ati 1800xt 512 or the nvidia 7800gtx 256

crowej

hi guys,

anyone got any feelings on these 2 cards ? which one should i go for ?

they seem neck and neck. but the extra ram on the ati card is making me lean towards it.

masteroftherealm

Yup ypur feeling are right get the x1800 its a far mre powerful card

Scruff

if you have money to burn and are looking for the top of the range graphics card, get the 7800 GTX 512MB card. Beats the pants off the 1800XT.

example review:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2607

hairball

yeh ,get the 512 gtx if you're gonna go as far as an 1800xt, spend the extra, have the best, but wait til the price calms down a bit first

masteroftherealm

I think that if possible it would be bette to get neither as I can see a price war quicky developing here

hairball

well I ended up plumping for the 256 gtx, still more graphics power than I've ever had...at a comparitively good price and with the option of sli later if I feel the need, so I'm perfectly happy with that.
I'm also perfectly happy with not having spent 750 eurons on a graphics card

Khannie

hairball wrote:

I'm also perfectly happy with not having spent 750 eurons on a graphics card

Now you're talkin'.

I'm a big fan of a decent performer myself. Can't stand not being able to play the latest and greatest games at a decent resolution (e.g. 1280x1024) but plumping twice the cost for 1.5x the performance (or less) just isn't in my nature.

gline

i suppose for value the x1800xt is best , but for preformance the 7800gtx 512 is the best at the mo

hairball

khannie, not a hope, same reason I didn't wanna spend thsame on a processor when it just woulda been overkill, for me anyway

Khannie

I hear ya hairball. Bought a 3700+ and 6800GT 256 myself. Both mid-range but they represent decent value for money (IMO). I usually work with a set budget, then buy the best I can for it.

OP: What kind of machine do you intend putting the card into? Is linux use a concern for you?

robio

personally id go with ATI, i have an ati x850xt 265mb and its class
the gtx is ment to be great alright but everything seems to work better with ati.
u want to check compatibility with ur pc tho, these cards dont just slot nicely into any pc, look at psu requirements etc, these cards eat the power, and make sure u have enough room to fit them into ur case, my x850xt takes up 2 slots on mine because of the fan built on it

u wont really need more than 265mb untill next year or something and if ur planning on buying a new computer in a year or so dont waste all ur money on a massive card 4 a ****ty pc. cos pcs are goin to totally cahnge over the next 2 years, the ps3 already has cell processors and they require a new mad motherboard, thats the way pcs r gonna go.
If i was buying a new card it would be the ati card.

hairball

well amd launch a new mobo and cpu series next year but I figure I've enough now to afford me the time to sit back, enjoy it and wait to see what happens with the next gen, so thats exactly what I'm gonna do

youcancallmeal

robio wrote:

cos pcs are goin to totally cahnge over the next 2 years, the ps3 already has cell processors and they require a new mad motherboard, thats the way pcs r gonna go.

Interesting, care to explain this in more detail?

Laguna

youcancallme>al wrote:

Interesting, care to explain this in more detail?

Well depending on the success and constant contact with cell based processors, would it be mad to induce that the PC component market will suddenly become full with triple core processors?. Think about it, PCI-E is relatively new still and has transformed mainboards, no AGP boards are made anymore, DDR-2 RAM has completely replaced DDR RAM on mainboards as well. Within two years, I agree that mainboards as we know them will overgo a radical overhaul.

hairball

don't know about radical overhaul, and as far as ddr is concerned, it aint dead yet, as for triple cores, amd are apparently whispering that their first quad core may be available early in 2007

gline

Laguna wrote:

DDR-2 RAM has completely replaced DDR RAM on mainboards as well..

not true.. ddr is still used in amd systems (which is probably 60% of systems , maybe)

Mutant_Fruit

If i was getting a new gfx card today, it'd have to be an nVidia. nVidia cards are just clearing the boards this round. Check out a few reviews on anandtech, that'd put you in the nVidia frame of mind alright.

