What is the best graphics card?

Ryuoko

i been snooping around for cards and such, and this one keeps on popping up as being the best! 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X800 XT. is it really the best? see... i need a card that can play all the latest games.

On a other note, if i wanted to .. oh say do multi task with my computer, what kind of mods should it have? what do task do you ask? well.. like
burning a dvd cd and be playin different games all at the same time.. without lagging. what should i do?

Töpher

You could always get a 6800 GT and overclock it to and beyond 6800 Ultra speeds, it's about €100 cheaper, and would perform the same, if not better (depending on the game) as the x800XT. Benchmarks between then x800 series and 6800 series need to be VERY recent to be of any use, as both companies are releasing new drivers/betas all the time, which are extracting more performance from the cards and can change benchmark results significantly.

For multitasking a Pentium 4 processor is the way to go, apparently (me does nay have one! ), but they are generally regarded as the best for this aspect of computing.

KdjaCL

Best usually means what card runs the latest games the best and atm its the 6800 Hyper turbo OCed to the max version. Its whomping the Atis in Doom 3 in all benchmarks and as Doom 3 is the latest and bestest looking game ever. It means Nvidia winning atm.

Althought the 6800 may run other games crap ,when it comes to games you assume if your card runs well at the latest game it will run all before it even better.

kdjac

BadCharlie

Make sure you have the right motherboard before you buy a 256MB PCI Express card.

jesus_thats_gre

KdjaC wrote:

Best usually means what card runs the latest games the best and atm its the 6800 Hyper turbo OCed to the max version. Its whomping the Atis in Doom 3 in all benchmarks and as Doom 3 is the latest and bestest looking game ever. It means Nvidia winning atm.

Althought the 6800 may run other games crap ,when it comes to games you assume if your card runs well at the latest game it will run all before it even better.

kdjac

This only applies to Doom 3 though. The opposite will apply with Half Life 2, i.e. ATI cards perfrom better. Either of ATI's or Nvidea's top of the range cards will do the job.

RicardoSmith

Einst&#252 wrote: »

.....
For multitasking a Pentium 4 processor is the way to go, apparently (me does nay have one! ), but they are generally regarded as the best for this aspect of computing.

A Dual CPU system will be more effective than a P4 system at multitasking.

IF you are buying a new graphics card make sure you have a motherboard that supports it.

KdjaCL

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

This only applies to Doom 3 though. The opposite will apply with Half Life 2, i.e. ATI cards perfrom better. Either of ATI's or Nvidea's top of the range cards will do the job.

Doom 3 engine is alledgley far superior to HL2s. Unless you like believable eyes


kdjac

Doodee

they're 2 completely different engines.
also, its incredibly hard to stipulate which is the better of 2 unreleased engines. The engines work in different ways.

Tbh, which card is better is more of a question of what you want from your car. The gap in memory bandwidth being a problem is now old news, so people are generally getting more bang for their buck. Both of the new generation x800 and 6800 cards are still pretty new.

I guess people will start finding out soon enough though with doom 3 being leaked.

just a quick check on anandtech and heres a benchmark of a much better game

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2102&p=5

jesus_thats_gre

How different the engines are is impossible to know. But, Doom3 is set in a futuristic environment on a space station in Mars while HL2 is set in what can only be described as a run down Russian city in about 10 years time. The graphics style between both environments need to be totally different, thus are impossible to properly compare.. Public opinion is pretty much split evenly between the two of them depending what you think looks better, realistic street scenes or shiney pipes..

Once thing seems clear. The X800 seems to be the better performer in a large percentage of Direct3d games while the 6800 seems to be better in OpenGL based games..