nvidia 5800 or ati 9700?

[15th Warlock]

ya but i've read that the first 6200's were 128 bit and just were 6600 cores with 4 locked pipelines. http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35366

If you are able to find one of those cards you may be able to unlock it, and in certain situtations it could be faster than a 9700 (like in low resolution gaming, and when you don't use FSAA or AA)

However, you would be taking a risk by trying to go that route, as, even 128bits 6200 cards are coupled with very slow RAM, which won't ever reach the clocks of the GDDR3 RAM used in 6600GT cards. Besides, there's a chance that the card you get won't unlock.

I would advise that you either:

a) Make sure the 9500 you plan to buy is the 256bits version, and therefore can be fully unlocked to a 9700, or

b) You spend some 40~60 more bucks and get an X800GTO or a brand new 6600GT, or even a 7600GS (though it may the most expensive of the three).

 

[Tatty_Two]

Didnt he say its actually a 9500 lol, well in that case it aint gonna go 9800 and the 5800 should flash to 5800Ultra which is going to murder the 9700 (flashed), the 5800Ultra was beaten by the 9800Pro but not by a huge margin so if it really is a 9500 already flashed to 9700 then......... go for the 5800 and try flashing to Ultra. If that does not work 5800's tended to overclcok to 500/1000 in any case which is more or less Ultra levels but of course improved cooling would be needed. Although to be fair, the 5800 in any guise was a card worth forgetting about!

A review of thier benchie battle is here:

http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/12,84,2,0701,03.html

 

[KennyT772]

get either a 6600gt 128mb or a 9600xt 128mb
the 6600gt is $135 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125168
and the 9600xt is 65 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102338
so ur covered either way. get the 6600 if u can as it is still a competent card today while my 9600xt is reallly showing its age.

 

[15th Warlock]

Didnt he say its actually a 9500 lol, well in that case it aint gonna go 9800 and the 5800 should flash to 5800Ultra which is going to murder the 9700 (flashed), the 5800Ultra was beaten by the 9800Pro but not by a huge margin so if it really is a 9500 already flashed to 9700 then......... go for the 5800 and try flashing to Ultra. If that does not work 5800's tended to overclcok to 500/1000 in any case which is more or less Ultra levels but of course improved cooling would be needed. Although to be fair, the 5800 in any guise was a card worth forgetting about!

A review of thier benchie battle is here:

http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/12,84,2,0701,03.html

I think you missed it, but I think he said the 5800 is out of the question, I mentioned it because b1lk1 said it was the fastest of the FX series, which it is not

the 5800 is out of the question now because it got bidded past 20 dollars so it's not worth it, but the comparing a 9700 pro to the 5800. the difference is not that much, and my 9500 is being turned into a 9700 np, so performance still seems like it would be the same as a 5800 nu.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I think you missed it, but I think he said the 5800 is out of the question, I mentioned it because b1lk1 said it was the fastest of the FX series, which it is not

Got U, and yes, you were right, it most certainly is not! I don't ever like to admit it but I had a 5900xt flashed to 5950Ultra and that at the time was fairly swift but sounded like Apollo 13 at take off and again was a real Sh*tMonster.

 

[Soopahmahn]

Yo DC,
I didn't realize you wanted to spend so little on the card - but I have to tell you, I still have that exact system (P4 2.4gHz Northwood w/AGP 4x mobo and 1gb SDRAM) and if you drop one of those FX cards in, you're in for a disappointment. It would have helped a bit if you had found a 2.6 or 2.8gHz Northwood, but still - you can eek some decent performance out. I just finished buying a Sapphire X800GTO AGP which came stock with the full 16 pipes unlocked - and I can't believe the performance jump from my FX5900.

In the low price GPU world - meaning sub-$100, it seems like every 10-20 bucks you spend gets you like 20-50% more power, depending on what you go with and which features you're comparing. I honestly would have recommended not spending more than $20 on your case and PSU and investing the extra bucks in your vid card - with the 9700 you'll be ok on the games you're talking about - BF2, Doom3, stuff like that. But you want to play FEAR? Oblivion? And in fact basically any high-end game that comes out from here on out? You're going to be sad.

I really advise you/your friend to see if you can pony up a few extra bucks for something from the X series of video cards from ATi, get something with good OC'ing potential, and you'll be far happier. Even if you can't drop $125 for a new X800GTO, you should look at spending $60-80 to make this system worth the time and money that's already been put into it! Hopefully you can find a good deal on such a card on eBay.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Yeah you can get an x800 12 pipe vanilla card brand new now in the UK at about the equivilent of $70 from "Overclockers UK" and they ship worldwide, may be able to play some tricks with the pipes as well. You can even get a brand new 9600Pro at newegg for $45, alledgedlly they can be flashed to 9600XT speeds.

