How important is Shader Model 3? (deciding between ati X850XT and nvidia 7600GT)

[Mk97]

I'd go between EVGA or XFX. I'm currently purchasing from XFX, so I'll recommend them for the time being.

 

[maroon1]

How about a ATI X1600XT? The HIS one has 600/1400 with 12 pipelines and SM3 support. It looks like it would score higher than a 7600gt and I've heard it overclocks good.
If I don't normally get stuff when it first comes out will the driver issuses really be all that bad?

Ati x1600xt has 4 pixel pipelines, and 12 pixel shader units

7600GT beats it

 

[Trifid]

No it doesn't, the X1600XT has 12 pixel pipelines and 5 vertex. I had a bad experience with the ATI X1600pro (restarts, and my god the drivers couldn't be worse even if they tried.) ATI how ever has the technology but that isn't avaliable in these cards.

SM3 is pointless in multiplayer games, as it is distracting and you can't see the enemy at the end of a tunnel. Single player it is great.

 

[Nitestick]

All that marketing crap doesn't affect anything just because it has a certain label on it; Nvidia just pays the game developers to put their label on their games so that more people will reach for an nvidia card instead of ATI.

in many cases this is true but not in all. HL2 for example was optimised for ATI cards and does indeed play considerably better on comparable offerings from ATI than it does on nVIDIA cards.

 

[Nubius]

in many cases this is true but not in all. HL2 for example was optimised for ATI cards and does indeed play considerably better on comparable offerings from ATI than it does on nVIDIA cards.

Same with Doom3. Doom3 is heavily optimized for nvidia cards.

 

[Waphlez]

Same with Doom3. Doom3 is heavily optimized for nvidia cards.

Yea, John Carmack and Nvidia gave eachother a lot of feedback and John took advantages of Nvidia's cards. But there are many games that are branded Nvidia or ATI and there isn't any major improvement unless ofcourse the card itself is just more powerful.

But I still think the X1800GTO is very overlooked on these forums, Nvidia fanboism is pretty dominaint here.

 

[Nubius]

Nvidia fanboism is pretty dominaint here.

It is, it's AMD and Nvidia pretty much.

I prefer Nvidia, but I just stay away from the 'recommend me a card' threads as I've lost track of what cards are out there, what's coming out, which ones have what specs, etc...etc..

 

[Trifid]

Nvidia fanboism is pretty dominaint here.

I want an ATI card, but ATI are not giving me what I want, decent drivers to boot.

Intel is getting strong support for the Conroe here. Most people (including me) jump from company to company for what produces the best results.

 

[Nubius]

Intel is getting strong support for the Conroe here. Most people (including me) jump from company to company for what produces the best results.

The truth is, most people here are little parrots that just repeat things without knowing anything themself. One person yells "Conroe conroe!" and 50 others yell it without knowing why.

Sad really......those same people just a few months ago were bashing the crap out of Intel.

 

[Running]

yup i agree nubius its ridiculous how many people repeat the same thing when someone comes asking for a comp build.
"well you would want an antec psu and a DFI or MSi mobo blah blah"

i just ordered an MSI x1800xl 512mb which is basically an x1800xt 512 because it has the 1.2ns mem. ill be getting back to you guys on the perf