Upgrade? If so...

[Mosad]

Hello everyone. I currently have a shuttle with a 9800xt... and i am considering the upgrade. My reasons are as follows: I can sell my 9800xt to my best friend for 200 dollars, which means no online dealings. The price on the 9800xt will plummet soon i fear, and i may as well get the 200, no? Also, as PCIe will come out in a few months... and become mainstream in about a year... i plan on upgrading in a year and half or so my entire rig... and therefore might as well upgrade the card now, no?

First of all, if you agree/disagree/care to comment on the above stated logic, PLEASE do... i would highly appreciate all help and advice.


Now, if i was to upgrade i am almost decided on the 6800GT, as it leaves the most room for upgrading in the future, i.e. overclockability. Yet, the variety is so great, i need help in assessing which would exact product i would benefir the most form. I too lean towards the Dual DVI option, which, as i see it, leaves the most room for future upgradability in the future (another LCD, perhaps a monitor that requirse dual dvi, who knows)... in this department, only the xfx need apply i believe, as the gainward is far too thick to fit into my case...

Here i post my second question: WHICH? Should i opt for the xfx? It currently runs for 409 at Newegg, which is the preferable company in my opinion.


I am eager to learn. PLEASE DO ADVICE, CRITICIZE, HELP, ASSIST, SHARE! anything is appreciated!

THANK YOU ALL IN ADVANCE

 

[dc5]

in my oppinion, it's not worth the extra hassle/money to go from 9800xt to 6800gt. the 9800xt is still a very good card.

 

[EightySix Four]

Well, depends, I would do the upgrade, as that card can in general handle 1600x1200 w/ everything maxed out, and a radeon 9800xt would choke up on those res's

 

[Renob]

in my oppinion, it's not worth the extra hassle/money to go from 9800xt to 6800gt. the 9800xt is still a very good card.


I think its worth every penny on the upgrade, I just went from a 9800pro flashed to an XT and it is like night and day trying to compare the cards.


The 6800GT is a Beast with Great IQ so much better Image Quality then my ATI card.

 

[Megatomic]

I'm hoping to be upgrading to a 6800GT from a 9800 Pro soon myself. As Renob and crazySOB297 said, it is worth it to upgrade if you want to use higher res. with AA and AF. And Bestbuy.com has the BFG 6800GT OC for $399. That card comes with a lifetime warranty making it the best deal I know of right now.

 

[Mosad]

thank you all very much for such quick and helpful responses. Now, i may ask, what do you think of Dual DVI? and XFX for that matter? Everyone says BFG is excellent... but for the same price i can buy Dual DVI... also, i heard that the new version of the BFG, with dual fans, is not manufactured with the same quality standard...

Again, your thoughts are highly appreciated

 

[Megatomic]

Well, honestly, dual DVI is meaningless to me. I don't even have use for one now. And I have never used an XFX product so I can't speak to their quality. As for BFG, I have never heard that their newer cards are of lower quality. It can only hurt them as they have a lifetime warranty. If the card fails early they replace it. I say that takes the pressure off of us as consumers.

 

[Mosad]

yea... bfg's guarantee is appealing... yet i have to decide on the importance of dual dvi... which will be heavily swayed by the input i receive from the members of this forum

 

[ponyo]

Are you sure your shuttle can handle the power requirement of 6800GT?

 

[Mosad]

Yes, on that point i am almost positive.

Anyone else?

 

[CHfan4ever]

Ok why choose the 6800gt over you 9800xt:If you like to play in high resolution,get pixel shader 3.0,and have a little bost in performance.I switch from my 9800 pro to my xfx 6800gt and notice a small boost when playing in 1024.You wont be blowned away.BUT when u decide to play in 1280+ or turn on more AA/AF then yes the card can handle some more option the 9800 cannot achieve.Yes i did the move,i dont regret it, but im not totally blowned away.I might change my mind tho when ill switch from my athlon 2500xp to a athlon 64 3200

2)Why i choose over the XFX over other brand:ASUS:2 power connector scared me.LEADTEK:The fan look like a transformer lol, that scared me a bit,BFG:After reading on this board, i read a lot of people conplaining about card frying etc, so that scared me.Also the lifetime warranty for me was just an exsuse imo to attract more customer to buy their card.Giving a soo big warranty mean imo that the compagny wasent confident in their product by knowing their product well.They cant tell you if their card is going to hold for 2 month, 6 month a year? They dont know.And they had to offer that because they were offering a "overclocked" product.That, just scared me.

