVidia: D3 or ATi: HL2?

[Paradox]

Look it's basicly not as simple as you want it to be. In general the 6800 Ultra will have a slight performance edge in Doom3 and the ATI x800 XT will probably perform better for Half-Life 2. Both cards will work very well and give excellent performance with both games.

As it stands at some resolutions the 6800 is about 10 fps faster than the x800 XT, but I expect that gap to close a little with the new ATI drivers. Still because of the shadow stencils on the 6800 they will always have a small edge in Doom3.

Another thing to ask yourself is is your power supply up to an 6800 Ultra these cards are real power guzzlers. the 8* AA mode is almost useless and unplayable in any modern game. the 3.0 Shaders are little supported so far but could give this card an edge once it is adopted in a more wide spread way by game designers.

Having spent 2 month reading ever review, comparison and article on both cards and their variants I've gone with the smaller less power guzzling ATI card which has the slight performance edge in most games. Also this card goesn't have a fan so large it requires two slots in your PC.

 

[JosserkX]

Big neg, the Nvidia cards ( atleast the 6800 and 6800gt) need only a 300 watt power supply, take only 1 slot and run cool. Currently, the 6800 ultra indeed requires a large power supply as does the 6800UE. But hopefully, that is all to change soon. Nvidia and thier 3rd party partners have already increased the speed and lowered the power requirements of the 6800 and the GT. Time will tell about the Ultra And Ultra Extreme. Also, yes , ati is releasing new drivers to increase performance, But so far, every driver upgrade for nvidia also increases their perfomance. And yea
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2126&p=2
Only 1 slot bud.

 

[blahblahblah]

Here with these links, you can see that the Nvidia cards, even with sm2.0b implemented still out-perform the x800 in farcry. The 6800gt is better than the x800 pro HANDS DOWN. Even when you overclock it , it can sustain speeds and outperform the x800xt. They have yet to try overclocking the 6800ultra but have already tried overclocking the x800 pro, and it cannot overclock nearly as much or stay as stable as the 6800gt. The 6800gt and ultra also run cooler than the x800 core . The main reason why Doom3 runs better on the nvidia's cards is because of ultrshadow 2. This addition to the card makes it easier and faster to render paths that invlove heavy shadow. In english, the more shadows a game has, the more the nvidia will outperform the x800. As for HF2, we are seriously going to have to wait. But at the moment, the Nvidia cards lead the Ati cards and therfor, are the better buy.

Some of your points are based in facts but are twisted.

- SM2.0b is still a beta path in Far Cry. Even with a beta path, I personally notice a small performance increase. Also, the speed will increase further when the new ATI 4.8 drivers make their way out. It is supposed to meet or exceed the 6800 series of card running SM 3.0. Then wait till you add 3Dc to the mix, the X800 Pro can easily hang with the 6800 GT.

- I can overclock my X800 Pro to XT PE speeds quite easily.

- Ultra Shadow 2 - see quote below

On the other hand, the Nvidia drivers have been tuned for Doom's primary light/surface interaction fragment program, and innocuous code changes can "fall off the fast path" and cause significant performance impacts...

- There are other things, but I don't feel like writing any more. Both cards are awesome performers, but it is too early to tell which one is a better card.

 

[JosserkX]

Agreed, but if you read my last post you an look up this link

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2126&p=2

The ultra can be overclocked to speeds that surpass the 6800UE too, atleast you state the fact, both cards are awesome , that is fact. so i must say to that sir, agreed.=) . But at the moment, the 6800gt is the better buy over the x800 pro. Seriously, to say that the x800 pro is better , is quite ignorant. The Xt and ultra are too close to tell which is better, once again, agreed, its going to take some time on this one to see which one is better. On another note, has any1 tried overclocking the 6800 reg?

 

[Axyon]

Agreed, but if you read my last post you an look up this link

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2126&p=2

The ultra can be overclocked to speeds that surpass the 6800UE too, atleast you state the fact, both cards are awesome , that is fact. so i must say to that sir, agreed. =)

Wowee, the XT-PE can be overclocked further as well, you know? It's just that they didn't make a XT-PEUE because they made a fantastic card in the first place, without having to create quickly-upgraded variants.

 

[Asus]

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040705/farcry-12.html

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjM3

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/farcry20b.html

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2102

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2113

Here with these links, you can see that the Nvidia cards, even with sm2.0b implemented still out-perform the x800 in farcry. The 6800gt is better than the x800 pro HANDS DOWN. Even when you overclock it , it can sustain speeds and outperform the x800xt. They have yet to try overclocking the 6800ultra but have already tried overclocking the x800 pro, and it cannot overclock nearly as much or stay as stable as the 6800gt. The 6800gt and ultra also run cooler than the x800 core . The main reason why Doom3 runs better on the nvidia's cards is because of ultrshadow 2. This addition to the card makes it easier and faster to render paths that invlove heavy shadow. In english, the more shadows a game has, the more the nvidia will outperform the x800. As for HF2, we are seriously going to have to wait. But at the moment, the Nvidia cards lead the Ati cards and therfor, are the better buy.

