What card should I get? ATI 2900XT or Nvidia 8800GTX.

I have been waiting on the ATI 2900XT card.

Finally you can order the card, here in Sweden. The sell it for 3700sek. (about 530 dollar).
The cheapest Nvidia 8800GTX card costs 4700kr (about 670 dollar).

I work most, but sometimes I want to play a game. Have a Dell XPS 700, with 3ghz@3.6ghz Core2 processor. 2x320 gig stripe boot disk, 2 gig memory, Ageia card, Soundblaste Xfi.

The motherboard is a Nvidia 570SLI.
Monitor Apple Cinema Display 2560x1600

Should I get the Nvidia 8800GTX or a ATI 2900XT?

Does the "new" crossfire work on any dual PCI express motherboard or do I need ATIs motherboard?

Buy one ATI now, and 3-4 month later one more?

I will run Vista.

Thanks for the help

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Just wait until next week when the NDA is lifted to actually see if the 2900 is any good. I personally think it will be but have no data to prove it. You will need an ATI chipset to run them in crossfire. Just be patient for a couple more days...

Reply to Dade_0182

I think youll be glad you waited for various reasons

Reply to jaydeejohn

You if plan on SLI'ing in the future then your only choice is NVidia. If you are just going to use one card then wait until the benchmarks come out in order to decide between the two.

Reply to purdueguy

Quote :

I have been waiting on the ATI 2900XT card.

Finally you can order the card, here in Sweden. The sell it for 3700sek. (about 530 dollar).
The cheapest Nvidia 8800GTX card costs 4700kr (about 670 dollar).

I work most, but sometimes I want to play a game. Have a Dell XPS 700, with 3ghz@3.6ghz Core2 processor. 2x320 gig stripe boot disk, 2 gig memory, Ageia card, Soundblaste Xfi.

The motherboard is a Nvidia 570SLI.
Monitor Apple Cinema Display 2560x1600

Should I get the Nvidia 8800GTX or a ATI 2900XT?

Does the "new" crossfire work on any dual PCI express motherboard or do I need ATIs motherboard?

Buy one ATI now, and 3-4 month later one more?

I will run Vista.

Thanks for the help

Get the one that is currently available....

Reply to warezme

We won't know what is better until the NDA is lifted; just wait a few more days.

Reply to Heyyou27

If you wait and the R600 isn't all it's cranked up to be the prices of the 8800's should at least drop a bit.

Reply to Dade_0182

Get the intel GMA X3100 !

It's the newest chip on the street!
All the cool kids are getting one. :twisted:

Reply to TheGreatGrapeApe

Why ask this question on May 10th. Seriously, unless it is a Mother's Day gift wait till Monday.

Which brings me to this point. Does AMD not realize the sales they will have lost by launching these cards after Mother's Day?

Reply to No1sFanboy

I'm not getting your logic there.

Reply to Gary_Busey

Quote :

I'm not getting your logic there.

You don't see the logic that missing the big Mother's Day GPU rush is poor planning. Then again maybe I'm assuming to much, if you're a euro this wouldn't be Mother's day like here in the US and Canada. Either way I was only kidding.

Reply to No1sFanboy

Quote :

I'm not getting your logic there.

Maybe his Mom has a big Crysis poster in the living room
If that's the case, he has my congratulations!!!

Does anybody have any idea about the quality of AMD's drivers? I know nVidia's drivers still stink on Vista after all these months. What if AMD's are even worse, being newer and all?

Reply to dsidious

My bad, had my joke sensors turned off.

Reply to Gary_Busey

Quote :

I'm not getting your logic there.

Maybe his Mom has a big Crysis poster in the living room
If that's the case, he has my congratulations!!!

Does anybody have any idea about the quality of AMD's drivers? I know nVidia's drivers still stink on Vista after all these months. What if AMD's are even worse, being newer and all?
I was under the impression that everything stinks on Vista.

Reply to Gary_Busey

And you'd be pretty much correct with that assumption.

