The true "value" card...

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Stryker

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My opinion on the graphics cards (which isn't likely to change any time soon) is that nVidia cards have a lot of flash and glitz but don't do the job quite like the ATI cards. I've had a Gigabyte 9600 XT for years now and it's served me much better than any of the nVidia cards I've had. At the stock speed, without any modifications at all, it's been able to run Call of Duty, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Guild Wars, and even Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 without so much as a hiccup at good quality settings.

I keep hearing everyone say that the GeForce 6600 GT is the true 'bang for your buck' value-type card if you're looking to build a new rig now. I've seen the benchmarks, and I think it's safe to say that it's a respectable card. And for its price range, yeah, it does perform very well but I think that a lot of the time people tend to discount solutions that are a little bit different. I've seen a total of one single, solitary recommendation to go with ATI over nVidia at this point and it doesn't look like much of anyone is willing to budge regarding their position on the best value card right now.

Being an ATI kind of guy, I have to question whether or not there is a similar, viable ATI offering. Obviously, the x600 and x700 series of cards get beaten senseless by the nVidia 6600GT - but the x800 line is another matter. I started looking around Newegg and I found this vanilla x800 card by MSI for only $150 after rebate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127176

It seems to be a good enough card. It's price, after the rebate, would likely be less than or equal to the 6600 GTs available today which cost somewhere in the range of $150-200. It's even got 12 pixel pipelines as opposed to 8 - and that's got to account for something, right? It seems to me that this may be the true value card as opposed to the 6600 GT unless I'm mistaken. There don't seem to be any sort of reviews or benchmarks involving this card at all so I can't be sure, but with what it's offering I would think that it would be able to perform competitively with a 6600GT.

Am I right? Would this card be a viable option when stacked up against a 6600GT, or am I just dead wrong? :beard:
 
It will perform worse than a X800 pro, and Beedubaya wants to get rid of his x800 pro, as he gets terrible performance at times.

The X*** range is not liked much due to lack of pxel shader model 3 support, which the next gen games will use. For a ATI card to run the game, it will have to use directX 8, and you will not get your money's worth of eye candy.

There is another reason why ATI cards are not liked much, and thats their drivers, which don't do the card justice like the Nvidia cards do.

If you want to get a 12 pixel pipeline card, than there is the 6800 vanilla, is better than the 6600gt and pulls ahead further when the game gets more demanding (higher res, more AA etc.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150068
 
So current games don't support shader 3? Well, even if they don't it's always nice to plan ahead for the future and I guess I reluctantly have to admit that ATI won't be able to help me out as far as that's concerned.

Maybe my gripe with nVidia cards in the past has to do with the manufacturer. Back in the days when I didn't have a job and my parents bought everything for me, PNY was always the manufacturer of the card. The poor lifespan of their cards was something that really bothered me.
 
PNY are not a top end manufacturer. If you want a ATI card the X900's are out sometime. You can save up for that. (It will support PSM3.)
 
yeah, the vanilla 6800 kicks the crap out of a vanilla X800. sometimes the vanilla 6800 pulls ahed of the X800 Pro, but it usually isn't often. the 6800 goes for around $185 on newegg right now, and IMO its the best bang for your buck video card because it has the power to run todays games at high resolutions with AA, but it doesn't break the bank.
 
I remember Gaara once said something about PSM 3.0 being a DX 9.0c instruction, not a DX 9.0 instruction. Therefore, ATI users could play on DX 9.0 levels, but not 9.0c levels. Could be wrong though.

And yes, 6800 vanilla > X800 vanilla
 
The 6600GT is a great buy too and its chxaper than the 6800. I get 50-60fps in doom 3 on high settings at 1280x1024 and AA at 8x. This card owns IMO.
 
The 6600 GT does kick the crap out of the vanilla X800 and even the X800 Pro at times. SHAWN was mentioning getting 50-60 fps in Doom 3 at 1280x1024...try that with an X800 or X800 Pro! With my X800 Pro I get 20-30 fps at that same settings. This round, its definately much better to go with an Nvidia card.
 
Agreed about Nvidia. The major determining factor for me is PSM 3.0. If it werent for that, I would actually love my X850 XT. However, i look at with a funny face because of PSM 3.0
 
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