cefoskey,
You said, "As far as the video cards go, its pretty simple. If you play a lot of OpenGL based games (like doom3 or COD) then go 6800GT. If you are more of an likely to play games down the road like HL2, then go with the X800. Honestly its pretty much a tossup, but my nod is with the X800 since i think D3 is boring as hell".
I disagree with this
You are allowed to have your own opinion (because I could be wrong!), but here is why I disagree. Since we are talking about the 6800GT and X800 Pro, my comments below are restrained to such.
While the X800 Pro edges out the 6800GT in the HL2 stress test, the 6800GT edges out the X800 Pro in CS:S. While neither of these are HL2, CS:S is running on the source engine and I would think it would be a closer approximation of the HL2 engine. The 6800 series does not seem to have the same weaknesses that the NV3x series has that pretty much prevent them from running in DX9 at an acceptible frame rate. I am really looking forward to HL2, and I am sure the 6800GT and X800 Pro will both run it well.
But this is not all about Doom 3 versus HL2. There are other games/engines out there.
The 6800GT beats the X800 Pro in a lot of games outside of Doom3. For example, looking at the game benchmarks from Anandtech ( <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2113&p=6" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2113&p=6</A> ) we can see that the 6800GT wins more times than not over the X800 Pro. To make a brief rundown, I looked at all the 1600x1200 benchmarks with, and without, AA/AF. An '1' means they won with AA/AF, and '2' means they won without AA/AF. All tests were done at 1600x1200 because it is more GPU dependant and a lot of people with nicer monitors can play at this resolution:
Benchmark 1 = 1600x1200 w/ aa/af
Benchmark 2 = 1600x1200 w/o aa/af
<b>6800GT won in:</b>
F1 Challenge '99-'02 (1,2), FarCry (2), Halo (one test; AF, no AA), Homeworld 2 (1,2), Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (1,2), Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (1,2), Unreal Tournament 2004 (2), Warcraft III: Frozen Throne (1,2), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (1,2), X2: The Threat (1,2)
<b>X800 Pro won in:</b>
FarCry (1), FF XI (one test; no AA/AF, 1024x768), Unreal Tournament 2004 (1)
The 6800GT beats the X800 Pro by a wide margin in a couple games:
Homeworld 2
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (w/ AA & AF)
This is not to mention Doom3 where the 6800GT also beats the X800 Pro by a wide margin--50%! The 6800GT is just a better card all around, not just in OpenGL, although the OpenGL numbers really do need to be considered because a lot of companies will use the Doom 3 engine. And while a lot of companies may also use the HL2 engine, the 6800GT seems to perform comparably to the X800 Pro in the Source Engine. If I had to choose between losing a few FPS, but still be over 60FPS, or lose 20FPS and be closer to 30FPS than 60FPS, I am chosing the former.
Is the X800 Pro a bad card? No!! It is an excellent card and seems to perform very well when AA/AF are running.
While both are good cards, it is not a matter of, "If you like Doom 3 get the 6800GT, if not get the X800 Pro" (not quoting you btw, just a common sentiment) because the 6800GT seems to win quite a few benchmarks in D3D also. I would have to agree with Anandtech when they said:
"For higher performance, which is a better value? Should you go with the 6800 GT or X800 Pro? Is it a choice between the 6800 Ultra and X800 XT? Well, the answer is: go with the card that gives you the best value for the games that you like.
If that's too difficult a decision to make, our data shows the 6800 GT to lead the X800 Pro in performance".
And:
"The 6800 GT leads the X800 Pro in value more often than not. Of course, the small price difference in the market might not be much now, but honestly the GT and Pro are very comparable parts. The decision is a hard one to make. Our graphs show it, and our recommendation for the moment reflects it: when performance is on par, go with the cheaper hardware. NV40 has the added bonus of Vertex and Pixel Shader 3.0 support (already shown to help make a difference in FarCry performance) and with floating point frame buffers (which could help provide some very cool blending and HDR effects if developers support it). When everything is said and done, the 6800 GT gets our recommendation despite the close performance".
Btw, I like ATi a lot. My last card was an ATi card (Radeon 9700np) which performed very well, so I am not anti-ATi or anything. It just seems the 6800GT gives some excellent performance now and has some good features for the future. The AA performance on the X800 Pro is usually pretty good, and considering it performs as well as it does with just 12 pipelines, well, I am impressed. It will be interesting if ATi releases a 16 pipeline part to compete against the 6800GT or its sucessor.
Of course you have a right to your opinion, and you are correct that the X800 Pro is a nice card
Regardless,
guylov is getting a lot of info to help him make a decision.
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