Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: redsniper on July 09, 2006, 05:01:59 pm
-
I got Oblivion recently for my birthday and although my comp can handle it well enough, it still stutters quite a lot plus I'd like to be able to use HDR. :D I currently have an X800 XL and I'm looking for a good PCIe card in the $250-$300 range. The X1800 GTO looks kinda nice, but I'm not sure if it would be that much of a step up from what I already have and the X1800 XT is just really expensive. Also, I'm not familiar with nvidia's current cards at all. I've also heard about this new R600 chipset that ATI is coming out with soon and that it should cause current prices to drop; maybe it would be better to wait until then. So HLP, share your infinite wisdom.
-
From personal experience, I used to use GeForce cards exclusively, I found the last high-power GeForce I had, which was a 9600, had a terrible heating problem, so I splashed out on an X1600, and haven't looked back. The card has been pretty much hassle-free and the graphics are very smooth even with heavy shader use. From my own point of view, I'd look more favourably at ATI cards. The X1800 would probably be a good bet, if it performs along the same lines.
-
It's a bit over your price range, but this is the deal in video cards right now if the rebate is factored in:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102025
R600 probably won't be out until the Christmas period. Nvidia's G80 will come earlier, but is still some months off.
-
:eek: OMFG
-
I found the last high-power GeForce I had, which was a 9600, had a terrible heating problem
That might be because that card is 2 generations from being released.
-
ZOMG!!! Flipside is from the future!!
-
Damn my secret is out ;)
He did say safety not garaunteed.... :nervous:
Seriously though, I meant 6600 :p
-
It's a bit over your price range, but this is the deal in video cards right now if the rebate is factored in:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102025
That card, in Israel, costs around $670. :eek2:
-
Well, it looks like they sold out on those for now. There are a few others for around $350 but without the rebate.
The prices on these cards are dropping like crazy, about $80 in just the last month. And I thought the XTX I got for $410 two months ago was a great deal. :p
That card, in Israel, costs around $670.
It seems that the computer hardware prices I hear about everywhere else in the world are much higher than what we get around here, even when adjusted for purchasing parity. Not sure why.
-
yeah, they're out of stock for now but they give an ETA of July 17 for the next batch. :cool:
-
Your best bet for the current gen of cards is the 7900GT KO from EVGA. Fairly cheap (~$300 American), extremely powerful (10% more powerful than a 7800GTX), uses little power, low heat, nice fan and heat shroud.
While ATI did serve up the most powerful cards this gen, they are large, hot, loud and ungainly. Many take up 2 slots, while the 7900GT only occupies one.
I'm in much the same situation as you. I got a X800 Vanilla this christmas, and by next Christmas or summer I'll probably upgrade to the current high end.
Don't pick up the 1st gen DX10 cards, as DX10 is a huge leap from previous DX generations and has a good margin for error (New geometry shaders, Unified shader architexture, Vista only etc).
-
He said he's looking to play Oblivion, where the X1900XT is over twice as fast (more if you take into account the whole AF issue with the Geforce 7 cards).
Even in general though, at the current prices that 7900GT KO card will only be worth it if you do the 1.4V pencil mod and push it way up. You also need to make sure you get one of the fixed, newer revision ones that just came out a few days ago. The stock X1800/X1900 cooler is definitely loud (and there are no good aftermarket ones), but the stock 7900GT one is only slightly better.
-
The ultimate solution to the problem of loud fans: a stupidly-overspec watercooling system. Mine can dissipate about twice the attached computer's current peak output without the use of fans; that'll cope with even a new ATI card. With the fans... I'm not sure. It might be able to handle as much as 5KW with all three radiator fans at full speed.