Reply to dasickninja

Quick recap:

Everything does stink in Vista (for now)

Since you have an SLI board unless you're planning on changing that go with the 8800GTX since it did beat the pants off the 2900XT with "release drivers". That is IF you ever plan on the possibility of dual graphics cards in that system.

Still not a bad idea to wait til the release of the 2900XT if you can just in case they pull a miracle OC or something out of their hats (doubtful) or at least see a price reduction for the 8800 series (possibly). But a few more $ in your pocket is worth another few days wait after waiting this long eh?

Reply to Talon

We also have grads and dads coming up too. Lets not forget these drive times for most retailers.

Reply to pchoi04

i ain't in the mood for these posts.

have you met my whip

no? have a feel of it. *Whips noob hard*

now, you deserve that for three reasons.

1.you ask such a stupid question

2.you bought a dell(most likely you don't even own that)

3.you claim to own a ageia card.

need i say more.

Reply to strangestranger

Quote :

And you'd be pretty much correct with that assumption.

That may be true today, but that also holds the hope of next week. Its possbile that the X2900 XT will work fine in Vista, thus showing its worth the wait.

Anyway, to the OP, hang on for a few more days and then you can make decisions based on real benches from real websties (Tom's, Anandtech, etc) and if nothing else, perhaps get a 8800 series card for a few less dollars.

Reply to Sailer

Quote :

i ain't in the mood for these posts.

have you met my whip

no? have a feel of it. *Whips noob hard*

now, you deserve that for three reasons.

1.you ask such a stupid question

2.you bought a dell(most likely you don't even own that)

3.you claim to own a ageia card.

need i say more.

Whip it good.

Please, Mast..... :oops:

*turns around and runs for life*

Reply to goldragon_70

Quote :

i ain't in the mood for these posts.

have you met my whip

no? have a feel of it. *Whips noob hard*

You like that whip, don't you?

Let me guess, you took some schooling at the University of the Marque de' Sade.

Reply to Sailer

in not really familiar with ATI cards, is the one posted in this thread a DX10 ATI card droping really soon? or allready droped in other states?

Reply to Masterbobo

Hey, in his defense... errr... wait, I got nothing. :lol:

Reply to dean7

My thoughts exactly. And since my mom barely knows how to even turn on a computer i would gladly take that huge paperweight off her hands.

Now i have to settle for buying her something useful like a new fridge or something.

Reply to m3d

check this review out then decide .

i would say 8800gtX after reading this review

http://vr-zone.com/?i=4946&s=1

Reply to hangman2004

if you can afford a GTX, then sure go for it.

Price wise however (at least in the UK) its £100 more costly than the 2900XT or the 8800GTS 640mb. sooooooo your call

Reply to blade85

Here's something for you to consider:

The 2900xts come with the coupon to get portal, half life 2 ep 2 AND team fartress 2 games. ALSO if you get the Asus stalker 2900xt, you get the full game stalker stacked on top of that! I personally like that deal; But not the ugly stalker art on the card

Check it: linkage

Reply to ATIWOLF

It is a bit tempting, But I would still like to see hard numbers in games like oblivion and Battlefeild 2142.

Reply to goldragon_70

Well, VR-Zone has now released their HD 2900XT review and it has been the best HD 2900XT review to date, even though that doesn't mean much. I personally would wait for Tomshardware, anandtech, HardOCP, and FiringSquad to get their reviews up.

Reply to Heyyou27

The games are fine. I don't like the Stalker art on the card either, but it gets hidden in the bottom of the case where I don't see it anyway. If it did matter, a person could always peel off the sticker and paste on something that looks better (Playmate of the month, whatever).

Reply to Sailer

After siftin through the R600 benchmarks the only answer to the question that started the thread is: http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=7

Reply to -xyzak-

Quote :

I'm not getting your logic there.

Maybe his Mom has a big Crysis poster in the living room
If that's the case, he has my congratulations!!!

Does anybody have any idea about the quality of AMD's drivers? I know nVidia's drivers still stink on Vista after all these months. What if AMD's are even worse, being newer and all?
I was under the impression that everything stinks on Vista.

Stop listening to fud and actually start using then.

At least you'll know which fanboy wagon you're on then.

