Video Card

[Soulicro]

Ok, crap. Im getting a new computer, and my main focus are the graphics right now. So what is the best video card out there? (Please dont turn this into a flame or anything, I just need some help. I have no idea what to choose )

Also, keep in mind this computer will be mainly used for 3D and 2D digital art. (i.e. photoshop, 3dsmax, flash, etc)

P.S. - PCI Express is better then AGP right?

 

[Alteh]

1) NVIDIA GeForceFX 6800 Ultra
2) ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition

thats what ive read. I have the geforceFX and it pwns.
http://compreviews.about.com/cs/videocards/tp/aatpvideocards.htm

 

[Soulicro]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class="" style="PADDING-LEFT: 4px" width="100%">Thanks for replying Smurf. Anywho, out of these suckers, which one is the bes?

ATI FireGL™ V3100 PCI Express 128MB DDR

NVIDIA(R) Quadro(TM) FX 3400 PCI Express 128MB DDR w/Digital and VGA Out

256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X800 XT


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[Big Kyle]

You dont need anythign better then a 9800 XT but x800 P is the best on the market right now, 6800 closly behide it.

 

[Soulicro]

Aight, thanks for responding.

...

could people please help me out here, I thought I knew what I wanted but then I got all confused by looking at other sites. So again, I beg of you, help me out here.

 

[Jaiketsu]

To answer the first question, AGP is better than PCI but some PCs don't have the AGP slot. But most modern day pcs have them.

 

[Hash]

But he is talking about PCI express, which I believe is better than AGP slots.

Well out of those three cards you listed, you should definately go with the x800 xt. That and the geforce 6800 ultra are currently the two best cards money can buy. So if you can get either one of those, go for it.

 

[ZariusZer0]

Yes, PCI express is better than AGP, mainly because AGP can't be accelerated beyond it's current 8x, while PCI express doesn't have the same limit. Right now, all the top cards are going to be PCI express.

 

[GhostfaceKillah]

ha you dont need an x800 for the soul purpose of 2d and 3d art...

 

[Soulicro]

well its not just for that.. obviously Imma get doomIII and half life 2... but other then that, yup. 2d and 3d.

 

[Smith|]

The 6800 Ultra (THERE IS NO FX IN ITS NAME) pretty much owns the x800xt in doom 3. That's because doom 3 was built around nVidia's cards. HL2 will be more ati friendly.

So if you want doom 3 performance, 6800 Ultra, if you want hl2 performance, x800XT.

 

[GhostfaceKillah]

The 6800 Ultra (THERE IS NO FX IN ITS NAME) pretty much owns the x800xt in doom 3. That's because doom 3 was built around nVidia's cards. HL2 will be more ati friendly.

So if you want doom 3 performance, 6800 Ultra, if you want hl2 performance, x800XT.

well either way they will both perform hella well

 

[Atlantis]

Isralien my friend, stick with nvidia. Make sure it's a 256 mb ddr card, somewhere about 6000's and you're set for a few years lol. Nvidia 4 thumbs up.

Among many things, I am a computer technician and I know what im talking about. alot of games out there support ati now, that's just bs, it's just an advertisement campaign.

 

[Smith|]

Isralien my friend, stick with nvidia. Make sure it's a 256 mb ddr card, somewhere about 6000's and you're set for a few years lol. Nvidia 4 thumbs up.

Among many things, I am a computer technician and I know what im talking about. alot of games out there support ati now, that's just bs, it's just an advertisement campaign.

What? Wow, you made like .1% sense.

ATi does have the best card out on the market at the moment, winning due to less system requirements to use the actual card and higher performance in a lot of games.

The only reason the 6800 Ultra beats the x800XT is because doom 3 IS an nVidia game. It has it's own rendering path in doom 3 so that it gets the best performance.

In half life 2 in default directx9, no optimizations, the 5900 Ultra is beaten by the 9600XT in a lot of benchmarks. Valve had to spend like 6x more time optimizing for nVidia than for ATi. In fact, nVidia FX cards can't run in pure directx9 because of hardware design sucking so much.

