9800pro/xt or 6800

ozt9vdujny3srf

Well, I'm in the market for a new gfx card and i find myself with 2 options:

I get a 128mb sapphire 9800 pro which i hear are very likely to have an r360 core and soft mod it to a 9800XT (w/ zalman cooling) (comes to about 250 incl. p and p off jes)

or

An 128mb nvidia 6800 which performs a fair bit better in some of the newer games, has the (albeit slim) possibility of unlocking an extra four pipelines and a lovely software pack for the princely sum of 350 + p and p.

or

A 256mb x800pe with the sexy ddr3 memory and lots of memory bandwidth for 400

or

An even sexier 6800GT from MSI w/ 256mb od ddr3 memory and 16 pielines of goodness for 440€


All prices include p&p w/ parcelforce

An even sexier 6800


What I'm looking for is some opinions on what you think is the better choice, or perhaps different cards thatc ould get me similar performances .

At the moment i'm veering towards the 6800 going by this review

jesus_thats_gre

It has not really been established whether the 6800 performs as well in Direct3D games as well as it does in OpenGL games. Doom3 shows massive differences over even the X800 in some configurations but this will not be the case in Direct3D games. The opposite is rumoured to be case in Half Life 2..


I personally would get the 9800 pro and overclock it... Sit pretty on that for 3 or 4 months and see how the things transpire. When it is obvious which card is the one to choose, sell the 9800 pro. You will likely sell the card at a loss but it is likely that the X800/6800 will have dropped in price by then also.

In fact, the killer graphics card for Half Life 2 was the 9800 XT 12 months ago. The same is going to be the case this year.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Hindeed it does seem like teh sensible way to go.

Actually, is it possible to order something off komplett and decide to cancel it before its delivered without reason?

jesus_thats_gre

Amber Whispering Mutt wrote:

Hindeed it does seem like teh sensible way to go.

Actually, is it possible to order something off komplett and decide to cancel it before its delivered without reason?

Would doubt it tbh..

ozt9vdujny3srf

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Would doubt it tbh..

I'll cahnge that to : "I dont want it any more"

ozt9vdujny3srf

http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=17490&language=en

or the 6800 vanilla as in the review i posted originally

Bah! The marketing bastards have sucked me in.

Once again my mind changes.

Or should i Go higher money again and spend 440 including p and p on an MSI 6800GT.

I ****ing hate those bastards whoa re sucking my money away from me.

jesus_thats_gre

The GT would be the minimum one I would get to be honest.. That is a known quantity, in that its become common practise for this to overclock to Ultra speeds...

Again though, how this will perform in non Open GL games is still not clear.

Sir Random

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Again though, how this will perform in non Open GL games is still not clear.

What do you mean? it's already been benched with every current Direct3D game (along with all the other cards). How is it's performance not clear?

ozt9vdujny3srf

I'm pretty muc set on either a 6800GT or a 6800 at this stage, I'm just wondering is 16 pielines, double the ram and better ram really worth paying €120
extra for?

Bearing in mind this card will be satying with me for the next 3 years.

I'm running a p4 2.6ghz w/ a gig of ram so perhaps i'm wasting my time looking at such high end cards?

jesus_thats_gre

Amber Whispering Mutt wrote:

I'm running a p4 2.6ghz w/ a gig of ram so perhaps i'm wasting my time looking at such high end cards?

There is a good feature on Anandtech about how various CPU's perform in Doom 3.. I would suggest reading it as it specifically touches on how a CPU may limit your Graphics Card at lower resolutions especially..

I assume you have you 2.6 overclocked?

jesus_thats_gre

Sir Random wrote:

What do you mean? it's already been benched with every current Direct3D game (along with all the other cards). How is it's performance not clear?

Has it? I genuinely have not seen many benchmarks for these cards aside from Doom 3. I will go have a wee look so..

Sir Random

All the major 6800 vs X800 benchmarks focused on Far Cry, UT2004, Halo etc. These cards were out long before the DOOM3 benches appeared.

jesus_thats_gre

Yeah actually forgot all about them...

Was having a look at some benchies on anandtech there and its still pretty inconclusive.. i.e. the 6800 and X800 pretty much share the spoiles across all the games benchmarked but the X800 does lead in Direct3D based games while the 6800 is better in OpenGL games like those based on teh Quake 3 engine..

mewso

CPU comparrison for Doom3 - http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149