Reply to The_Abyss

Quote :

After siftin through the R600 benchmarks the only answer to the question that started the thread is: http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=7

I find it funny you showed Page 8 where the R600 had the most top graphs on the page where as on the rest of the pages 3 to 7 it is the GTX that is in first with the top graphs.

[Page 3]
http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=2

[Page 4]
http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=3

[Page 5]
http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=4

[Page 6]
http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=5

[Page 7]
http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=6

[Page 8]
http://it-review.net/index.php?opt [...] mitstart=7

Reply to Trunkz_Jr

Quote :

Does anybody have any idea about the quality of AMD's drivers? I know nVidia's drivers still stink on Vista after all these months. What if AMD's are even worse, being newer and all?

I was under the impression that everything stinks on Vista.

Stop listening to fud and actually start using then.

At least you'll know which fanboy wagon you're on then.

How about not talking about fanboys, we're grown-ups here, most of us.

Vista is actually not bad at all. Drivers for Vista are not Microsoft's responsibility, so Microsoft shouldn't be blamed. nVidia is doing a lot to improve their drivers and deserves credit, considering how much has changed behind the scenes between Vista and XP.

Here's the latest situation, as described by nVidia on one of their support pages:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_158.18.html

Quote :

* Single GPU support
o DirectX 9 support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
o DirectX 10 support for GeForce 8 series GPUs
o OpenGL support for GeForce 6/7/8 series GPUs
* NVIDIA SLI support
o DirectX 9 support for 6/7/8 series GPUs
o OpenGL support for 6/7/8 series GPUs

# DirectX 10 NVIDIA SLI support for GeForce 8 series GPUs will be available in a future driver

Based on this, I'd say people who buy one 8800 GTX (not two) and play Direct X 9 games (not Direct X 10 games) should be fine, theoretically. Considering that there are no Direct X 10 games and few of us can afford two GTXs, that's good enough IMO. The problem is, even nVidia's page mentions Vista, of all the O/Ss, as a special case. Here:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Quote :

For those of users that are using Windows Vista and experiencing any problems, NVIDIA is setting up this website, including a bug reporting tool for end users to submit their experiences to NVIDIA. Our product managers will be reviewing this information daily and will be contacting users to help resolve any issues they might be experiencing.

They don't have any such website about XP.

The_Abyss, are you using an 8800 GTX on Vista? Does it work absolutely all right for you? What type of Vista, 32 bit or 64 bit?

Reply to dsidious

Quote :

... Considering that there are no Direct X 10 games and few of us can afford two GTXs....

:? Don't you guys consider games like Flight Simulator X And company of hero's direct X 10 games. Flight sim has a Direct X 10 Patch and I think company of hero's is out too...

Reply to ATIWOLF

Quote :

... Considering that there are no Direct X 10 games and few of us can afford two GTXs....

:? Don't you guys consider games like Flight Simulator X And company of hero's direct X 10 games. Flight sim has a Direct X 10 Patch and I think company of hero's is out too...Neither of those patches are available yet.

Reply to Heyyou27

Are You implying im favoring the r600 because I have given the link to the resulsts obtained with the <b>HIGHEST QUALITY</b> being <B>8xAA/16xAF, 2560x1600 </b>?

I have just responded to the question by showing how the top GPU's perform at a setting that the person who started the thread will be most likely playing. I am not advocating for r600 or 8800GTX. It all boils down to 8800GTX being head and shoulders above the R600 in some games and vice versa in others.

As a clarification I will add that I have a 7900GS and my previous build had a radeon9700.

Reply to -xyzak-

Quote :

Here's something for you to consider:

The 2900xts come with the coupon to get portal, half life 2 ep 2 AND team fartress 2 games. ALSO if you get the Asus stalker 2900xt, you get the full game stalker stacked on top of that! I personally like that deal; But not the ugly stalker art on the card

Check it: linkage

You didn't highlight Portal... :twisted:

That game looks like awesome fun.

Reply to r0x0r

Thanks all for the input.
This is hard.

ATI HD2900XT scores well in 2560x1600. Almost as fast as 8800GTX. A brand name GTX is almost 200dollar more expensive then Asus HD2900XT.

