Yet another Gfx card thread

[Mut68]

which graphics card?

which card should i buy the NVidia GeForce FX 5700, NVidia GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon 9800 plz help me choose. i currently have geforce 4 mxx 440 lol

 

[DaGaffer]

which card should i buy the NVidia GeForce FX 5700, NVidia GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon 9800 plz help me choose. i currently have geforce 4 mxx 440 lol

Well, I'd discount the FX5700 straightaway; if you've got the money for one of the others, they're both better. After that it all gets a bit murkier; which GF6800 are you talking about, and if you've got the money for one of those, there are other, better ATI cards for similar money.

Personally I'm not that keen on the 6800, just because the damn thing's enormous, but people on here seem to dig it. I got an X800 pro, and that's working out pretty well for me

 

[xane]

The ATi Radeon 9800 Pro is still good performance for the money, but is nowhere near the higher performers the more recent games are starting to demand, mine is starting to struggle.

 

[.Wilier.]

Ive run a 6800GT against a X800 Pro in benchmarks of all the latest games, and its faily evenly matched to be honest, although Id say the GT just about took the honours.

That said, the card I tested (a Gainward golden sample) was double width and very noisy. The X800 pro (Connect 3d) is single width and virtually silent.

Both are pretty much double the cost of a 9800 Pro, but the performance gain is faily major.

Depends how much youve got to spend to be honest. Have you considered a 6600GT?

 

[Ch3tan]

I was about to suggest the same Willier. I've seen the 6600 GT run and its far better than my 9800 pro. And its fairly cheap too.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Mut68

Just to reitterate what has already been said, the GeForce 5700 Ultra, whilst better than the GeForce 440MX, isn't that great a performer. The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro offers far better performance and comes in at a reasonable price (~£95).

Of the current generation of cards, the GeForce 6600GT is a popular card for the money and supports some advanced features, and comes it at around £110 (Gigabyte do a silent version for ~£135). For a higher performance alternative, the 6800GT offers great 'bang for buck', although it costs around £220. From ATI, the x800 range offers great performance, with the x800 XL costing around £200. It's perhaps not technically superior on paper, but ATI's cards seem to have the performance advantage in many games, generally consume less power and are physically smaller in size. That said, either of ATI's or nVidia's cards offer a great experience.

Two things to note, though. Firstly, many of the new cards from both nVidia and ATI are PCI-Express based, which are incompatible with the AGP slot on your motherboard. You therefore have to make sure that whatever card you choose is AGP-based, either that or upgrade your motherboard too. Some models are now PCI-Express only, particularly with ATI.

Secondly, nVidia will launch it's next generation range this month, and ATI reportedly the month after. nVidia's partners are said to have had some of the cards for a while so hopefully this means there should be availability within a short space of time. The primary advantage of the next generation technology is its performance improvements, but naturally it costs a lot more, and traditionally only the performance variants are initally made available. Alternatively, you could purchase an older card post-launch hopefully at a lower price (like the 5700 Ultra and 9800 Pro today).

Kind Regards

 

[Lazarus]

 

[Embattle]

which card should i buy the NVidia GeForce FX 5700, NVidia GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon 9800 plz help me choose. i currently have geforce 4 mxx 440 lol

6800 out of those.

 

[Jupitus]

Since the experts are around in this thread I'll throw my question in here too.... when you folks reference the '9800 Pro' is there more than 1 variant that this could mean? I bought a 9800 Pro a while ago on what seemed to be a cheap deal (135 quid about a year ago) and I think it is struggling a bit now coping with WoW graphics (which I don't think it should)... If there are variants of the card I might have, how can I find out which one I have please?

Thanks

 

[Natswoo]

As title says:
I'm about to get WoW, and the card I got atm is pathetic (Geforce Fx5200)
This plagued my DAOC playing for long enough and finally i've decided to get a new one.

Budget is tight at about £150 but has to be AGP...

I've looked at 6800LE and 6600 GT, which on paper seems to be favourable, but my computer knowledge lacks severely in comparison with some people who use this site, so any info would be apreciated

 

[Ch3tan]

Checked your drivers and things Jup? I'm running Wow on a 9800 pro at 1920*1200 with no problems.

edit:// let me clarify "things", are you running with stupidly high AA, and ansiotrpic settings?

 

[throdgrain]

No offence but a 9800pro, although a good card in its day, is a generation behind the latest stuff at least. Indeed, arguably two generations soon.
My 15 year old son has my old one in his pc

 

[.Wilier.]

....and my 6yr old daughter has a5700 Ultra in hers


BTW Jup, I seem to recall that Saphire did indeed release a 'lite' version of the 9800 pro which went down like a lead balloon. It was similar in spec to the 'le' Nvidia cards ie. it had leters after its name but was actually a vanilla 9800 with a tad quicker ram.

Chances are that your card isnt a Saphire board at all, and that my memory has failed me 'cos Im old and stupid.

 

[xane]

The price difference on 9800 Pro "variants" is normally down to the VRAM (128MB or 256MB) or if they have a double-slot ICE cooler/fan, I think the chipset is always the same and should yeild similar performance.