-
Not to disappoint anyone.... But I recently went from a Radeon 9600 Pro to an X1900XT (512 MB version) CrossFire Setup... :D Put that with my 20 inches widescreen monitor and guess what it gives. 8)
So, as always, it all depends on how much you want to spend. If you want to stay in the same range price as the X800, the X1800 series is really a no brainer. If you can spend more... get your hands on an Nvidia 7900GTX ASAP. Performance is just slightly inferior to Ati's top, X1900XTX (we are talking of less than a hundred 3DMark points) but it surely isn't as loud as the latter. Only major drawback... good luck in finding one: it's an extremely hard card to find.
p.s.: I got the X1900XT just because the X1900XTX does not come in CrossFire Edition. And getting a 650 $ card and not being able to pair it with a little sister is pointless.
-
What do you think of Crossfire? I used to have an SLI setup but found that SLI is still basically a beta technology and has lots of weird problems. I have no experience with Crossfire though.
It's easy to find the 7900GTXs around here, but at $420 you're paying a lot just for the quiet cooler. They're quite a bit slower than the X1900s when you factor in their AF problem and the ATI 6.6 drivers, anywhere between 15% and 80% in minimum framerates depending on the game, and more importantly the 7900GTs can be modded into similar cards for half the price.
If you want to cut down on the noise, you could try replacing the stock coolers with the popular Accelero X2s. Those are cheap (about $20 around here) and cool the cards just as well the stock coolers, but with practically no noise. Although I don't like them since they don't exhaust the air out of the case; it gets blown onto the motherboard of all places. The best solution is probably water, like Descenterace said.
I personally don't mind the noise much, as the ATI cooler is quiet enough in Windows and I use closed headphones for games anyway. The card sounds like a turbine at the constant 80% load speed I use, but I can't hear it. :D
-
What do you think of Crossfire? I used to have an SLI setup but found that SLI is still basically a beta technology and has lots of weird problems. I have no experience with Crossfire though.
Yea. I've heard that, and I documented myseld a lot before buying. On the average, I'd say my CrossFire experience until now has been positive. Never had a chance to play with a SLI setup yet. Other than that, you really need a game which does support it, otherwise it won't matter. I could have spent less money, I know, since SLI ready games are still few. But would have it been wise to get "outdated" components? I don't think so. This PC is going to last like my previous one. Around 4 years.
It's easy to find the 7900GTXs around here, but at $420 you're paying a lot just for the quiet cooler. They're quite a bit slower than the X1900s when you factor in their AF problem and the ATI 6.6 drivers, anywhere between 15% and 80% in minimum framerates depending on the game, and more importantly the 7900GTs can be modded into similar cards for half the price.
Uhm. Well, basically I wanted to get away from ATI, altought I've owned one since the early RAGE days. But that was before the X1900XTX came out.
If you want to cut down on the noise, you could try replacing the stock coolers with the popular Accelero X2s. Those are cheap (about $20 around here) and cool the cards just as well the stock coolers, but with practically no noise. Although I don't like them since they don't exhaust the air out of the case; it gets blown onto the motherboard of all places. The best solution is probably water, like Descenterace said.
I'm going to have a look at those. Water cooling on the cpu already helped, but an improvement is always an improvement.
I personally don't mind the noise much, as the ATI cooler is quiet enough in Windows and I use closed headphones for games anyway. The card sounds like a turbine at the constant 80% load speed I use, but I can't hear it. :D
Right :) Guess I could live with that. I was just pointing one of the main differences between current top cards. At least, the most immediate one.
-
Yea. I've heard that, and I documented myseld a lot before buying. On the average, I'd say my CrossFire experience until now has been positive. Never had a chance to play with a SLI setup yet. Other than that, you really need a game which does support it, otherwise it won't matter. I could have spent less money, I know, since SLI ready games are still few. But would have it been wise to get "outdated" components? I don't think so. This PC is going to last like my previous one. Around 4 years.
With SLI, I found that even in most of the games that ostensibly support it, vsync does not work and it causes a strange effect where the game subjectively feels a lot choppier than the framerate would indicate, almost down to the level of a single card. I think the only games where SLI actually worked correctly for me were the modern OpenGL ones, basically Doom 3, Quake 4 and Riddick.
