invidia or ATI??????????

Basically, it comes down to the preference between performance and value.

The X800 XL costs a lot more than the 6600 GT, but it will last a lot longer. In current games you'll get similar framerates to the 6600 GT, to be honest with you, as the 6600 GT is more than enough to handle modern games. You'll only really begin to notice a big difference in a year from now.

On the flip-side, the 6600 GT is a fantastically priced graphics card with 18-24+ months of life left in it. It also supports SLI (which can further increase lifespan) and it supports Pixel Shader 3 which I think ATI cards currently do not.

When it comes down to it, with the X800 XL you get what you pay for. A standard high-end graphics card that will outlast a 6600 GT. With the 6600 GT you actually get more than you're paying for as it performs shockingly well for a mid-range graphics card, however the 6600 GT will not last as long as an X800 XL will.

But, saying that, pretty soon both the 6600 GT will be out of date. If you want my particular opinion, get a 6600 GT now and it will last you until the Geforce 7800 GTX, and whatever equivalent ATI make, drop in price.

Seron, I have an X800pro and running all the top of the range games with my setup is great. However, at the time I bought my X800pro, NVidia were lacking in product supply at the time and the X800pro was the card of choice for me at the time as Nvidia were way over the top on price.

Where I am in the UK, trying to get either Nvidia or ATI for equivalant cards, I was looking at over £100 more for an NVidia where the ATI was just as good on performance if not better for what was available.

If you have no real problem at all with spending money, don't really care what you buy as long as it's got the Best performance money can buy at this time(Not bang for buck, but buck for bang. ) then as Principa has already said, the ATI X850xt PCI Express is the best you can get.

However, that would need a PCI Express Mobo which is more expense. But like i said, if money is no object then go the whole hog.

If you are just after something to run the latest games smoothly, then as people are saying the 6600GT(If i read that right) is the best you can get at this moment for the cheapest price for performance over other cards out there.

It's entirely up to you. Read what you see here, but if i was you, i would go for the Nvidia 6600GT for Price to peformance ratio and save your money for the new Batch of GPU's to be released by ATI and NVidia in the near future. Both look Awesome, and if based anything on the new PS3 and Xbox consoles, the graphics are going to be astounding.

Now, to silence all those people out there saying the Nvidia has better picture quality the ATI, or ATI has better picture than Nvidia.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the king of the roost on Picture quality is Matrox. Always has been and probably always will be.

I have a Matrox Parhelia card and it blows my X800pro out of the water for clarity and crisp picture on all my monitors.

Ok, my ATI has improved some over past cards, but Matrox still win on that front. They have some of the Best GPU's out there for that type of thing. The reason they are in the High End business market for CAD.

And yes, I know, "But Matrox doesn't play 3D games very well!! "

I totally agree, the reason i bought my X800pro as Matrox weren;t cutting it anymore in that field.

As for my all time favourite Nvidia, it has to be the Geforce TNT 2 GT Ultra. That card blew everything I had out the water and everything ran as smooth as silk. Half Life on that card, with the AMD 400mhz Mark 3 chip or whatever it was, was so smooth, I couldn't believe it. Tried it on a faster machine, and boy did it chug. I just wish I could put a machine together like that again, without any adjustments.

And to the guy who mentioned he hated NVidia because the Card blew up within 3 months, don't blame Nvidia, they don't make the cards, only the GPU's. If the card blew up, it was due to bad manufacturing.

The really funny thing is, Nvidia and ATI all say they support something or other out there, but who in there right mind can say what has ever been used to full effect before a new card or game has been produced.

I agree with you though, some of these cards have more than enough shelf life left and no point in spending on over the top power as I really don't think it's needed, as games are not being produced fast enough to make use of all the effects before the next GPU release.

The only one really losing out is the user anyway. They over spend for unneeded product.

This is pretty much what I was trying to say, but I happen to be horrible when it comes to explaining what I mean.

The 6600GT is the best bang for the buck right now, but as Dirkiess said, not the best "buck for the bang."

