Ive been hearing that the X1800XL or something from ATI and the Geforce 6800 GT are the two best...Are there any better ones for AGP? What are their price ranges (canadian)? And if they both are the two best, which one of the two of them is the best?

thanx

there is no x1800xl in agp

ATI 3D Rage Pro
:p

or X800...soemthing like that..

I hav eno idea when it comes to video cards, I can just barely remember the numbers and letters without enough trouble as it is :p

I think its actually the 800XL now..



256 MB by the way

Actually, Diamond is in the process of making the x1800 series of ATI cards for AGP. They sould be out soon.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27657

For god's sake, it is not THAT ENQUIRER.

this was in the last thread,

sorry to say that it was all a typo on the webpage and that there isn't going to be an x1800xl on AGP.

So that leaves either the x800 series or the 6800 series as the best available on AGP.

As for which is the best it all depends on who you talk too, personally I've got a 6800gt (which I am very happy with) but I've recomended x800's to friends also, mainly because the card is smaller (for systems without much room in them) and on the resolution's they are playing at, AA/AF can be used and ATI seems to hold its framerate better when dealing with AA.

Basically its the same old story, if you are playing OpenGL based games, then go Nvidia, if you are playing DirectX, then go Ati. Framerate differences are marginal at best.

The only difference that could play a part is the Shader Model, the 6800's can do SM3.0 where as the Ati cards can only do 2.0b, however in all real world gaming i've come across I can't tell the difference, neither can other people in most reviews I've read.

Possibly in a year or so with a few more games using SM3.0 it **might** become important, although by that time the x800 and 6800 series will be showing their age and most likely the system as a whole if it is using AGP, not that the games won't be playable, just trying to play new games with max settings probably won't be achievable and hence most of the pretty effects made available by SM3.0 won't be also...(not that SM3.0 enables any prettier effects, just allows them to be coded easier and run quicker).

Choose either the x800(gt/gto/xl/xt) or the 6800(gt/ultra) you won't go wrong with either, most telling difference is the price at the moment and on that front, with the old generation, Ati seems to be winning in most cases with the x800gto which, (with a little work) is basically a x800xt, just for a lot less $$$/£££.

X850XT is the absolute best, but not by much, and not in all games.

The X800 series and 6800 series are pretty much the same, to be honest. It's just whether you want SM3.0 or TSAA

6800 Ultra or X850XTPE

Voting for 6800 Ultra, just because it supports SM3.0 (although it'll probably be too slow to use it effectively)

James Bond, of course you're not going to see an effect from the SM3.0 support of the 6800GT. There are hardly few (IF ANY) games that even support it just yet. Most run off 2.0 or 2.0++ so the SM3.0 support will not have effect on it. All it does is help 3.0 games run better.

That was what I was trying to get across in the post, maybe it got a little lost.

As far as I know the only difference between SM3.0 and SM2.0b is how quickly the instructions can be run, in theory SM3.0 should be quicker, however that is only true if you hit the instruction set limit in SM2.0, which I don't think any game does. There are a few new effects but they are marginal at best and not used in any game but one at the minute, and even then, enabling the effect causes a huge slowdown.

On the instruction set thingy, HL2 has a shader length of 30-40 instructions, SM2.0 has a limit of 96, where as SM3.0 has a limit of 65,535. Even so, in the case of Ati hardware they have designed it so that mutiple shader instructions can run at the same time, so in theory if the limit on one instruction set in SM2.0 was reached, another one could be run at the same time. However this has to be taken account for by the developers and coded specially.

It's also true that virtually all the effects enabled by SM3.0 can be replicated with SM2.0b, so in again it doesn't matter as no games use it at the moment, and like I said earlier, when they do the card probably won't be fast enough to run them anyway.

As for the x850, personally I wouldn't pay the extra for those cards, they are just x800's with slightly higher clocks, at most they provide an extra 5 fps, might as well save a few $$/££ and go with an x800 variant and overclock it slightly. They have all been shown to be able to hit the x850 speeds, plus they don't have that stupidly large dustblower fan on them.

You seem to fail to realize that games will be coming out with them soon enough. Neverwinter nights II which is mere months away is proof enough of that, and from what I've gathered games like Gothic 3 and UT2k7 will support it also.

Of course its still a choice, but I'd rather have my SM3.0 support than the Adaptive AA anyday.

