9800gtx and direct x10.1

[Topcover]

My question here is simple. I am looking at building a new computer in a few weeks and would like to use a 9800gtx (I may sli them depending on what the rest of my build costs). I have been reading around though and found this card does not support direct x 10.1. When will it be an issue that these cards do not support direct x 10.1 and will it be a huge issue. Intend to use this system for 2 to 3 years. If it is an issue is it enough of an issue to consider to radeon 3870's in crossfire (no x2 cards i have had nothing but problems with them.)

Thanks for the help

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

It does not support DX10.1, but DX10.1's own future/utility is in question.

There are alot of benificial additions to DX10.1 including adding one of the original benefits of DX10 in memory virtalization, however I don't see it being a significant feature until 2009.

Sure it's supposed to be a 3Dmark Vantage feature, but who cares about that other than posers worried about eWangs instead of actual gaming benefits.

IMO, get the card that performs best in both DX9 and DX10.0 games/apps/features. If you plan on owning this card until 2010 maybe it might show some usefulness towards the end, but in my opinion not enough to pick a noticably underperforming solution over the other.

IMO, treat it like a tie breaker, not a deciding factor.

 

[Mousemonkey]

A certain gamer from jersey might say otherwise but IMHO by the time games will only run under 10.1 or even use 10.1 you will be building a new rig anyway.

 

[Topcover]

Ok thanks for the input and the clarification I will go with nvidia unless the benchmarks prove otherwise

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Ok thanks for the input and the clarification I will go with nvidia unless the benchmarks prove otherwise

Well you could always look at S3, they're DX10.1 too ya' know. [:mousemonkey:1]

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Youll have to excuse TGGA, as he has an affliction with S3. heheh

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

GO Chrome or GO Home !!

 

[dev1se]

I love how S3's image gives the first impression of double the performance of a 8400GS.

 

[Topcover]

I fear i may start somthing but...


Who is s3?

 

[bluekoala]

In all seriousness, the 9800 from Nvidia sounds like a good buy. Although I am still leaning towards 2x 38X0's in CF at a modest price. ATI is my bias these days.

*Note that I never suggest high end graphics card since they usually are not high end after 6 months anymore and have lost over half their value. HS3800's is an exception to that due to it's low price (post NV9600's)

I couldn't suggest the S3 card as I have not seen it in action; seen relevant benchmarks; or heard the horror stories about it. I'm curious to know what works great and what's not so great about them. For the price they're being released at, you can't go wrong with the either, full HDMI support. Something Nvidia doesn't do yet (They're missing sound).

 

[bluekoala]

Topcover
I fear i may start somthing but...


Who is s3?

S3 was competing with Matrox, ATI and 3DFX way before Nvidia was even heard of.
Now they're getting back into the game. This is bound to be very interesting.
Seems like the consumer will keep winning for a while =x

 

[Annisman]

due forget the GX2, check out this behemoth.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200605/S3ChromeS27_pspc.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pcstats.com/ArtVNL.cfm%3Farticleid%3D1948%26page%3D10&h=322&w=450&sz=83&hl=en&start=20&um=1&tbnid=xXnvRvmqdVinzM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3DS3%2Bgraphics%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

 

[bluekoala]

Although the results are less than impressive for the S3 card, it's still a decent entry level card for anyone who happens to have bought an OEM system with no VGA. For about the same price, you can get a radeon HD3650 with 512mb DDR2. I'd say this card is 3 years late for the mainstream gamer. Despite that being said, it does have full support for HDMI which can make it very attractive to OEMs to sell it as a media center/value gaming system.

I'm currently waiting on a 2X 3650 conf scalable to 4X. I speculate that the lower DDR2 speed should scale nicely with the PCIE8x in case I want a quad card setup.

Though for the original poster, I wouldn't suggest the chrome, 3650's. Either 38X0's in CF or the 9800GTX.
Note that 2x 3870's may be cheaper than 1 9800GTX and still be running the newest games great on medium quality 3 years from now.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The main this for S3 will be it's HTPC and low-end performance. Just like VIA's CPUs the focus will be on low end performance and then value and efficiency.

It's definitely late to the table, but probably only about a year or so, because if it arrived last summer it likely would've taken both AMD and nVidia's lunch in the low to low-mid range.

Right now it'll just be nice to see another architecture in the mix, because right now we just have A and B's methods of doing things (intel doesn't really count yet).

 

[T8RR8R]

DX11 will probably be out by the time DX10.1 will be an issue. Also 8800GTS512 is appearing to be really close in comparison to the 9800GTX. The only real benefit to the 9800GTX will be that you could use 3 of them for Tri-SLI, which is something you can't do with the 8800GTS512. For the price, the 8800GTS512 would probably be the better deal.