As is said, the 9800 Pro, although cheap, is not going to cope very well with the next crop of games.

 

[Vae]

Since the experts are around in this thread I'll throw my question in here too.... when you folks reference the '9800 Pro' is there more than 1 variant that this could mean? I bought a 9800 Pro a while ago on what seemed to be a cheap deal (135 quid about a year ago) and I think it is struggling a bit now coping with WoW graphics (which I don't think it should)... If there are variants of the card I might have, how can I find out which one I have please?

Thanks

Bah Jup you should consider yourself lucky. I'm running Wow on a GF Ti4200 with no problems

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

Jupitus

If you post the exact name of your card we can check Otherwise, check that antialiasing (AA) and antisotrophic filtering (AF) settings as Ch3tan suggested. The former helps to reduce jagged edges in scenes, whilst the latter preserves image quality where textures fade off into the distance. Both improve image quality but can really hit performance. Usually 2x AA and 2x AF as a starting pointing works okay. Other than that, check that texture detail isn't ramped up too high, particularly if you have a 128MB card and around 512MB of system RAM. Finally, just check the other usual suspects, such as in-game model detail, the resolution you're running at etc. I don't play WoW so I'm unable to give any specifics I'm afraid.

As for the card itself, there have long been some variations floating around. Usually each generation has a performance, mainstream and value solution (e.g. nVidia's n800/n600/n200, ATI's n800, n600 (n500), n300 (n200)). Within each bracket there are presently Ultra/GT/non-Ultra/LE variants of nVidia's cards, and XT PE/XT/Pro/non-Pro/XE variants of ATI's cards. Whilst some manufacturers border on deliberately misleading consumers, most stick to this rough formula. Chances are if you bought a 9800 Pro then it will be just that, a standard 9800 Pro. Later on came 256MB variants and some 'Lite' versions with no game bundles, but as far as I know most 9800 Pros never had their RAM or core downclocked, nor pipelines disabled, either of which would hamper performance. Anyway, like I say, if you know the exact name of the card it's always possible to check the details if the above performance suggestions don't solve anything (have you tried the Catalyst 5.6 drivers?).

Natswoo

Either of those cards sound like a good buy. Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) ATI's partners have more strongly adopted PCI-Express meaning their range of AGP cards is now a little limited. Anyway, either the 6600GT and 6800LE would perform well, and I don't believe there is all that much performance difference despite the differ names. I know of one Gigabyte 6600GT which not only offers performance improvements but is also silently cooled, so it's supposed to be rather cool (note that silently cooled cards tend to run hotter than others so they're not always suitable for all systems).

Kind Regards

 

[Jupitus]

Thanks guys - the settings ingame have been ramped down quite a bit (due to lag) so I'll check the other details tonight. I haven't tried the very latest driver set yet, I am on the previous set, so I'll likely try that also.

 

[Escape]

I ran WoW on a GF2(32MB) and it was fine!

Using an x800XL, the only graphics option which made any difference was the view distance. I'd focus on that if you're tweaking settings!

It's ctrl+r to bring up your FPS, iirc.

 

[Jupitus]

Ok... from Dxdiag the video details are as follows:

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: RADEON 9800 PRO
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON 9800 PRO AGP (0x4E48)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E48&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1152 x 864 (32 bit) (75Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6525 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 3/23/2005 04:01:17, 225280 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
Mini VDD Date: 3/23/2005 04:00:57, 1034752 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-0D08-11CF-CF6A-0820A1C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x4E48
SubSys ID: 0x00021002
Revision ID: 0x0000
Revision ID: 0x0000
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D
Deinterlace Caps: {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{552C0DAD-CCBC-420B-83C8-74943CF9F1A6}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,2) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
D3D7 Test Result: Not run
D3D8 Test Result: Not run
D3D9 Test Result: Not run

I found in the display adapter settings that it was using 'application preference for anti aliasing etc, so I am going to disable both and see what difference it makes

 

[Jonty]

Hi Jup

By the looks of it you do indeed have a standard 9800 Pro, and judging by your resolution it ought to play WoW without too much trouble. Application preference for antialiasing and antistrophic filtering simply means it defers to any application settings rather than forcing the same settings for every game. As I say, I don't play WoW so I can't advise on specfics, but draw distance, texture quality, and model detail are the usual suspects for slow performance, as has been said.

Sorry I can't be of more help

Jonty

P.S. Does the rest of your system meet WoW's requirements?

 

[Jupitus]

P4 2.6 with HT Intel
800 MHz FSB
2x512 matched RAM

... should be ok

 

[Natswoo]

Just realised what i'd done.. sorry for hyjacking thread... meant to post my own thx anyways

 

[.Wilier.]

Just realised what i'd done.. sorry for hyjacking thread... meant to post my own thx anyways

You actually did post your own, but it I moved it since the subjects were exactly the same, it seemed daft to have everyone double posting in two threads.

 

[Mut68]

thx for all the help guys think ill go 4 the GeForce 6800 GT thx 4 all the help