DemonOfTheFall

Whatever about seeing triple and quad core processors in average desktop PCs, we are not going to be seeing Cell processors in normal PCs ANY time soon. x86 isn't going anywhere. Unless they make some crazy new Cell processor that runs x86 natively and isn't a nightmare to program for I don't think it's anything to even consider.

gline

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

If i was getting a new gfx card today, it'd have to be an nVidia. nVidia cards are just clearing the boards this round. Check out a few reviews on anandtech, that'd put you in the nVidia frame of mind alright.

i agree with that, nvidia seem to be doing a lot better at the moment, i had a crossfire board on order, but cancelled it and got an sli so i can get the 7800gtx 512's

Laguna

I'm a big fan of ATi graphics cards so I'd say go for a crossfire mobo and the x1800, I just wish I could afford one myself .

nVidia make nice cards but ffor some reason I've never jumped on their bandwagon, maybe if their GFX cards were to come down a bit in price I'd give them a chance!

HungryJoey

nVidia are Definetly Doing great at the moment, But I have to say... Graphics Drivers Wise = Dreadful. I have never had so many problems trying to run Various games with nVidia drivers. I feel I have to use certain drivers to make certain games happy, And when I had a 9800Pro, that certainly wasn't the case. I could use all latest driver's and it would cause 0% Problems. I had none what so ever, Ever since I got the nVidia 6800, I have had alot of annoyances.

Also the nForce 3 + 6800 Stutter isn't very pleasent. Incase your wondering what I mean... nVidia drivers ( nForce 3 and 6800** series )_ have a very bad known problem. I have it aswel and so do many people. It means I could be getting 85 FPS @ 1200 x 1024 in CS : S With 1 GB of Ram, And I still get a GFX stutter... Hard to explain.. Even with Vsync Enabled You still get it. It isnt the most enjoyable... And I experience It alot in CS : S and its almost un avoidable. nVidia Never bothered the h**e Sorthing this problem,Which has left alot of people angry. But I do not know what the situation is with the new 7800** series is. But nVidia Sure have left nForce 3 and 6800** in a bog hole and moved on.. Even there recent Driver release hasn't sorted the problem.

Conclusion, Ati has superb Driver suport imho and I never had one problem with them in 2 years. With my nVidia card, I get all sorts of Game - Driver problems.

Just my little bit anyway..


Hj

astrofool

The PC world will still be x86 in 5 years time, if not in 10 or 15 years (obviously with amd64/sse type enhancements).

Anyone who thinks Sony will challenge Intel or AMD in the PC world is kidding themselves.

Also, Cell motherboards would be as different as an AMD to Intel motherboard would be (actually would more resemble the old rdram p4's). Cell will be used in TV's and set top boxes, if it is used in anything besides the ps3, the ps2 chip was meant to be used in tv's as well remember....

robio

youcancallme>al wrote:

Interesting, care to explain this in more detail?

yeah basically intel etc cant get anymore out of silicon chipsets and the current technology has just about reached all it can do, so what is being developed now by many companies are cell processors, now i'm no expert but this new technology will completly change the motherboard etc, basically you wont have a single big processor on the board. basically no more big silicon pentiums, as far as i know theyre loads of tiny processors made into a chip or on the motherboard, i didnt pay attention in college that much when the lecturer was teaching us bout it

masteroftherealm

Not for another 10-15years mate. Multi core has at least another decade in it IMO

robio

masteroftherealm wrote:

Not for another 10-15years mate. Multi core has at least another decade in it IMO

intel are already working on them
the next thing will be dual p4s or something butthe technology is already made, its in the ps3 which is out next year:D
ps consols suck

masteroftherealm

Dual P4's are already here..
Look no offence mate but ya need to go do a bit of reasearch.. Both Intel and AMD and transmeta have all stated that multicore is there roadmap for the next10years and cell tech is ok but will only ever do well in the embedded computing markey IMO.

Khannie

Not all problems are parallelisable (sp?) though. This occurs where the result of one calculation is required input to another. In this situation only a single core will be able to work on the problem. This is certainly not the case for most applications, like gaming, and video encoding though. Multi-core is, without doubt, the way forward until silicon has reached its limits.

robio

masteroftherealm wrote:

Dual P4's are already here..
Look no offence mate but ya need to go do a bit of reasearch.. Both Intel and AMD and transmeta have all stated that multicore is there roadmap for the next10years and cell tech is ok but will only ever do well in the embedded computing markey IMO.