Buying a 6600GT now will give you fantastic performance for just enough time until the next generation graphics cards drop in price. The way I see it, there's absolutely no point in buying a 6800 Ultra or X800 XT with the 7800 and ATI equivalent coming out this very summer.

I always buy "one tier down". If you buy a 6800/X800 series now, you'll only be shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to price because this summer they'll drop dramatically, yet they still won't offer much performance over the 6600/X700 a year from now when the 7800 series is cheap.

Errrr, huh? Correct me if I'm wrong, but games have supported SLI and pixel shader 3.0 for some time now. Which means ATI are behind where Nvidia are already using this technology.

I'd agree, a 6600GT has the best performance value of any new card around today (though the last-generation Radeon 9800 pro is probably even better value but lacking a bit in shader performance in newer games). Get a 6600GT and you can't go wrong and they come in both AGP and PCIe flavours, too.

I'm affraid I'll have to vhemently disagree with you that a Radeon 9800 Pro is better value, or anywhere near the value, of a 6600GT.

The Radeon 9800 Pro is currently £95, and the 6600GT is currently £110. For £15 extra (practically nothing) you get a much faster graphics card with GDDR3 memory and full support for DirectX 9c. Not to mention support for SLI and HDTV output.

The 6600GT's ATI equivalent is the X700 Pro, and even that does not measure up. Period.

What i was trying to say, is a lot of the games that are coming out today were being developed way before any of these features were even available. Half Life 2 and Doom 3 were being touted before even X800 and 6000series cards were even mainstream.

Ok, they may have had some sort of reference boards available, but going by a lot of reviews on boards and games, there is always remarks, that this card has this and that, but why bother when the games don't even have those features.

I could be wrong, but i'm going by what i read in all the tech and game reviews.

And the only reason I remember this is the Pixel Shader 3 comment. ATI decided not to go this route, as games were not using this feature, so they went for price and power over extra options. Or something along those lines.
And some of these comments were coming from game developers as well.

I'm only going by what I read. This is no Hard Facts on my part.

And I have no idea how SLI works, but I thought SLI was the combination of two cards power turned into one, that is run by hardware and drivers software making the game think it is one card? Not necessarily supported but more just compatible with those features.

Actually, as far as Pixel Shader 3.0 is concerned, many titles do support it. In fact, I'm pretty damn positive Half Life 2 and Doom 3 are included, as is Guild Wars, Star Wars Galaxies, and even Lego Star Wars (tehee).

Edit: Oh, and damn it looks good too.

As for SLI, it's pretty much universally supported. Of all the SLI systems I've have seen, none have had any problem running a game at full strength. *Shrug.*

I just go along with the flow, buy my card and game and play. hehe

If it looks good, all the better. lol

Oh, and HL2 and Doom 3 do look pretty damn good, I will definitely agree oin that.

It depends what games you play and how much of a budget you are on. If you mainly play older games (ones that are not dependent so much on shader performance) then the 9800 pro is better value for money. You can get a 9800 Pro for around £70 now ( eg. overclockers.co.uk) and in benchmarks of older titles it holds it own pretty well.

Personally I would always say get the 6600GT if you can afford it. It's the better card and has SM3.0 support and is definitely worth the extra. However, if you are on a tight budget then you can pick up 9800 pro really cheap (I've seen some for around £50 but can't find the link) which is great value. You just have to be able to see a balanced view and not be blinkered by loyalty to a particular IHV.

SO if you decide to go with the 6600gt, I strongly suggest the BFG factory overclocked model. I got it. Let me say it roxers. Not only that but it has a lifetime warranty. Mot the typical shelflife based lifetime warranty this is a real if it breaks ten years from now we'll replace it warranty

Just curious, but you do know that's the "This week only" page, right? I shop from the same site, the standard sale 9800 Pro is £93 plus change there.