My experience so far with my XFX?Flawless.No crash.All games work fine.No driver to install /uninstalled for xxx game etc( my radeon 9800 pro gave me these problem, had to switch to 4.2 catalyst for kotor, 4.8 for doom3,3.8 for eq etc etc )

Im happy, but if you just have like $400 buck to spend atm, my no.1 choice would have been to upgrade for my amd athlon xp 2500 to a 3200 athlon 64 instead of switching my card.

I didnt made a bad choice since im going after both upgrade, but if you can only afford one, the higher cpu can help you way more imo for now than those new card, if you dont mind to play your game still in 1024x768

 

[Mosad]

wow. wow. that was perhaps one of the most comprehensive responses i have ever received... and i thank you greatly for it... really, thanks a lot.

I do propose two more questions however... to you and the rest of the anandtech community:

Noise issues with the XFX (i have heard these reported) and whether or not you think Dual DVI is a good investment?

 

[CHfan4ever]

Your welcome

Noise issues? No.When i boot my pc for the first time, i heard the fan spinning more, but it seem to lower itself a down after like 10 seconds.Same noise level as my old 9800 pro.

And as for dual dvi well i got no clue what is this haha.Notice tho that there is no vivo on my card,which other compagny might have,but i dont care, i play my pc games on my monitor, not on tv.

If you tried lots of card in the past to give you an idea of the performance boost, think switching from hmmm a ti 4600 to a 9600 pro.No big difference, but when u set a few option up and there, yeah you start enjoying your investment.

Its not like from switching from ti 4600 to a radeon 9800 pro( god here there is a lot of difference )

what is dual dvi anyway btw haha

 

[Mosad]

rather than having one dvi slot on yoru card, and one vga... you have two dvi and one tv out.... and what does VIVO stand for exactly?

By the way... the xfx dual dvi card is the one that ends in AUD... not AUA... look it up on newegg youll see it

 

[ponyo]

I wish my BFG 6800GT had dual DVI. It would be useful in the future when I pick up another LCD.

As for performance of 6800GT, it's like night and day if you use high resolution like 1600x1200. I only pretty much play at that res since I run both of my monitors at that resolution. It pretty much doubles the performance of my previous 9800 pro and FX5950 U at that resolution and makes everything playable. If you don't consider that huge leap in performance, I don't know what to tell you. If you game at 1024x768, of course you won't notice much difference if any at all with most games. Why bother buying such expensive card if you run that low res? That money would be better spent buying a better monitor.

 

[iversonyin]

this question come up all the time. its the matter of how much income you get and the amount of time you spend on gaming.

i came up with this general formula in term of upgrading video card:
the increase in income and increase in gaming time = upgrade
no income and increase in gaming time = no upgrade
income stay the same and increase in gaming = upgrade

as you can see, your income and gaming time has direct impact on ability and choices you make toward your video card upgrade

hahah, as far as I'm concern, we should see whats your computer capable of first

 

[Mosad]

Check my Sig for my System specs

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: dc5
in my oppinion, it's not worth the extra hassle/money to go from 9800xt to 6800gt. the 9800xt is still a very good card.

If he can sell the 9800xt for $200 and 6800GTs can be found for $380. So for $180 you get a card that can play virtually any game at 1280x1024 4AA/8AF and most games at 1600x1200 4AA/8AF, something 9800xt can only dream of. 9800xt gets the same frames as 6800GT WITHOUT any of the IQ settings enabled.

if you play games and want to have smooth Doom 3, HL2, Far Cry experience, 6800GT is a Huge step up.

It doesnt make sense to step up from 9700Pro to 9800xt for extra 30% improvement. 6800GT improves by 2x in games framerates wise, and it runs smoothly while achieving better IQ. This is a no brainer. Later in 1.5 years, you can just upgrade to PCI-e ready motherboard, dual-core cpu and R600 or NV60.

Review 1
Review 2

DualDvi is only worth it if you'll run 2 LCDs. I think it's fair to say that if you were going to run 2 LCDs you wouldnt even be contemplaiting whether or not you would upgrade to a card 2x as fast for $180. 2 Good LCD monitors are going to be 600 a piece US. Is that investment worth it for yoU? I'd rather get a larger LCD monitor than 2 smaller LCDs.

For everyone who said 6800GT isnt a big upgrade from 9800 series cards, you have to realize that if you are going to buy a high end card and not use AA/AF and play at 1024x768, then there is no point in buying 6800GT. It is not the card's fault that you dont maximize the product's performance. That is like buying a Lamborghini and driving it at the speed limit and saying you dont notice much improvement over your Corvette.

 

[CHfan4ever]

Originally posted by: Naustica
I wish my BFG 6800GT had dual DVI. It would be useful in the future when I pick up another LCD.