never said dual pc's werent out yet? i said thats the next thing (next big thing i.e no more single processors will be made cos the technology has just about reached its max so theyll only make dual boards n stuff) as for the cell i said its being developed by intel etc, never said it'll be out next year or anything. i said the ps3 has it, which it does and i said pc's will probably go down that road. and if u read what i said i did say that i never payed attention in college when we were learning about it so i didnt know too much about it

anyway back to the point of this thread, go 4 ati theyre better all round graphics cards and consider what ur buying, why waste all that money on a gc if ur goin to replace the computer in a year or so (u can get the most advanced card then, when u might actually need the power etc of the card), thats all i was saying. and more than likely no matter what technology comes next ur still gonna change ur pc in a year or 2, unless ur one of them idiots who use computers from 5 years ago and run win 98 (which ur not) thats all

Mutant_Fruit

Fortunately for me (an electronic engineer in the makings) silicon will be around for quite a while. Silicon will still be good well past the 45nm cores, but leakage current will begin to be even more of a problem than it is now. But even though now it is a problem, there are already several methods available for reducing leakage current dramatically.

So we should even be able to see cores using 30nm tech, but after that it gets a bit iffy. Considaring 65nm isn't out yet, i think we have quite a while to go yet with silicon.

Archytas

HungryJoey wrote:

Also the nForce 3 + 6800 Stutter isn't very pleasent. Incase your wondering what I mean... nVidia drivers ( nForce 3 and 6800** series )_ have a very bad known problem. I have it aswel and so do many people. It means I could be getting 85 FPS @ 1200 x 1024 in CS : S With 1 GB of Ram, And I still get a GFX stutter... Hard to explain.. Even with Vsync Enabled You still get it. It isnt the most enjoyable... And I experience It alot in CS : S and its almost un avoidable. nVidia Never bothered the h**e Sorthing this problem,Which has left alot of people angry. But I do not know what the situation is with the new 7800** series is. But nVidia Sure have left nForce 3 and 6800** in a bog hole and moved on.. Even there recent Driver release hasn't sorted the problem.

Yeah I had this probelm and since I upgraded to the new beta drivers, all gone!! My 6800GT is now a dream!!!! At first I thought it was a Power Supply(PS) problem becaus egames would crash after stutterin... and when I swapped out the PS the crashes stopped but the stutterin didn't. So upped both the drivers - nforce 3 and 6800. and hey presto! sorted! and then I found I had faulty ram so its been RMA'ed back to crucial.... but the ram worked perfectly but couldn't take the risk of it falling down later so RMA'd it within its warranty period wit dabs.

More to the point though, have to say I'd go with the nVidia card but just because I've played with both and prefer nVidia... not much performance wise... just personal preference

Khannie

robio wrote:

go 4 ati theyre better all round graphics cards

Don't you just love a generalisation in the morning? :v:

The "overall" leader seems to see-saw a fair bit. It was nVidia for a good while, then ATI took over with the 9800 series, now nVidia seem to have it back again, but only marginally.

I, for one, wont be buying ATI until their linux driver support is up to nVidia's standard. At ATI's current rate of progress, that means I'll consider one of their cards around the year infinity. I got a horrible fright when I installed ubuntu with my 9800 pro.

masteroftherealm

If you all feel that boards is a good place to get advice on buying gear etc come have a look at this idea..
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50425516#post50425516

@Khannie: Would like to get your support on this as it would be a boost for it. And if it does happen Ill do up stickys reviews etc regularly

WizZard

Gear? As in heroin?

I'd stop spamming threads with this post tbh, it'll just p*ss people off

masteroftherealm

Yeah was just throwing it around a few. And yup of course heroin, everyone friends with heroin

gline

WizZard wrote:

I'd stop spamming threads with this post tbh, it'll just p*ss people off

i agree, its been in every thread i have read this morning

masteroftherealm

Its in four threads all of which were advice threads.Geeze :v:
Just to please youse Ive talen it out of two so its only in two threads.. Happy now?

astrofool

well, the current top cards (in order) are:

7800GTX 512 (£435+VAT)
X1800XT 512 (£350+VAT)
7800GTX 256 (~£300+VAT)
=X1800XL (£250+VAT)
=7800GT (£210+VAT)

Beyond them, i'd be guessing the 6800ultra/gt and x800XT/XL would be about equivelent, depending on needs (sm3/sli etc.)

masteroftherealm

The x1800XT whups the 7800GTX's ass on 256v256 man. From my readings anywyas.
And ya forgot the x1800xl series.