 

[DiebytheSword]

From what I've read (I am also a Computer "Technician") both cards are screaming fast in either app. The primary thing you have to worry about is DirectX 9c.

Nvidia is ready for it, ATi is not . . . though you'll have to make another PC case just to house that rediculous cooling unit on the Nvidia. Also be aware of several problems with powering your rig, Nvidia's beast is a power black hole, showing off it's rather poor die design. Anything that sucks that much juice (requires a 500 watt psu, with TWO 12v HD power cables connected to the card from what I've read in Maximum PC) will generate tons of heat.

PCI Express is faster than AGP 3.0. APG 3.0 is faster than PCI.

On that note, you can have two video cards again, thanks to having multiple PCI Express slots. Nvidia takes advantage of it, but you'll plunk down a cool G just to own two SLI Nvidias (not including all the extra cooling, and PSUs you'll be buying).

Someone also mentioned the Firepro and Quatro cards . . . stay away from them unless you are a serious game designer looking for beauty over speed on things like 3DMax and Maya.

 

[Smith|]

From what I've read (I am also a Computer "Technician") both cards are screaming fast in either app. The primary thing you have to worry about is DirectX 9c.

Nvidia is ready for it, ATi is not . . . though you'll have to make another PC case just to house that rediculous cooling unit on the Nvidia.

Pixel shader 3.0 is such a waste of time. 2.0 can do every 3.0 can do, 3.0 is just a marketing thing to get nVidia more money.

Also be aware of several problems with powering your rig, Nvidia's beast is a power black hole, showing off it's rather poor die design. Anything that sucks that much juice (requires a 500 watt psu, with TWO 12v HD power cables connected to the card from what I've read in Maximum PC) will generate tons of heat.

You don't need 500 watt psu to use it, people have been able to scrap away with 350, if it's good. But that's still outrageous. But yes, I believe they could have done better work with the die design. They are basically limited at 400-500 mhz on the core without watercooling due to the amount of transistors.

On that note, you can have two video cards again, thanks to having multiple PCI Express slots. Nvidia takes advantage of it, but you'll plunk down a cool G just to own two SLI Nvidias (not including all the extra cooling, and PSUs you'll be buying).

Yes, and it has scored over 21k on 3dmark03 O_O.

 

[FreeDoM]

A lot of benchmark tests are saying theres no noticable differences between 8x AGP and 16x PCI Express.

Using Pci express means you need a motherboard that supports it, new case, power supply that supports it, and i even think the Intel boards require DDR2 ram which means you'll be making a completely new pc, and you can't really take anything from a previous one. I suggest, going with one of the newer Intel 3.4 boards with 2Mb Cache (prescott i believe) If you want to stay with 32 bit technology. If you want to spend a bit more, probably Amd Athlon 64 3800. Or, if money is no object, go for the FX brands with Dual Channel memory. It's also important to know that Athlon 64 have been beating P4's in gaming benchmark tests.

 

[jgeorgeuk]

i can tell u now m8 the best of them would be the 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X800 XT
i have that in my dell xps and my gd how realy gd it is no game is to hard for it dam i cannot w8 for hl2 and doom3 mwhahahahaha again its a gd card with the rite cpu

 

[niobe]

Pixel shader 3.0 is such a waste of time. 2.0 can do every 3.0 can do, 3.0 is just a marketing thing to get nVidia more money

nop, i saw a test to see the difrends in far cry and it is realy diverent.
first you saw big pixels in 2.0 but then they activated 3.0 and then you say it like it's live like, way better than 2.0 ^_^

 

[Smith|]

No, that was a fake.

Gawd, people who think they are up to spec always aren't. Those screenshots were the difference between 1.0 and 3.0/2.0. Infact, when those screenshots were taken pixelshader 3.0 wouldn't work at all in farcry yet, so you were seeing 1.0 vs. 2.0.

3.0 and 2.0 are basically identical, but 3.0 just allows longer programming limits.