 

[cjoyce1980]

Yeah you can get an x800 12 pipe vanilla card brand new now in the UK at about the equivilent of $70 from "Overclockers UK" and they ship worldwide, may be able to play some tricks with the pipes as well. You can even get a brand new 9600Pro at newegg for $45, alledgedlly they can be flashed to 9600XT speeds.

where are these "vanilla cards" you are on about, cos i cant find them

 

[Tatty_Two]

where are these "vanilla cards" you are on about, cos i cant find them

Lol wanna borrow me glasses... clearance page on Overclockers site, you can even get a GTO16 for around £70 something but the x800 vanilla for £40 somethin is about 2 thirds down page, cheap as buttons and its a Powercolour....here is a link to the page....scroll down, Ohhh edit: it's 256 bit also not some cit down budget version.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Graphics_Cards_637.html

 

[dccool879]

would ya'll happen to know something about the evga 6800 le's. I have been reading they are 6800 ultra's, but underclocked! they don't even need to be softmodded, they have pixel pipes and vertex pipes all open, just a slower clock speed. Anyone heard of this!?!

 

[Tatty_Two]

would ya'll happen to know something about the evga 6800 le's. I have been reading they are 6800 ultra's, but underclocked! they don't even need to be softmodded, they have pixel pipes and vertex pipes all open, just a slower clock speed. Anyone heard of this!?!

I was under the impression they only have 8 active pipes. just checked, it has just 8 pipes and 4 vertex shaders but some are unlockable to 12 and 5 thru RivaTuner but the card is at the bottom of the 6800 pile, which goes something like....bottom to top:

LE
XT
Vanilla
GS
GT
Ultra

 

[dccool879]

but the evga is supposed to be special, i think le means limited edition or something.

http://www.ap0calypse.com/showthread.php?p=5450

 

[Tatty_Two]

but the evga is supposed to be special, i think le means limited edition or something.

http://www.ap0calypse.com/showthread.php?p=5450

It actually means "Lite" and that forum thread is totally wrong I am afraid, here is a link from the product manual on EVGA's website, you will see from that not only is it only 8 pipelines but also low core speeds also, sorry to put the gloom on your prospective purchase but really it aint very good at all:

http://www.evga.com/products/pdf/n348.pdf

 

[Azhrei]

The 9700 performs far better than the FX 5800. Until it died recently I was still playing all the latest games at high settings on my 9800 Pro - that should tell you something. The FX 5800 was slow on release. The 9700/9800 cards are finally showing their age these days, but they still perform better than the FX line.

Here is an original review of the FX 5800, showing comparisons with the 9700 Pro. As they say in the conclusion, at the best of times the 5800 outperforms the 9700 Pro by 10%, but most of the time the 9700 Pro outperforms the 5800 by a greater amount.

 

[cdawall]

ok i have no arguement about theuhhh p.o.s. fx series (i have a ti rather than one of those) my card as you can see in my sys specs is a little oc'd 340/580 so you can unlock a 9500 to a 9700 i am going to have to get one of those but i havnt been able to find a 256bit card who sells them?

 

[dccool879]

ebay has em:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-RADEON-9500...ryZ40158QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
you can find em cheaper too, one just went for 15 dollars.

 

[_33]

9700 series:

- Had full PS/VS 2.0 support
- 256 bit memory interface
- First card to support all functions of Direct X 9 A
- Single slot solution

5800 series:

- Not all functions of PS/VS 2.0 supported
- 128 bit memory interface
- Doesn't fully support Direct X 9 A (more like Direct X 8.1)
- Very loud and inefficient dual slot cooling solution (they called it the hair dryer)

The 5800 had a lot of other quirks that made it the least undesired and mostly put Nvidia in trouble as it was technologically behind and inefficient design overall, as well as below average image quality. Only the 5950 of the FX series and maybe the cheap 5200 were decent buys. Meanwhile ATI had the 9800XT

 

[pt]

then come the 6600 series that taked the crown to NVIDIA for quite some time

 

[_33]

then come the 6600 series that taked the crown to NVIDIA for quite some time

Of course, but the 5800 sucked massively. A huge blow to ATI from Nvidia was the 6800. At the time it was incredibly massive, 222 million transistors, PS/VS 3.0, HDR? etc etc. Extremely advanced. It as I believe a bigger blow to ATI, than ATI's 9700, at the time. The 6800 today is still a very good card. Mind you the 9700 is a good card still today, but maybe getting old.

 

[15th Warlock]

5800 series:

- Not all functions of PS/VS 2.0 supported
- 128 bit memory interface
- Doesn't fully support Direct X 9 A (more like Direct X 8.1)
- Very loud and inefficient dual slot cooling solution (they called it the hair dryer)

_33, the FX series had full DirectX 9 SM2.0 support, only that nVidia chose to use a "4x2" (4 pipelines x 2 textures per pipeline) architecture instead of a full 8 pipeline architecture. nVidia was expecting for game programers to use heavy multitexturing for future games, but as games became more shader intensive, the 8 pipeline design used by Ati was considerably faster and more efficient, that's why in SM2.0 games with intensive shader effects, the FX series was never able to catch up with the performance of the 9x00 series.