If you're on a tight budget, you go for a 9600, not a 9800.

here is the stats on the one i'm looking at 6600gt pre-overclocked HIGHER than the bfg model by about 25

Model
Brand ASUS
Model EN6600GT/TOP/TD/128M
Chipset
GPU Geforce 6600GT
Core clock 550MHz
PixelPipelines 8
Memory
Memory Clock 1100MHz
Memory Size 128MB
Memory Interface 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR3
3D API
DirectX DirectX 9
OpenGL OpenGL 1.5
Interface
Interface PCI-Express x16
Ports
D-SUB 1
DVI 1
TV-Out S-Video/Composite Out
VIVO No
TV Tuner No
General
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2048x1536
SLI Supported Yes
Operating Systems Supported Windows 2000/XP
System Requirements Intel Pentium 4 Prescott class processor or higher (LGA775 processor package) or AMD Sempron/Athlon
A PCI Express compliant Motherboard with a x16 lane bus compliant slot
128MB System RAM (256MB recommended)
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
VGA or DVI-I compatible monitor
Features
Features NVIDIA CineFX 3.0 Technology
Powers the next generation of cinematic realism. Full support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 enables stunning and complex special effects. Next-generation shader architecture delivers faster and smoother gameplay.
64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending
Based on the OpenEXR technology from Industrial Light and Magic, NVIDIA's 64-bit texture implementation sets new standards for image clarity and quality through floating point capabilities in shading, filtering, texturing, and blending.
NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology
Enhances the performance of bleeding-edge games, like id Software's Doom III, that feature complex scenes with multiple light sources and objects. Second-generation technology delivers more than 4X the shadow processing power over the previous generation.
Intellisample 3.0
The industry's fastest antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. Visual quality is taken to new heights through a new rotated grid sampling pattern.
Vertex Shaders 3.0
Pixel Shaders 3.0
Packaging
Package Contents S-Video/Composite Cable
DVI to VGA adapter
Manual
Drivers CD

the bfg is still better than this even though it's overclock is lower? the bfg costs more too.

SOund good but i would still consider the BFG cause of the warranty and trust me it will run at 550 and 1100 without breaking a sweat

don't buy an OC'd card from Asus....

*Hugs his Leadtek card.* Does me well enough. =P

now that's funny right there I don't care whu you ur. heheh

Lets be honest now people, a ATI card would work better for Guild Wars.Guild Wars has optimized their engine for ATI cards. Now yes Nvidia has good cards, and yes ATI does aswell. Comparing them imo is useless, you can compare all you want, and even if facts state one card is better then another some people will still say that 6800GT is better or that x850 is better. Lets not forget every PC has a mind of its own, some will run better with ATI some with Nvidia, i have 2 pcs' if i placed my ATI in the other one i have i get NOTHING but problems, while in this PC it runs smooth as silk. Imo ATI is better, cuz of my personal experience.

(owh and btw the answer to the question of my NVidia were all AGP cards)

Read what your write before you print or you open yourself to more abuse.

As i said In My Opinion, simply because the ATI card i have runs better then my Nvidia, this does not mean ATI = Better then Nvidia. It just runs better in my Pc.

I did not compare them, if i would then prob my Nvidia card would win, but in this computer its a Blue-Screen creator

I knew what you meant, but you have to remember, people are quick to jump on the band wagon and start pointing fingers, and mine is better than yours etc etc, and before we know it, whole posts turn into slanging matches and the original posters question gets all forgotten about.

I was just pointing out, read what you write before you send, as people don't always read what you are thinking in how you say it. If you get my meaning.

I do, quite funny actually these kind of topics you find everywhere on the net

Just thought about it, what if ATI & Nvidia had a discussion about this? ROFL would be World War 3 :P

The really funny thing is, go with what you know as you can't change the opinion of someone else against there will, as everyone in there own mind is always right.

If you make a balls up in your decision, you can only blame yourself, but if someone else gives you there opinion and you take it and then hate it, you'll be cussing them.

I use a E-VGA 6800GT 256 MB PCI-Express card

1600x1200 on all max settings

It works great, I am very happy.

And? It's for sale at that price which is what counts. I've seen them even cheaper. Most vendors are trying to get rid of their stock at the moment which is why they are currently so cheap and hence why I said you can get a bargain if you keep your eyes peeled.

(PS. I own a 6600GT myself so know full well what they are like. I just also realise that people on a tight budget could run GW on a 9800pro fine.)