So the card I should go out and buy it sounds like is the Nvidia Geforce 6800.. GT? Ultra? I dunno which one is better between those two series..

256 MB of course, I know that much.

The Ultra is definatly faster when retail, but if your computer has decent cooling then you can overclock the 6800GT to something close enough to the Ultra speed. Ultra heats up more, so you can't over clock it that much higher.

I don't really know the price range, but if the ultra is only 50$ or 100$ more, i'd dish out for it, but if its 150$+ just go with the GT.

Of course I still say you should move to PCI-E even if that practically means buying a new computer. :p

the ultra is classed as the better card but you can normally (in every case I've heard) clock the GT to the same speed as the ultra. The difference in performance if you don't want to go for the ultra will be about 5-10%.

I'd recommend the GT over the ultra because of the added price of the ultra for the little performance increase.

I might just get the ultra.. I have enough money to spend freely.


My current computer is

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1 GIG RAM (upping htat to 2 GIGs soon)
160 GB HD
- Currently on a Geforce FX 5200... Boourns.

Then get a new PCI-E board, processor and memory along with that video card

My GT goes past Ultra speeds--with ease.

Mine doesn't because it seems the heating in my box varies too much, probably because of my whole apartment temperature. That and I don't have a very powerful powersupply, albeit I don't know if it does affect overclocking speeds. I wouldn't put my hand in fire saying it does anyways.

Still I started thinking of getting bigger and badder of a card already, but I'm going to wait until ATI and Nvidia release their next video cards. I imagine within 6 months or a year Nvidia are bound to come out with some great new card.

Not really--they're going to milk this line for all they can. And with good reason--a 7800GTX can run ANY game on highest with AA and AF, even 8 months after it came out.

Well I don't know how great it'll run the upcoming, more resource needy games like oblivion (lets face it, world textures look worlds better than even quake 4 and CoD2)

but i dunno, I'll see how things go.

Those are two of the lowest resolution textured games out right now--because of all the bumpmapping and parallax mapping used in them. Plus, the textures aren't really that amazing--it's the scope of having a game that looks like something just spat out of the FPS factory as a humongous RPG--and let's face it, FPS' contain the best graphics of anything.

If you want huge textures look at FEAR or UT2k7.

CoD2 has low res textures? what kind of crack are you smoking?

I didn't say that--I said it was one of the lowest res textured games of the new generation.

Does HL2 count as new generation? Because that game had massive amounts of low res textures.

Nah, otherwise I'd say it was the lowest texture res'd game. I think we've moved past it though with Q4, FEAR, and CoD2.

X850XT PE is the undisputed winner. Not that Nvidia or ATI couldn't put something better out if they weren't so lazy.

I dunno about that--for AGP at least. I think we'd fastly see the looming 166mhz upload limit (or is 133? Whatever PCI bus has, as AGP is just a modified PCI bus iirc) on the horizon.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]I didn't say that--I said it was one of the lowest res textured games of the new generation.[/QUOTE]

how exactly is this low-res compared to other current games?

(note: i wish my computer could actually run at those settings...i was getting about 2fps at 1152x864 0xAA 4xAF)

Me too. Damn FX5200

People on Ebay are selling the 6800 GT's 256 MB OC;d for 300 CAN and less.. That is awesome.

That's not low-res--but there are instances where I see too bumpmapped of a surface with not enough texturing.

Granted, though, ANY current game with all settings on high would look amazing. It's just that I think FEAR has better textures.

Man Darkjedi, you must really love CoD2 to defend it and its interest in all threads. lol

how am i defending it in all threads?

i disagree with someone else's opinion on the "low-res" nature of the textures...

another thread all i mention is that i loved the demo but wished there was a little sniping in it then get in an arguement with someone who doesn't realize if you don't know the name of a gun when posting on a forum where there are people who have some interest in firearms then either don't try to post a name or RTFM and get the name of the weapon... just a little advice for the future in case that person happens to be reading this thread



anyway to keep this on topic... i just wish i wouldn't have to resort to ebay to get a 6800GT in agp... i want to hold out on any major upgrades until ut2k7 comes out and a 6800gt would make it all easier why must all the stores stop selling them

I already mentioned in that thread I did not have the manual, and that I didn't care for picky "gun know-it-alls" like you.