It does make sense to just go all out if you intend to keep the computer for a long time. I guess my computer stuff generally doesn't last more than eight months before it goes on ebay and I upgrade. :p
Uhm. Well, basically I wanted to get away from ATI, altought I've owned one since the early RAGE days. But that was before the X1900XTX came out.
heh, I am actually in the opposite situation, this is my first ATI card since an old Rage Pro eight years ago. I've always used 3dfx and Nvidia stuff otherwise. Having used both sides' cards from this generation though, I slightly prefer ATI just for their features and drivers, even if the speed differences are left aside.
The one thing I do like about the Nvidia cards are their AA modes. ATI cards only go up to 6x multi AA, while Nvidia cards have four modes above that with supersampling components. They are too slow in current games and most don't work with OpenGL, but look fantastic in older D3D games. It's a pity that with the 7 series cards, this is offset by the bad default AF quality.
-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127212
:rolleyes:
-
Decent price, but I wouldn't recommend it given the SLI problems I mentioned. And in any case two 7900GTs are only $30 more and can overclock much higher.
[edit] actually, scratch that, they're $70 less.
-
Exactly. That card is ridiculous. Well, okay, if someone gave it to me for free I'd take it but.. not under any other circumstances. :p
-
Well, I just ordered the card that CP linked to and it should be along in a few days. I'm wondering now: Will my 430W PSU be able to handle it? It's a good quality one AFAIK, an Antec Truepower 2. I'll buy a new PSU if necessary but I'd rather not spend the money if I don't have to. I know that power supplies are pretty good at taking other components with them when they die and that it's a bad idea to skimp on them. So I want to know if I need a new PSU at all and, if so, do you know of any good deals right now, which brands to avoid, etc.?
-
The one thing I do like about the Nvidia cards are their AA modes. ATI cards only go up to 6x multi AA, while Nvidia cards have four modes above that with supersampling components. They are too slow in current games and most don't work with OpenGL, but look fantastic in older D3D games. It's a pity that with the 7 series cards, this is offset by the bad default AF quality.
Keep in mind that testing between nVidia and ATI AA shows the ATI ones tend to have an edge on the quality. I have a 6600GT now and used to have a 9700Pro and I can tell you that 4x AA on the 6600GT is about as good as 2x AA on the Radeon 9700Pro.
In general I'd say that nVidia has a speed edge in overall performance but that ATI has a quality edge slightly overall. Edge only...the two are so close. Its nice to see this level of competitiveness.
-
I wouldn't be buying anything with directx 10 cards about to come out. Enter 1.) Unified Shaders (for ATI) 2.)Geometry Shader
-
Keep in mind that testing between nVidia and ATI AA shows the ATI ones tend to have an edge on the quality. I have a 6600GT now and used to have a 9700Pro and I can tell you that 4x AA on the 6600GT is about as good as 2x AA on the Radeon 9700Pro.
In general I'd say that nVidia has a speed edge in overall performance but that ATI has a quality edge slightly overall. Edge only...the two are so close. Its nice to see this level of competitiveness.
You may need to turn on AA gamma correction on the Nvidia card. It makes things look better and has no performance hit but is strangely not on by default. I think Nvidia actually has a clear advantage with AA in general. The standard MS modes are very similar with the gamma corrected AA on, but as I mentioned Nvidia's combined and SS modes are quite superior to anything on the ATI cards. The Nvidia transparency AA is also better than ATI's adaptive AA, with OpenGL support (adaptive only works in D3D games) and better filtering on long distance textures.
It's a very different story with AF quality, on the other hand..