As for performance of 6800GT, it's like night and day if you use high resolution like 1600x1200. I only pretty much play at that res since I run both of my monitors at that resolution. It pretty much doubles the performance of my previous 9800 pro and FX5950 U at that resolution and makes everything playable. If you don't consider that huge leap in performance, I don't know what to tell you. If you game at 1024x768, of course you won't notice much difference if any at all with most games. Why bother buying such expensive card if you run that low res? That money would be better spent buying a better monitor.

Exactly what iv said.If you play in 1024x768, dont bother getting this.NO really difference.Me i grab that card because i LOVE to play my games in widescreen format (1280x768)I dont really lose framerate and im able to play in the sharpness of the widescreen format.

Originally posted by: Mosad
rather than having one dvi slot on yoru card, and one vga... you have two dvi and one tv out.... and what does VIVO stand for exactly?

By the way... the xfx dual dvi card is the one that ends in AUD... not AUA... look it up on newegg youll see it

vivo is video in video out. and my card have dvi but not dual dvi. http://www.pccyber.com/scrItem...26&product_id=3686 its where i bought it from.

 

[Mosad]

wow you got ripped off man... i can get mine for 400 with doom 3 for free

 

[SourTimes]

I bought an XFX 6800 GT last week, and have been just starting with it this weekend. ( I have been playing with it all weekend so far ) I originally had bought a Leadtek 6800GT, it was a flawed card, with the color corruption and system hang problems that have been mentioned with the GTs. I had intended to get one of the new BFG 6800s myself, but ended up getting an XFX, as the store was out of stock on the BFGs. BTW I have the Dual DVI version, not that I use it, just ended up with one. . I bought mine from bigfootcomputers.com they are a store in my town (Toronto, Canada) Cost me $599 Canadian. Came with Doom 3 as well. One thing to note, some of these XFX cards, mine included, for some reason come with the memory clocked at 900mhz not 1000Mhz. Some don't though. Not sure how you know ether way. I've put mine up to 1000 with no problem at all. And the card has run fine at 400/1000 as well. Although I keep it at 350/1000. Have not really found the need for the overclock . It seems to be a good solid card, I have not yet had any issue at all with it. Runs everything great at 1600x1200 with everything on, d3, cs:source etc. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I have it matched with an a64 3500. The cards fan is audible, but I would say I can hear my zalman over it when it turns up high anyway. Nothing excessively loud. I'm not sure if the underclocked memory is on purpose or was a mistake or what. But it runs perfectly well here at stock gt speed. And like I said some cards are like this, some are not. Who knows why I would recommend the card. And would repeat the purchase again, given the option.

 

[CHfan4ever]

Originally posted by: SourTimes
I bought an XFX 6800 GT last week, and have been just starting with it this weekend. ( I have been playing with it all weekend so far ) I originally had bought a Leadtek 6800GT, it was a flawed card, with the color corruption and system hang problems that have been mentioned with the GTs. I had intended to get one of the new BFG 6800s myself, but ended up getting an XFX, as the store was out of stock on the BFGs. BTW I have the Dual DVI version, not that I use it, just ended up with one. . I bought mine from bigfootcomputers.com they are a store in my town (Toronto, Canada) Cost me $599 Canadian. Came with Doom 3 as well. One thing to note, some of these XFX cards, mine included, for some reason come with the memory clocked at 900mhz not 1000Mhz. Some don't though. Not sure how you know ether way. I've put mine up to 1000 with no problem at all. And the card has run fine at 400/1000 as well. Although I keep it at 350/1000. Have not really found the need for the overclock . It seems to be a good solid card, I have not yet had any issue at all with it. Runs everything great at 1600x1200 with everything on, d3, cs:source etc. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I have it matched with an a64 3500. The cards fan is audible, but I would say I can hear my zalman over it when it turns up high anyway. Nothing excessively loud. I'm not sure if the underclocked memory is on purpose or was a mistake or what. But it runs perfectly well here at stock gt speed. And like I said some cards are like this, some are not. Who knows why I would recommend the card. And would repeat the purchase again, given the option.

scuse me my noobeeness but how do i check the clock on my card??? Im not an overclocker as you can see

 

[Mosad]

wow... anandtech is amazing... no where else have i received such quick, descriptive, and didactic responses. I thank you very much.

Now, what did you use to overclock? How did you find out the clock speeds on your card?

 

[Subhuman25]

Some card manufacturers include a program with their driver package where you can check and adjust the GPU core & Vdimm speeds.My MSI Ti-4400 128mb had this.
My newer eVGA 6800GT however doesn't.
Coolbits is the OC interface of choice for those that don't already have it.

 

[Mosad]

Thanks. I wonder if XFX comes with this interface..