 

[dtq]

*Note that I never suggest high end graphics card since they usually are not high end after 6 months anymore and have lost over half their value. HS3800's is an exception to that due to it's low price (post NV9600's)

I brought top of the range nearly 15 months ago, someone really needs to send Nvidia a note telling them my 8800gtx's should no longer be high end. Sure Ive saved myself a fortune by being out of the the GPU race for 15 months 1.5 nvidia and 2 ATI generations later they are still "high end" But I want more and nothings came out yet to make my graphics solution outdated . I actually believed the hype at the time I brought the GTX's that ATI would be bringing out a monster card in a month which was 50% faster than the GTX, with better drivers... But I went with the theory of buying the best I could with the money I had at the time I needed a upgrade. Ive never regretted it...

I believed the release rumours that the 2900 would rule in dx10 comapred to the GTX, I was more suspicious that drivers would fix all and make it run rings around the GTX in dx9, especially after months of fanboi talk of how ATI were taking their time to get the drivers right before release... I didnt actually care much about DX 10 it was still a year away when I brought the GTX I figured that by time dx10 became big news I would be wanting a new card anyway, I was right then I believe the same with dx10.1 I buy the best I can get my hands on for my wants and needs today, because the future will have its own solutions for its own problems. After 15 years in the industry I really dont believe in "futureproofing" PC's :lol:

I need a top end single GPU performance for the game I play most (DX10 and no crossfire \ sli support) theres not been much released to make a good upgrade from what I have. I can SLI \ crossfire for other games but the game I play most needs a powerhouse singe GPU...

I dont really care about "future value" of what I buy, as far as Im concerned every penny spent is gone , I hand down my parts through the family chain of computers (thats quite some family chain of pc's as well 5 in my house, 7 at my parents, 5 I think at my sisters) until something somewhere down the end of the road gets binned normally one of my sisters kids PC's...

 

[systemlord]

DirectX 10 is not all that right now, most people would rather run in Windows XP than Vista DX10. Crysis is an excellent example when running with the modified render tweaks (that Crytec thought they could hide from us) using Very High under XP, I can't see a difference between the two! Same thing with Bioshock, what is this thing called DirectX 10 that everyone keeps rambling about???

 

[dtq]

DirectX 10 is not all that right now, most people would rather run in Windows XP than Vista DX10. Crysis is an excellent example when running with the modified render tweaks (that Crytec thought they could hide from us) using Very High under XP, I can't see a difference between the two! Same thing with Bioshock, what is this thing called DirectX 10 that everyone keeps rambling about???

Funnily enough Im still running xp I have two copies of vista 64 waiting for when I upgrade my PC's, I want to see for myself the difference between dx9 and dx10 . To be honest we havent yet got an actual dx 10 game out. We cant expect DX10 to show its stuff till weve got games written purely for dx10 with no dx 9 back compatibility, the time will come. but its not here yet. From what Ive seen of crysis (having completed it in dx9 and played the intro on dx10) crysis appears to be a stunning dx9 game with a few dx10 whistles and bells I may be wrong but the dx9 does look very very good, and the dx 10 was hard to pick out the differences.

The game I play most (lotro) is supposed to benefit from dx10 with distant lighting and shadows, Im willing to experiment and see how it looks

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Im wondering if they (M$, gamemakers et al) are waiting for the new consoles to come out, for them to be the driving force in DX10/11? This would be a travisty if this were to be true. The new chipset from AMD seems to be heading in the right direction to forstall the console takeover, as it brings a measureable increase in performance at the IG level, thus letting the regular Joes out the a chance at playing games on their rigs instead of going to consoles. If discrete is going to win back PC gaming, this and better all around/higher performing hardware needs to come IMHO

 

[homerdog]

IMO, treat it like a tie breaker, not a deciding factor.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Topcover]

I agree most with dtq I also hand down my parts through the family and have been built to using parts from my old computer i have built then for siblings. The idea of future proofing is one that i do not follow to much but i was not sure on the future of dx10.1 so i thought i should ask.

I see consoles and pc gaming slowly coming together in the future but never consoles taking over ( in a sense they already have look at the numbers). Gaming is one of the things that drive the industry. Your average joe computer user doesn't need a 3.0ghz quad core and a 500 dollar graphics card to surf the web. Back in the days of the Pentium pro you need all the power you could get for a computer to do most tasks but things have changed, hardware is way more powerful than it used to be and your basic 300 computer can do most things your average users would want them to. Albeit slower but not something everyone would notice. The only time you notice something is when watching a video and even the new integrated chipsets can handle movies and streaming video fairly well.

Thanks for all the response to my topic you have given me a lot to think about.

 

[Timothy Benton]

Is DirectX 10.1 used yet? We have Vista SP1 and DX10.1 cards, but don't applications have to support it too?

 

[homerdog]

Is DirectX 10.1 used yet?

No

We have Vista SP1 and DX10.1 cards, but don't applications have to support it too?

Yes

 

[jerseygamer]

No the apps dont "have" to support dx10.1. Just the hardware. Can apps be written to better performance in dx10.1? Yes, but and there is a "but" DX10.1 should be an instant fix for almost every bad performing feature that the current DX10 gives us along with alot of dx9 features it should have had in the first place.

 

[systemlord]

Over the normal flow of time game developers will learn how to properly use all that new gaming code thats there now, it will be sometime before games are solly coded for DX10 Vista only.