[ChronoReverse]

It looks like the X800Pro about matches the 6800Ultra.

The X800XT PE tramples the 6800Ultra in almost every test I've looked at.

[IceFire]

....and links?

[Taristin]

www.atitech.com

Enter the contest!

Enter me as one of your 4 'friends', please? My email is [email protected] Please?

[IncendiaryLemon]

Try http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r420_x800/

 Temporal AA - for any R300 users wanting to experiment try the following link.

http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=4533&head=1&comments=1

[RandomTiger]

Looks good, no shader 3.0 support though.

[Lonestar]

I wouldnt bother with these new cards, go with the 9800xt and wait for PCIXpress cards.

[Turambar]

the X800 only gets near the 6800 Ultra because ATI left out PS3.0 and other cool looking things.  Nvidia looks like it'll come out on top on this one, they must have learned their lesson from the FX series *is somewhat dissappointed with FX 5600 (well, it works fine, but it could work better)*

[RandomTiger]

Originally posted by Lonestar
I wouldnt bother with these new cards, go with the 9800xt and wait for PCIXpress cards.

PCI express is overrated, its only real imidiate benfit is to video editting.

I read a very convincing article that showed that 'currently' x8 AGP is not even slightly faster than x4. Currently no games utilise this extra bandwidth. Thats what PCI express is about, its not going to make much difference to graphics speeds until developers start making use of that kind of massive transfers.

You could spend a awful lot of money of that tech now and not see the benifit for a while.

[RandomTiger]

Originally posted by Turambar
the X800 only gets near the 6800 Ultra because ATI left out PS3.0 and other cool looking things.

Theres nothing to benchmark Shader 3.0 with so that has no effect on results.

3.0 is very important to me, Im going to get a new card and that could well be the deciding factor.

[J3Vr6]

Originally posted by RandomTiger


PCI express is overrated...

You could spend a awful lot of money of that tech now and not see the benifit for a while.

And by then you'll probably have to upgrade your computer anyway, so it would be waste now.

[RandomTiger]

My thoughts exactly, Im going to forget about upgrading everything asside from a graphics card and push all my money into that.

[J3Vr6]

Lol, I still have a Geforce2 32 megger .  I think it's time I move up to something nice.  It wont be this uber card though as my AGP slot doesn't even meet 8x.

[Grey Wolf]

Really seems to vary by benchmark. 6800 Ultra really beats the X800 XT in Call of Duty and other OpenGL games. In Direct3D, however, it appears that the X800 wins when anisotropic filtering is enabled. It's really a toss up. I personally think that the best bets in the market will be either the X800 Pro, 6800 GT, or 6800 non-ultra.

Basic advantage of the 6800: Bit more future-proofing since it has PS3.0, better OpenGL performance.
Basic advantage: Slightly less power-hungry (you'll still need a good PSU), better DirectX performance with anisotropic filtering enabled.

EDIT: Seems nVidia feels threatened. They've announced a 6800 Ultra Extreme at 450/1100.

[Darkage]

Originally posted by J3Vr6
Lol, I still have a Geforce2 32 megger .  I think it's time I move up to something nice.  It wont be this uber card though as my AGP slot doesn't even meet 8x.

My Mobo supports AGP4x and my card is 8x compatible, it works fine.

You see compatible, you can also use it on AGP4x slots.

[RandomTiger]

A price war would make my day

[Zuljin]

Originally posted by RandomTiger
A price war would make my day

Same here
And it will no doubt be a price drop on certain cards which will make it able for us to get say...a Radeon 9800XT much much cheaper than we would today
Only problem is that we have to wait a little while still

[Fineus]

The Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB is already under 150 pounds, a bargain methinks, and certainly enough to keep up to date till Christmas, which is fair enough.

[Grey Wolf]

What's even more fun is a 9800 non-pro. Flashed to Pro. Then flashed to XT. With a Zalman cooler on it. If only my PSU could handle it properly (It's really killing my CPU overclocking).

[ChronoReverse]

Originally posted by RandomTiger


Theres nothing to benchmark Shader 3.0 with so that has no effect on results.

3.0 is very important to me, Im going to get a new card and that could well be the deciding factor.

Yes.  Right now, the tests that the X800XT PE win aren't because of Shaders 3.0 at all since there aren't any tests that take advantage of that.  Not even Farcry.



Out of interest RT, what feature of Shaders 3.0 are you interested in anyways?  From what I've seen, almost everything 3.0 can do, 2.0 can do using multiple passes.  I'm just curious which feature which cannot be done in 2.0 are you looking at (since I'll be looking into a new card as well and if the feature is something Im, interested in and has potential to make it into FS2_open...).

I'm thinking geometry instancing...



OpenGL has always been nVidia's strong suit.  It's one of the reasons why I like nVidia cards.  Nonetheless, the X800XT PE performed rather well in CoD with the settings 1600x1200@4xAA/16xAF.



PCI-E won't make a whit of difference in terms of performance (excluding issues with the new technology, the bridge chips and etc).  We haven't even saturated AGP8x's half-duplex bandwidth much less PCI-E16x's full-duplex, double AGP8x bandwidth.



There's one more thing that the 6800Ultra should be able to beat the X800XT PE cleanly in:  Doom3.  But we'll have to see if the theoretical will match up with reality.



Both cards are pretty awesome.  The fall refresh round is going to be great.

[RandomTiger]

Originally posted by ChronoReverse

Out of interest RT, what feature of Shaders 3.0 are you interested in anyways?

Fry Cry is apparently getting upgraded to S3.0, 'apparently' the results are very impressive. I want this card to last me a long time, I cant afford to fork out every 6 months. ATI will eventually get s3.0 as well and I dont want to be left behind. But I want to buy a card now.

Also as a coder I might want to get into playing with making shaders at some point. I heard s3.0 can do loops and stuff.

My system is only a AMD 2400, its possible I may not see the top speeds that either card anyway. If I get s3.0 I will definely see the results.

Also it would be good for the SCP, as I imagine most other coders will go with ATI.