ATI vs Nvidia

[imported_Slash]

http://shop.ati.com/searchresults.asp?dept_id=39

I can buy a 6600gt loaded for the same money as a 6800. In the reviews everyone seems to put it "6800 will beat the 6600 hands down". I know the 6600 doesnt support aa af or I missed it in the spec sheet. The 6600gt also is using the ddr3 mamory and a faster core clock which should also run cooler, have to mention the bridge pcie to agp. Is the 6800 a little over rated perhaps? The 6800 only has a 300 to 325mhz core clock and ddr memory with a 256 bit interface whoopi!

Just returned a gigabyte (n66128d 6600) which ran farcry awesome with everything cranked up. The issue I had was the screen would blank out and I would get on a cold boot the screen just running 100 mph diag.. On both these situations I had to reset to get it to stop. All these troubles started the day after installing. Figured bad memory and other quality control issues.

Never owned an ATI card before should I indulge since thats a super buy?

 

[StrangerGuy]

Are you having a AGP or a PCIe based system?

 

[imported_Slash]

Agp!

 

[happy medium]

I think it all depends on how much you want to spend
6600gt $151.00 but slower than the 6800nu $155.00 but slower than the $200.00 x800pro and a x800xl is on sale at comp-usa for 250.00 but you can get a 6800gt for 265.00 and overclock it to ultra speeds. See what i'm saying. Hope this helps.

edit: if you were happy with the 6600gt's performance just grab a 6800 for 5 bucks more and enjoy

 

[imported_Slash]

Originally posted by: Ultramags
I think it all depends on how much you want to spend
6600gt $151.00 but slower than the 6800nu $155.00 but slower than the $200.00 x800pro and a x800xl is on sale at comp-usa for 250.00 but you can get a 6800gt for 265.00 and overclock it to ultra speeds. See what i'm saying. Hope this helps.

edit: if you were happy with the 6600gt's performance just grab a 6800 for 5 bucks more and enjoy

I see then the ati wont overclock like the nvidia.

 

[happy medium]

The 6800gt overclocks better than the x800xl yes.
the x800pro overclocks but is still slower than the 6800gt or x800xl because its only a 12 pipe card vs 16 for the gt\xl

 

[imported_Slash]

Thanks!

Do you expect the nvidia cards prices to drop with the introduciton of the 7800's?

 

[mindgam3]

Originally posted by: Ultramags
The 6800gt overclocks better than the x800xl yes.
the x800pro overclocks but is still slower than the 6800gt or x800xl because its only a 12 pipe card vs 16 for the gt\xl

You forgot to mention you can mod most x800pros to xt cards so i would say they overclock quite well .

 

[imported_Slash]

Do you own one mindgam3?
Anything else you can mention about ati cards?

I have been nvidia for a long time but I have one bad experience with a new gigabyte card and now I feel iffy about the 6600's and will now go with 6800 evga nvidia but I will only do that after I have learned more about the ati cards. They come with a 3 year warranty but after 3 years who wants to keep it, they're out dated at best!

 

[hans030390]

if you want to keep the card for a couple years, get a 6800

if you plan on upgrading in a year, get an x800

 

[imported_Slash]

I am going to get a 6800 evga, that should work it out for a couple of years!

 

[johnnqq]

x800 pro.

 

[thirdchild]

Say, I've got a similar question. I'll be building an all purpose computer soon, and wondering if anyone has thoughts on how the x800 compare to 6800 in 2d work (aka Photoshop) and playing dvds... I've heard that ATI was better for both, but that was years ago.

 

[gsellis]

If you have ordered, you have not made a mistake. If you have not, consider your tasks. In General (really, in general, not always), ATI is faster with DirectX and nVidia is faster with OpenGL. MS plays with them both at the high-end, so either is a good choice.

I would go with an ATI card because one of my main apps is more effective with ATI (my second works better with DirectX over OpenGL too, but nVidia seems to do better for some subtasks). You probably do not do the same things I do, so nVidia might be a better solution with a 6800 series.

 

[danklumpp]

If you're AGP, go with the 6800nu, and try to unlock the extra pipelines.

 

[volrathy]

think of it this way a 6800 vannila is a 256 bit core chip
a 6600gt is a 128 bit core chip.

This is similiar to a athlon xp 3200 which is a 32 bit cpu that runs at 2.2ghz sure its quicker in the ghz department but the 3000 64 bit chip which runs at a slower ghz speed actually runs quicker.

Just because a 6600GT has better ghz speed then a 6800 doesn't mean that it will run quicker.