Reply to shompa

I think in the end we'll see very nice improvements in some games after some driver upgrades on the 2900. The GTX is fantastic, tho at higher rez, it doesnt keep with scaling as well as the 2900 because of arch. For the price point at those rez, with some driver updates, its competitive with the GTX in some ways. Also, if this helps, dont forget the HDCP and the VC1 helps this card gives the cpu. Plus the HDMI with sound, which on a 30" screen would be nice in HD with surround sound.

Reply to jaydeejohn

vista is fine now
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/431/19/

well for ATI at least

my query is for this quote at the end tho

Quote :

what caught my attention is whenever a game makes a lot use of pixel shaders the overall performance starts to rise massively. And considering the future of games, that's a very good thing.

does this mean that future games will run better on the ATI
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/431/24

Reply to yakyb

The ATI part runs slower than the nVidia, but the handling of larger textures is what the 2900 excels at. The band width is higher on the ATI card

Reply to jaydeejohn

but does that mean as games get coded this way more the 2900 will become a better option? im thinking no as the brute power of the 8800 gtx is unreal

Reply to yakyb

Quote :

Have a Dell XPS 700, with 3ghz@3.6ghz Core2 processor

hello everyone

htere is no core 2 duo 3 ghz ( only for mac ) , that must be a pentium D

thanks

Reply to sqqq

Quote :

but does that mean as games get coded this way more the 2900 will become a better option? im thinking no as the brute power of the 8800 gtx is unreal

Youll notice in a few things as we go along. In CF the 2900's should do exceptionately well. At higher rez they do very well. And IF the coming games have these requirements, then they too will be better served by the 2900's arch. Just remember two things, one if youre buying for the future, DX10 games, and those games require more textures or are utilising tesselation then the 2900 will get better as it stands now. Secondly, every review you have read about the 2900's are being done on either alpha or beta drivers, so some games will see a good increase, while others it will be huge. Just like the SLI'd GTX's sometime suffer in certain games, they also will see a nice increase, but not as many nor as much as the 2900's. The "future" games at this point is all speculation, tho it does look as tho the industry is heading in the direction youre thinking

Reply to jaydeejohn

Quote :

Have a Dell XPS 700, with 3ghz@3.6ghz Core2 processor

hello everyone

htere is no core 2 duo 3 ghz ( only for mac ) , that must be a pentium D

thanks

what if he oced it?

Reply to tamalero

hello

tamalero ,shompa said that its@3.6Ghz so off course he overclocked it , but he said 3ghz@3.6ghz Core2

there are alot of shops that thinks that the buyer doesnt know a thing , so they lie .

or in some cases , even the seller doesnt know

thanks

Reply to sqqq

Quote :

The ATI part runs slower than the nVidia, but the handling of larger textures is what the 2900 excels at. The band width is higher on the ATI card

But the 2900XT also has half as many TMUs. :?

Reply to Heyyou27

Quote :

I think youll be glad you waited for various reasons

what are the various reasons?
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=8687

its looking like we all waited for no reason

its not better than 8800 why did amd/ati string us along?

My guess is that AMD/ATI was hoping for a miracle from newer drivers. Either that, or it has been stalling its creditors for as long as possible and was finally forced into releasing this mediocre card.

I don't like all the comparisons that sites are doing between it and the 8800 GTX, as they are obviously not in the same class. Better comparing would be done between it and the GTS 640, as a few sites did. But when all is said and done, the 2900 is power hungry, loud, and doesn't seem to offer any remarkable advantage over the 8800 GTS. At least that's my two cents worth.

Reply to Sailer

hmm, an alright review except the games. not enough new games in their and no oblivion. going to have to look through the reviews for one that features decent games for testing.

still, better than that OCW one someone posted.

anyone know of a good reveiw that is worth reading?

Reply to strangestranger

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - What card should I get? ATI 2900XT or Nvidia 8800GTX.

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What card should I get? ATI 2900XT or Nvidia 8800GTX.

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - What card should I get? ATI 2900XT or Nvidia 8800GTX.

Please mind