All of those are using just the 2.0 path vs 3.0.
They did not enable 2.0b, sorry bud.
This is the only review so far that enabled 2.0b.

 

[JosserkX]

Indeed sir, The card is great, but i can care less of what the performance is from the day that nvidia or ati releases the specs on their cards. I care about out of the box performance and overall features. If we were to ignore this fact , then hell yes the ati cards would be better, but that isn't the case is it?

 

[Axyon]

Indeed sir, The card is great, but i can care less of what the performance is from the day that nvidia or ati releases the specs on their cards. I care about out of the box performance and overall features. If we were to ignore this fact , then hell yes the ati cards would be better, but that isn't the case is it?

May I direct you to Asus's post above.

 

[Asus]

huh?
Out of the box performannce is better on ATI cards...no 1.2 patch or 3.0 programed for games nor D3 on the shelves.
After released patches and optimized games, ATI cards still come out a head in those games, except D3.

 

[JosserkX]

Umm which review. here, let me repost
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vi.../farcry20b.html
OKay, it may be that 2.0b is still beta, and so is 3.0, both rendering paths are new. So like the dude with the wierd name stated , its too early to tell. But right now, as in 3:25 eastern time 7/26/04 , the Nvidia cards run better.

 

[JosserkX]

and ug, you guys are ignorant or something
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2113&p=18

All out of the box cards, no overclocking, all legit benchmarks, whos leads?

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjM3

another review, all out of the box, no overclocking , all legit benchmarks, who leads?

 

[Asus]

Umm which review. here, let me repost
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vi.../farcry20b.html
OKay, it may be that 2.0b is still beta, and so is 3.0, both rendering paths are new. So like the dude with the wierd name stated , its too early to tell. But right now, as in 3:25 eastern time 7/26/04 , the Nvidia cards run better.

hehe even this review shows that with 3.0 that Nvidia is no better (6800U vs X800XT PE).

The enhancements that the Digi-Life review tested are not all enabled except with the 4.8 Cat drivers which only that review tested.

We arn't talking about 12 pipelines X800 pro vs 16 pipelines 6800GT but rather the top end cards or the core in general.

 

[Axyon]

Umm which review. here, let me repost
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vi.../farcry20b.html
OKay, it may be that 2.0b is still beta, and so is 3.0, both rendering paths are new. So like the dude with the wierd name stated , its too early to tell. But right now, as in 3:25 eastern time 7/26/04 , the Nvidia cards run better.

All of those are using just the 2.0 path vs 3.0.
They did not enable 2.0b, sorry bud.
This is the only review so far that enabled 2.0b.

See it now? .

 

[JosserkX]

okay, i checked it out, and it seems that in leads, they cut 50/50. In regulator and training the geforce leads, but in volcano and research, the ati leads. The big difference i see here is that when the ati card lead, they lead by as much as 7 fps , to as where the geforce leads only by 1 or 2 fps . So you can say 2 ways, its 50/50 or the radeon leads due to the fact that in the benchmarks that the radeon surpassed the geforce, its surpassed it by many more frames that the geforce did. The only difference i saw between this link
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/farcry20b_5.html
and this one
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gffx/fc12-2.html#p2
is the test systems on teh first link were better equiped. I honestly dont believe that a small increase in proscessor and quality in ram would make the nvidia lead that much. Perhaps blahblahblah was right in saying that the cards need to be given more time in order to truly see which outperforms. But putting aside the 2.0b and 3.0 sm, the fact remains the nvidia outperforms the ati in current tests.

 

[Axyon]

But putting aside the 2.0b and 3.0 sm, the fact remains the nvidia outperforms the ati in current tests.

... What? Putting them aside, the x800 XT-PE still beats the 6800U in most tests... I'd love to see the benchmarks you're reading.

 

[Asus]

hehe yeah.
And we don't want to see PCI-Express scores on the D3 HardOCP review either. Those were very nice for the 6800 but sadly we are buying AGP here. The difference in those scores were much more mild.
And I don't count Quake3, Jedi, Wolf ET or CoD as a very big influence since its all engine repetition.

This is one review that is good for upcoming drivers since they use the newest from ATI and Nvidia.
Love those Theif 3 scores.
It's a review on that Water Cooled Golden Sample Gainward 900$ beast btw.

 

[Azrael.]