Not all FX series used a 128bits memory bus, particulary not the 5800, or the 5950. Cards like the 5700, 5600, 5500 and 5200 were 128bits cards, and some of them were 64bits cards, just the same way Ati had the 9800SE, 9600 and 9200 128bits models for entry level markets.

Anyway, as was mentioned before the FX series were are considered the "black sheep" of all GeForce series, as nVidia lost a lot of market share during their life span, and these cards have aged rather badly, as evidenced by their poor performance in newer, more shader intensive games.

 

[_33]

_33, the FX series had full DirectX 9 SM2.0 support, only that nVidia chose to use a "4x2" (4 pipelines x 2 textures per pipeline) architecture instead of a full 8 pipeline architecture. nVidia was expecting for game programers to use heavy multitexturing for future games, but as games became more shader intensive, the 8 pipeline design used by Ati was considerably faster and more efficient, that's why in SM2.0 games with intensive shader effects, the FX series was never able to catch up with the performance of the 9x00 series.

Not all FX series used a 128bits memory bus, particulary not the 5800, or the 5950. Cards like the 5700, 5600, 5500 and 5200 were 128bits cards, and some of them were 64bits cards, just the same way Ati had the 9800SE, 9600 and 9200 128bits models for entry level markets.

Anyway, as was mentioned before the FX series were are considered the "black sheep" of all GeForce series, as nVidia lost a lot of market share during their life span, and these cards have aged rather badly, as evidenced by their poor performance in newer, more shader intensive games.

Bottom line, AVOID. But *NO* , the memory interface was 128 bit on the 5800. Got to 256 bit on the 5900 (after a bunch of months of wait).

LINK

FX 5900 = Nvidia fixing the big mistake

 

[15th Warlock]

Bottom line, AVOID. But *NO* , the memory interface was 128 bit on the 5800. Got to 256 bit on the 5900 (after a bunch of months of wait).

LINK

I'm sorry, you're right, it had a 128bit memory interface, I was under the impression that both high end models were 256bits, but I guess I was wrong Sorry for the confussion

 

[_33]

I'm sorry, you're right, it had a 128bit memory interface, I was under the impression that both high end models were 256bits, but I guess I was wrong Sorry for the confussion

I really loved your text thoe! It sounded so "I wanna make Nvidia look good now" type of hint. But really it sucked big time, no matter what.

 

[15th Warlock]

I really loved your text thoe! It sounded so "I wanna make Nvidia look good now" type of hint. But really it sucked big time, no matter what.

LOL

I know, but trust me, that wasn't my intention, I bought a 9800Pro just because of how bad it made the FX series look back in the day, I just thought that at least the FX5800 had a 256bits memory interface, but I've been telling the OP not to get the FX either, as some ppl thought it would beat the 9700 (and it doesn't):

I think you are confused, the FX5800Ultra is the laughing stock of plenty of hardware review sites and forums, it was also know as the "dustbuster" because of its huge and very noisy HSF, and didn't deliver the expected performance, so very few of these cards actually made it to the shelves.

The fastest of the FX series card was the FX5950, which could beat the 9700Pro in most benchmarks, but by the time it was released, Ati already was selling the 9800, and would soon deliver a two hit punch combo by releasing the 9800XT.

Today, the FX series are best remembered by their poor SM2.0 support, as evidenced by games like Half Life 2 (who doesn't remember the Radeon 9600 beating the crap out of then nVidia's flagship FX5950 in HL2 when both cards used SM2.0 ), and more recently by newer games like Oblivion, that almost fully dropped the FX series cards from the supported list shortly after release, only barely supporting from the FX5700 onwards, as cards like the FX5200 and 5500 offered dismal framerates when playing Oblivion.

It also wasn't a true 8 pipeline architecture, as nVidia opted by an ill supported "4x2" design, so almost all 8 pipelines Ati cards of the time would beat the FX cards. They are also infamous because of the so called "optimizations" nVidia used in their drivers to deliver higher 3dmark03 scores, by using reduced precision instructions, which in the end produced a lower IQ when compared to the 9x00 cards. The only games in which these cards performed better than the 9x00 series, was in OpenGL based games.

I think it's safe to say that nVidia would prefer to have all references to the FX series buried in the past, as the company had to struggle to keep up with Ati back in the day. In fact, nVidia was out of the 3d high performance game for a while (as shown by the high rate of 9x00 cards sold compared to the FX series), and it was not until the 6 series were released, that nVidia had a real contender to Ati's legendary R3x0 architecture (and afterwards the R4x0 based on this very succesful predecessor)

 

[_33]

LOL

I know, but trust me, that wasn't my intention, I bought a 9800Pro just because of how bad it made the FX series look back in the day, I just thought that at least the FX5800 had a 256bits memory interface, but I've been telling the OP not to get the FX either, as some ppl thought it would beat the 9700 (and it doesn't):

You've obviously got more talent than me in doing reviews!

And let me throw in this link, as a gift