And? It's for this week only. That means that it's only so cheap on that site and only for this week. Come sunday it'll be back to £93 and then we'll talk.

Maybe I should start some dishonest debating too, and start comparing the prices of second-hand cards!

As for tight budgets, you're still missing the 9600. The 9600, particularly the XT, is the #1 best budget graphics card, hands down. The 9800 is too close to the price of a 6600GT, and too lesser in performance, to call it in the slightest bit value. It was king once, not anymore.

Last week I just got a BFG 6800GT O.C. and that pretty much should exlain everything.

*put's gun to own head*
"Alright let's play nice or the geek gets it."



"I DON'T THINK HE'S JOKING!"

[QUOTE=Tyil Thunder Arrow][quote]Originally Posted by Seron
ATI x800xl - retail for $300
asus 6600gt oc - $200

is the ati x800xl worth the extra $100?
and will it work on the asus a8n delux SLI motherboard? this is gonna be my first time making a comp, heh.Yes, the X800XL is to be compared with the 6800GT. The 6600GT is not in the same league as the X800XL. Just do a seach for reviews with benchmarks and you will see. Don't take my word or anyone's here. Check it out for yourself.

The ATI equivalent for the 6600GT is probably a plain X800. The X800XL gives similar performance to a 6800GT but is cheaper.

Wrong, the ATI equivalent to the 6600GT is the X700Pro. That is flat out, hands down, fact. Sorry.

Anyone who compares a 6600GT to an X800 is either mistaken or making excuses for the crap performance of X700 models (or great performance of 6600 models). I sincerely hope you're simply one of the mistaken ones.

I say shoot the geek, hehehe (Cue, gunshot, Tyil Thunder Arrow is no more )

Listen guys hardly anyone has answered the original question, the guy probably wished ne never asked now....


My opinion and most of the poster's on this thread say "save you cash, get the 6600gt....", its cheaper and it'll last a while yet...

Amen, brother cannonfodder. It'll last until the new Nvidia Geforce7 series and ATI equivalents drop in price, it's a logical money-saving option.

Depends. The 6600GT 128 MB generally costs more than the X700 128MB and 256MB models so obviously they should perform better. 6600GT comes in 128MB and 256MB models. The 256MB models are about the same price as the plain X800, so I don't see why they cannot be compared as such.

Oh dear, the debate goes on.................

Doncha love debates
It's a wonderful way to exchange information.

Firstly; I hope you did not just compare a 6600 GT to a vanilla X700. That's an incorrect comparison. The vanilla X700's Nvidia counterpart is the vanilla 6600, and the 6600 GT's ATI counterpart is the X700 Pro.

Secondly; Here in the UK, and elsewhere I presume, a 6600 GT 128mB does not cost more than an X700 Pro 256mB, and still performs better than it.

Thirdly and finally; Just because the 6600 GT performs as well as a vanilla X800 or 6800 does not mean they're comparable. They're entirely different tier-levels of graphics card.

If anything, all we can say about the X700 series is that it's a piece of crap. Period. In that pricerange the 6600 GT is purely unbeatable. The 6600 GT cannot be directly compared to an X800/6800 series graphics card, but it has proven itself more than capable of being a high-performance and low-cost alternative for any gamer.

I got the prices from www.pricewatch.com.

Tier does not matter, price does. If they are comparable in price, they can be compared. And the X800 Pci Express is in the same price range as the 6600GT 256 MB Pci Express for instance.

I agree X700 Pro or no is certainly not as good as the 6600GT but it is cheaper than the 6600GT even if only a small amount. I wouldn't recommend it over the 6600GT of course.

Group hug guys


The debate will go on forever, some love ATI others love NVIDIA, me personally I coudln't care less, just as long as it does what it say's on the tin, I've had in the past ATI and Nvidia, now have to Nvida cards and an ATI one, they kind of all do the same thing....let me play games well...

Edit - it all boils down to, what you can afford and whats readily available

And who said anything about the 256mB 6600GT? The 128mB 6600GT is on-par with the X800 and 6800 seeing as you're so fond of comparing cross-tier cards, so why even bring up the 256mB model?

Oh yeah, because people like to suggest the one with less value for money.