Kschreck's right, the 6800 tears up the ATi cards. And what's this nonsense about "the 6800 was built for Doom 3!"? It was not. Other way around. Doom 3 has specialized NVidia codepaths that make use of its optimizations, and none for ATi's cards (possibly as punishment for the ATi employee leaking the Doom 3 alpha). Techwise things like Pixelshader 3.0 and 32-bit floating point shaders (all of ATi's stuff is still 24-bit) mean that driver upgrades will give the NVidia cards a lot more potential. Look at how things like the Farcry patch that make use of it up performance. The 6800's are much more advanced than the X800s, and I'm expecting the DX9 performance gap to be much less than the previous generation.

Uhh, no. If you read the HardOCP article, you will realize that you are wrong. Even Carmack says otherwise. You should also read the reply from Team Radeon about the drivers. The 6800 is made for Doom3, it has SmartShader and other lighting aspects that were designed for Doom3's spectacular lighting engine. You might want to check out some benchmarks on Tom's Hardware too... lol. Oh, and one more thing, the new FarCry patch got recalled.

 

[JosserkX]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2113&p=4

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjM3

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=15&page=1117

and yes, the the x800xt Platinum Edition does outperform the 6800U, but thats common sense, Now what you should be comparing is the x800xt PE to the 6800UE.

 

[blahblahblah]

The 6800 UE isn't a production model. It's simply an OCed 6800 U. Nvidia doesn't even officially a make 6800 UE, its up to the board partners to do the marketing for it. Anyways, I don't expect we will see to many 6800 UE floating around, they are going to be a rare and expensive bird.

 

[Asus]

Yeah, the X800XT PE is a 499$ cards just like the 6800Ultra. I know a few people who have got their card for 499$ from Compusa right when they came out.
Just because the name has been refered to X800XT and then the PE label is slapped on doesn't mean it should be compared to a 800-900$ OCed card that only Gainward sells.

By your thinking, a X800XT PE should be compared to Gainward's 6800Ulra Golden Sample (which it beats in this review), then a 12pipeline X800pro shouldn't be compared to a 6800GT but to it's 299$ 12pipeline 6800 brother. 1 2 3
And that review clocks the 6800U at 450/1100 ('Golden Sample') while the 400/1100 is the 499$ 6800U.

Wait a minute, do you run a P4 for your gaming pleasure by chance? Just looking at the difference in that review.

 

[riTuaL]

Since you seem the most knowledgable Asus, my x800 pro will perform well in both games (DIII and HL2) correct? I just need a basic yes or no answer because all of this talk and news lately with the new DIII benchmarks is getting me a bit worried now. Will my x800 PRO run both games with good frame rates and high detail?

 

[Asus]

Yes of course it will.

It should be noted that all of the modern cards play the game very well, and benchmark scores should not be the be-all-end-all decision maker.

 

[riTuaL]

Ok thank you lol, that's all I needed to know

 

[JosserkX]

The Geforce 6800UE is currently in production by eVGA. It goes for 550. http://www.evga.com/6800EE/
Doesent even require a 500 watt power supply. Look, ive given you 5 different websites with different benchmarks and a lot of info. If you decide to stay Biased on ati, thats perfectly ok. Your opinion is your opinion and who am i to change it. So im going to stop cause arguing on a msg board is like the special olympics, "Even if you win, your still a retard!"

 

[Asus]

The performance impact of OCing the 6800U is very minimal.
I've read many reviews. Some showing the 6800U ahead (after the release of the new drivers), the original reviews (showing the X800XT ahead), the FarCry battle (showing a decent improvement with PS3.0 in multiple light scenes but just as great of improvement with ATI and Shader 2.0b) and then the most recent 4.8 Cat's vs Nvidia's all showing X800XT PE with top performance in what I would call the important D3D games (Those being popular, heavy on graphics or heavy use of Shaders to give an idea of future DX9 games) and then even better with AA/AF which many play with.

The 6800GT is very attractive for 400$ since it has 4 more pipelines over the current X800pro but if we are talking performance crown then we arn't talking about this price range.

So im going to stop cause arguing on a msg board is like the special olympics, "Even if you win, your still a retard!"

That is quoted quite often and is just to excuse you from your opinion. If you play CoD, quake3 or will be playing D3 all day with no DX9 games then Nvidia is the card for you but looking at all of the games the X800 does perform the best over the majority of games and is the best for AA/AF enabled.

This board already came to the conclusion that any of the newest cards will be able to play any game today at high res with AA/AF enabled. We are just talking about that little margin of performance that one card may consistantly be ahead by. Nothing serious, so it shouldn't be read that way.

 

[Asus]

Sry bout the dbl post
but you should check out the minium FPS in the link you showed earlier.
Xbitlab's Farcry with Shader 2.0b enabled.
Pretty interesting. Doesn't look too playable on either side in spots.