Prices GFFX & Radeon 9700 Pro

[Embattle]

It seems Komplett have published prices for both the 5800 & 5800 Ultra from Gainward:

Gainward GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 128MB DDR AGP, "Ultra/1000 Plus GS" m/lyd & 1394 - £431.34

Gainward GeForce FX 5800 128MB DDR2 AGP, "Ultra/800 Plus GS", Retail - £329.42

However while these are too expensive for many it seems the price of the Radeon 9700Pro is already coming down:

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.asp?imodule=CTV9700P128A28

By the time you actually get hold of the GFFX I wouldn't be surprised if you could pick up 9700 Pro for £200.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

I've been quoted $399 for the top one from a US store which is a pretty decent price, especially if I can get it through customs as a gift.

 

[Embattle]

Yeah not bad, how much is P&P?

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

No idea, I'll be getting a friend to buy it out there and post it. I'd guess less than 5 quid.

 

[Happy Go Lucky]

I saw the vanilla fx card for £350 in the latest issue of pc gamer, sold by special reserve at the back, it was a sparkle card with 256 Mb ddrII RAM

 

[adams901]

well I hope it can handle antialaising better than the GEforce 4 can

 

[Happy Go Lucky]

my ti4600 gets the same 3D Mark 2001 with 4x AA on, as without it. I can happily play RTCW @1024x768 with 4x AA on.

/offtopic

Is Quincunx better or worse than 4x AA, and whats so special about the directX only 4xS ?

Is anisotropic filtering worth enabling?

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Happy Go Lucky
my ti4600 gets the same 3D Mark 2001 with 4x AA on, as without it. I can happily play RTCW @1024x768 with 4x AA on.

/offtopic

Is Quincunx better or worse than 4x AA, and whats so special about the directX only 4xS ?

Is anisotropic filtering worth enabling?

You shouldn't get the same 3DMark at all with AA enabled.

It goes:

2x AA
Quincunx
4x AA
4xS

 

[Jonty]

Just going back to the original post, Special Reserve (not a favourite of mine, it has to be said) are selling a Sparkle GeForce FX Ultra 5800 256Mb DDR-II RAM for £329.99 inc. VAT. It seems they have the list price wrong. Either that, or Sparkle are producing relatively cheap cards. The page doesn't actually say it's 5800 Ultra (I think it was created prior to the proper names being announced) but the specs make it clear that's what you're getting.

Anyway, the page is here . . . http://uk.special.reserve.co.uk/rev...ARKLE_GEFORCE_FX_GRAPHICS_CARD_FOR_PC&af=cc80 You can even get interest free credit if you're strapped for cash And, should they realise what appears to be a mistake with it's pricing, I'm sure they would honour the price for all preorders.

Kind Regards

 

[adams901]

Originally posted by Happy Go Lucky
my ti4600 gets the same 3D Mark 2001 with 4x AA on, as without it. I can happily play RTCW @1024x768 with 4x AA on

My experience with benchmarks is that the score you get has NO relation to the performance you get in a game, usually the benchmark will not take into account whether you have antialaising on or off as it usually uses its own settings.

I only have experience of trying to play BF1942 with antialaising on and I can tell you the FPS are terrible, and my computer is more than capable of handling the most complex game with full details on

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Happy Go Lucky
Is Quincunx better or worse than 4x AA, and whats so special about the directX only 4xS ?
Is anisotropic filtering worth enabling?

As Embattle says, Quincunx is effectively equal to a high-standard 2x AA but without the performance hit you'd expect. It's specific to nVidia cards alone, unlike the standard 2x AA methods.

4xS, and it's big brother 8xS, are just like 4x and 8x AA, but with nowhere near the performance hit (this is truly impressive nVidia engineering at work). It essentially functions by using special code. However, this code only works properly in DirectX, as OpenGL 1.3 (and 2.0, it would seem) have extremely specific requirements on what you can and cannot do in terms of AA, hence this fancy code is not compatible with the OpenGL standards (you can still use normal 4x and 8x AA, just expect a larger speed decrease).

Anisotropic filtering is probably worth having on, as it keeps textures sharp instead of allowing them to blur as they stretch off into the distance. The only problem is speed. 2x AF is fairly negligible in terms of the speed difference, but doesn't make all that much noticeable difference to how things look. Crank it up to 4x, 6x even 8x and then you'll really be able to spot the difference. However, as with FSAA, the higher you go the more passes and computations your card has to make of the same scene, which can really strain a system.

That's probably just confused you, I know it has me Hope it helped in some small way, though.

Edit - This BoogleTech Page should explain things nicely