3dfx came out with their voodoo 5500?? which required a nuclear plant to power them and 2 pci slots, guess what happened to them.

is it wise to jump on the 32-bit rendering when people say you can hardly notice 16-bit and 24-bit color.

i think you might see Big Blue take on ATI next time round

I have a Voodoo 5500 in my 750 mhz machine I use for server testing. Only takes 1 slot if you got the AGP version. Runs great.

Dale you seem a bit to byass with Nvidia,

however ATi has had Great products and you dont know if they were getting lazy because you dont work for them 4 years in a row ever since our little friend the 9700 pro showed up in the ring Nvidia has been struggling to get off thats why they were so quick into making killing misktakes with their FX series starting with the 5800. My 4200ti could beat the 5200 in many test and sure did!! If its drivers you say will make the difference for Nvidia this time because i dont know about you but recently most of my D3D games like Hitman Contracts and Ut2k4 have been freezing while in play. So anyone can argue that both companies have driver issues but its the card that counts and i think in my opinon that ATi will come out on top only because Nvidia plans to work off their new chip while the 420 series is just a remake of the 350 series still carrying 24bit arch. and 2.0 pixel shaders while and Nvidia carries 32 and 3.0 ofcourse because this is their new chip. Allowing them to make mistakes while ATi just sits back and watches before they release thier 480 which is their totally new redesigned chip and wacthing Nvidia make mistakes.
However of course this is just my opinion and i respect yours.
peace
Nuff said
somba.inc
"seeing both perspectives is the only way to slove an agurement"

Naturally theres more to drivers 4 running a decent system. Nevertheless, theres really not a great deal of point bagging out the FX (particularly the smaller grades). I run a basic 2ghz sytem with an evil fx5200 but i still run close to all games decently including farcry and watnot without having to waste money on upgrading that really isnt going to create a giant difference, at least for another year while games and processors catch up to graphics cards. Look at system configuration before you spend over $250 on a new card. Nor is there a giant need to reuire full detial on every little section of a game. In all seriousness, unless you really need antialiasing theres really no point clogging up your GPU for the smallest details imaginable. I personally think these new series of stepping stone cards will be nothing but bragging material for the next year at least

________ I would be careful to what card your buying______________

I have been reading the test results for the x800 pro the 6800 U as I have a selling policy to check out all the goods making sure there "good enough" to be sold by me..
Price wise the x800 PRO wins hands down, but with the X800 chip set being of the old R420 i would be considering the R5xx type chip if I wanted a new GPU. i am wondering, as its not been to clear which card has which chip, there is difference by manufacture, and card model extensions type. (XT, PRO, Plat edition)
but it seams as the Plat is the better card from the range (at first glance)

to match bang for buck, it would be the x800. as Ive not seen to many cards up for sale and limits made for the sale of the top end X800 card being around 11k. I would expect this will be from the cards being re-releaced later this year with the new chip set making the card, even better.

from what i have seen the X800 gives you an extra 50 % on the 9800 XT card
with the balance of the card being close but not close enough for me to say that the X800 is a card which is the best of great.

Conclusion:

If you want to step up your Graphics card from a 9800 XT then its not a bad move. If your looking for a great graphics card, you will still have to wait, if you cant, you should consider the 6800 U graphics card.

I would like to say, the X800 XT is a top margin with the 6800u but there is a difference which match the 6800 and x800 on all bench test however there are both high and low results form the cards making them not equal performer on different games how ever the most part you will not see any difference between most games you will be playing this year.
Keep your eyes out for the x800 plat ed. as this would be a better option. than the other X800 cards. but i would wait on this one till later in the year for the X800 R5xx chipsets to see how they perform before making a final decision.

It is my understanding that the next core out will be the mods on the 420 and then the 480. The 5xx series isn't due out until next year based on what I have been able to find out through reading and talking with friends.

As for the designations of the various cards I believe that the Platinum designation is just a term specific to the HIS company and not an official Radeon suffix identifier. The "official" identifiers for the Radeon series of cards are SE, NON-PRO or no suffix, PRO, and XT. Various other suppliers have come up with thier own superlative identifiers such as HIS's Platinum and Sapphire's Ultimate but they are not official, widely accepted, or well defined.

With the NVidia series of cards you have a similar situation in that the accepted suffix identifiers are LE, no suffix and Ultra but you will also see individual companies adding there own identifiers. XT for instance, on an NVidia card, usually means nothing or is even used instead of the lower rated LE suffix.

Performance wise I still believe that either card is a good product and that if you compare the top 6800Ultra with the top X800XT you will get similar numbers and almost equal in game performance when compared over a broad spectrum of games and game engines. I like the ATI card because I already have an ATI and it is a single slot solution with less power consumption than the NVidia 6800 Ultra. A lot of users tho won't care about the double slot issue or the extra power consumption and for them the NVidia 6800 Ultra is going to look more attractive than it does to me.

I don't think you can cite driver differences between the two cards any longer. Both ATI Catalyst and NVidia Detonator or Forceware drivers are well supported and relatively easy to install. Neither is bug free and both are getting better all the time.

For those that are calling these latest cards stepping stones and trying to make a case for waiting till the next big thing comes along I have to differ. It has been a long time since any graphic card came out that completely doubled performance over the last generation and if ever there was a good reason to upgrade these current cards definately make the case. I bought a 9800 Pro about 8 months ago and I plan to buy an ATI X800XT as soon as they are available.

In the end tho, these are just video cards we are talking about and not life and death decisions so lets try and not be quite so hostile over this thread.

Peace,

EB

well it was about time that ATI took the Top actually, it should open new avenues for gamers cause u dont have to buy from just 1 vid card company.

anymore to get great performance

Well all I have to say is Im going with ATI this time. I bought one of those GeForceFX 5900 Ultra's and this thing has been a nightmare ever since. First I need a new power supply, then my hard drive crashed because the damn thing kept rebooting because of not enough power. They never bothered to tell you what exactly power supply you needed! To much work, I just wanted it for games!

Then they said the exact same thing before, it needs driver updates. Well here we are, months later, still no real driver updates! The thing still doesnt look as good as the 9700Pro I had installed. Loud as hell of course. Doesnt sound as bad as the dust buster FX, but It can compete! Games still run bad as far as Im concerned, only the ones "specifcally" designed for Nvidia or whatever the hell that means, and I dont really care, I just want it to run well.

So basically Nvidia has another card, where we have to wait AGAIN for updated drivers in order to use the card to its potential, proboly gonna take another 6 months, then they will have their next card...blah blah blah...you know the rest. ATI's card may or may not have headroom, or the potential to grow, but you get what you pay for now! Not 6 months down the road, when your just gonna buy a new card again anyway.

So ATI has my vote this time, because Nvidia just doesn't have it right. Everytime I buy a Nvidia card that is "supposed" to be the best card turns out to be a puff of smoke...we shall see...

The Way Its Meant To Be Played, is truly a sales gimmick.