Well, I just ordered the card that CP linked to and it should be along in a few days. I'm wondering now: Will my 430W PSU be able to handle it? It's a good quality one AFAIK, an Antec Truepower 2. I'll buy a new PSU if necessary but I'd rather not spend the money if I don't have to. I know that power supplies are pretty good at taking other components with them when they die and that it's a bad idea to skimp on them. So I want to know if I need a new PSU at all and, if so, do you know of any good deals right now, which brands to avoid, etc.?
It should be more than enough.
I wouldn't be buying anything with directx 10 cards about to come out. Enter 1.) Unified Shaders (for ATI) 2.)Geometry Shader
It will be a lot longer before we actually see any DX10 games.
-
It will be a lot longer before we actually see any DX10 games.
Crysis will support DX10, AFAIK.
-
How do you turn on AA Gamma correct on the nVidia cards? I have a brief look through the control panel and found nothing.
-
Crysis will support DX10, AFAIK.
That game is still a while off and it will only use DX10 after Vista comes out, which will probably be after its release. It's also unclear what, if anything, the DX10 mode will offer over the DX9 one.
How do you turn on AA Gamma correct on the nVidia cards? I have a brief look through the control panel and found nothing.
Yeah, a lot of features aren't present in the control panel. You can do it easily with nHancer (http://www.nhancer.com). Just turn it on globally so it affects all games.
By the way, it's interesting that you earlier mentioned competition in this market, since it looks like AMD has bought out ATI and will make an announcement very soon. I doubt it will change anything for the next generation of video cards but the long term implications could be quite significant.
-
It's a bit over your price range, but this is the deal in video cards right now if the rebate is factored in:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102025
R600 probably won't be out until the Christmas period. Nvidia's G80 will come earlier, but is still some months off.
God damn, to think I felt technologically advanced by replacing my old system with one that I will build with a X1300 Pro
-
God damn, to think I felt technologically advanced by replacing my old system with one that I will build with a X1300 Pro
I feel sorry for you. Have you bought X1300 already? If not, get GeForce 7600GS or 7600GT if budget allows.
X1300 has exactly two pros.
1) It is faster than GeForce 7300.
2) It is cheaper than X1600.
X1300 is low-end card. Buying it will make you buy yet another card if you want to play titles released next year.
-
Now that AMD owns ATI, You can look forward to buying an AMD Radeon in the near future, since the companies will operate as AMD.
-
Woot! It just showed up in the mail. :cool: I'll let you peeps know how it goes. Btw, does Catalyst 6.6 break anything or is it good?
-
It works fine, except that you don't get the smartshader effects you may have seen in some screenshots around here (it was inexplicably removed after 6.3, but 6.5 and 6.6 had considerable performance improvements on X1900s so it's not worth sticking with the old driver). 6.7 is actually expected to be out in a few days though.
If you find ATI's CCC too bloated, you can get the "low speed connection" driver package along with two third party programs called ATI Tray Tools (profiles and a ton of other stuff) and ATI Tool (overclocking and fan speeds), which let you bypass the need for CCC completely.
-
Wow. The first thing I played with this was FSO and it ran smooth as silk. Oblivion looks effin' awesome with HDR turned on :yes:. I'm still getting down to ~20fps in some parts, but I have EVERY setting maxed out except for AA. I've just skimmed through tweakguides' Oblivion guide and some of the options there look promising. Best of all my PC didn't fry. :D
-
Oblivion is known to bring most GFX cards to their knees.
-
Wow. The first thing I played with this was FSO and it ran smooth as silk. Oblivion looks effin' awesome with HDR turned on . I'm still getting down to ~20fps in some parts, but I have EVERY setting maxed out except for AA. I've just skimmed through tweakguides' Oblivion guide and some of the options there look promising. Best of all my PC didn't fry. :D
I think that's normal for Oblivion. :p I don't have that game but there is some texture LOD tweak that is supposed to make it look far better with no performance hit. You may also want to try that chuck patch most people are using, if you can tolerate the slideshow framerates.
By the way, 6.7 apparently sucks. I haven't used it but everyone is complaining about slightly lowered performance with it.