What card (graphics)

[Daston]

Hi guys,

My PNY Geforce 6800GT had a little problem and died last week and because it was less than 12 months old PC world are going to refund me. Now my question is what graphics card should I get that is better than a 6800 GT I have £250 and as I purchased the card when it first came out I was thinking that there has to be somthing better out there. Oh and I really don't care whether its nvidia or ATI as long as it's faster than the last one. Oh and cooling is a big issue as I think the last card cooked.

Thanks

[cadaveca]

x850xtpe. best single-card solution you can get right now.

[GrahamGarside]

Yes but they are not £250

It's a toss up between another 6800GT, an X800Xl or holding off for the next gen of cards to come out

Personally I would go for another 6800GT as they are fast, cheap and will likely age the best, especially when Quake4 and Unreal3 are out

[Daston]

ok if I go for another 6800GT would XFX's one be the best bet? oh and what if I push the boat out and go up to £300?

[cadaveca]

can't answer in local prices for you, but that would get you an x850 on this side of the pond.

[danrok]

Originally Posted by Daston

ok if I go for another 6800GT would XFX's one be the best bet? oh and what if I push the boat out and go up to £300?

Take a look at a Gainward Ultra 2400 Goes Like Hell (6572) GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP).

400MHz Core Engine Clock speed
256MB 1200MHz high speed 1.6NS DDR3 memory

They go for about £300 in th UK.

[Daston]

Ok what about this??

Connect3D ATI Radeon X800 XT PE 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (AGP) -

- 520MHz GPU Core clock speed
- 16 Pixel rendering pipe-line core
- Six programmable vertex shader pipelines
- 256MB 1120MHz DDR3 High Speed Memory
- 256-bit quad-channel GDDR3 memory interface
- 128-bit, 64-bit & 32-bit per pixel floating point color

its £320 but the clock speed is much higher than any nvidia and the ram seems neepy to any thoughts?

thanks

[danrok]

You can't go far wrong with either.

Bear in mind that GPU clock speeds are not directly comparable, same situation as Intel vs AMD.

[cadaveca]

danrok has an ultra, i have an x800xtpe...who gets the best performance? He has dualchannel, i have single...and pretty sure we have the same cooling...

[danrok]

Mine isn't volt modded, however!

[cadaveca]

lol i got 6495 in 3dmark05, i think, non-voltmodded, 560, 590. All one needs do is browse the thread, i beleive.

Voltamods on these cards are incredibly easy. a cheap 25w iron, and lowtemp solder, a few variable resistors, and you are all set! The ultra, you can use software! Graham could tell ya the tool!

[danrok]

I can't set-up the same test because I don't have a registered version of 3dmark05. Can't drop the PS and VS down to your lower level!

[GrahamGarside]

Yeah currently the ATI wins, but you're talking about 90 vs 100 fps, both cores can handle any game with high settings, with the very highest settings that few use the radeon can pull away by a fair margin.

But with future games I see it being a differant story, ID already favour nvidia so Quake4 will work best with them, same for unreal3

There are compelling reasons to go for either chip, for me £235 for a leadtek 6800GT would be the winning arguement, this is about the same price as an X800XL and in most cases the better performer.

[dsio]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

lol i got 6495 in 3dmark05, i think, non-voltmodded, 560, 590. All one needs do is browse the thread, i beleive.

Voltamods on these cards are incredibly easy. a cheap 25w iron, and lowtemp solder, a few variable resistors, and you are all set! The ultra, you can use software! Graham could tell ya the tool!

Ive done 6600 with a GT, and no modification other than a BIOS flash but its still a lousy synthetic benchmark. I may sound like a broken record, but future wise, the 6 series is going to be a better buy. It competes with the X800 series very well, trades real world benchmark wins with the x800, but most importantly, has a future. SM3.0 is real, and it is something that ATI have now accepted must be taken seriously, as not only will it power the next generation of games, but it also comes into its own on longhorn's new 3d SM3.0 interface.

Ill start my stopwatch now and see how long it takes cada to repost lololol

[cadaveca]

i can't really argue that dsio, however, how much of a future is there for SM3.0, while the entire 2.0 market gets cut-out? How much longer do you think SM3.0 will be around after 2.0? As far as i know, it should be about the same time, "according to plan", but of course those palns can change. In the meantime, throw in some 3Dc into the mix, alongside that SM3.0, and it's a pretty fair playing field, as you say, DSIO. SO, what it really comes down to is, which card is cheaper, and has the best warranty. However, if you are going to mod the card, the X850 will win over the 6800 Ultra. Stock, they perform pretty much the same, with nVidia taking the lead due to app supprt. Overclocked, it's within a frame or two, nothing worth mentioning.

Took 14 minutes for me to repost, but only because i'm testing at a new spped on this cpu...2700mhz, and i got room to spare, it seems. Booted into windows fine. Good old WZ's little P4 may have some bad news coming!