ATI HD 2900XT or Nvidia 8800GTX

[-1nf1n1ty-]

Never really heard which was better some one give me some info please? I want to know which would be a good buy...:)

[InfDamarvel]

8800GTX, but you could take the chances with the 2900XT if you want to and plan on overclocking. Newer Drivers should make it better but at the moment is about on par with a 8800GTS.

[hat]

I would go the 8800GTX route because the HD 2900XT eats more power than the GTX and is outperformed by the GTX.

[regan1985]

i would say wait a while, as there are no good games out at the moment and, i think they are overpriced just because there dx10 cards, i think the price will come down once more dx10 cards come on the market!

[overclocker]

lol look at the reviews the 2900xt is a little faster/bester GFX and its takes 10 watts less then the 8800gtx.

[Tatty_One]

lol look at the reviews the 2900xt is a little faster/bester GFX and its takes 10 watts less then the 8800gtx.

The reviews of what? there are no DX10 games out yet but seeing as you mention it, if we are talking DX10 as these are what these cards are designed for then there are already a number of issues with the 2900XT related to drivers, like the IQ is crap, even in DX9, I have read 4 reviews today and in all four the 8800GTX beats it by in some cases 10-20%, even the 8800GTS 640MB beats it in some tests, take a look here for IQ and DX10 issues, I appreciate however that this card is only 2 days old in retail terms so it should be cut some slack:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/505/3/

personally, as a safe bet and "Bang for Buck" unless you want the very fastest there is, I would opt at this time (notwithstanding the 2900XT getting really good drivers soon and doing really well) the 320MB 8800GTS.

[hat]

If I had the money I would actually be buying the GTS640MB, and overclocking it. In fact modest overclock under GTX speeds, I just HATE blown up hardware when it could still be running, if it was overclocked too far.

[zekrahminator]

ALL the reviews are mixed. If you want to keep $200 in your pocket while enjoying the quality of an ATI card, get the HD 2900. If you want raw performance and don't care about features, drivers, or image quality, then get the $600 8800GTX.

[hat]

Actually Zek you can take that back about the 8800 series, the 8800GTS my uncle has blows the image quality of his previous x1800GTO out of the water and about 30 ft in the air.

[Tatty_One]

Zek, read the link in my post above, seems NVidia are not the only ones with driver issues! I think the days of NVidia = Raw speed, ATi = Better IQ may be over with the advent of this new technlogy, I do guess tho that once the drivers are sorted for the 2900 and there are some decent DX10 games out there, it will be a match but I just dont think it is for a buyer wanting to part with his cash now.

[Tatty_One]

Actually Zek you can take that back about the 8800 series, the 8800GTS my uncle has blows the image quality of his previous x1800GTO out of the water and about 30 ft in the air.

yes but to be fair, I would hope it does, we are talking about technology and performance (not to mention price) thousands of miles apart here TBH.

[Solaris17]

If I had the money I would actually be buying the GTS640MB, and overclocking it. In fact modest overclock under GTX speeds, I just HATE blown up hardware when it could still be running, if it was overclocked too far.

i second that as good as the new ati is...looking at the reveiws it seems like it only bests the 8800 etc when at low resolution id just pay for the 8600 and oc it because i dont know bout u guys but i run my games at 1280x1024 not 1024x768..

[hat]

No hardware is perfect when it first comes out. Look at the 8800GTX, it fired in a few days due to bad resistors. Look at the drivers with the 8800's. Give Ati some time just like we gave nVidia time.

[zekrahminator]

I'm not taking anything about about the 8800's, I'm an ATI fanboy, remember :p.

[hv43082]

No hardware is perfect when it first comes out. Look at the 8800GTX, it fired in a few days due to bad resistors. Look at the drivers with the 8800's. Give Ati some time just like we gave nVidia time.

We gave them 6 months already. How much longer to they want?

[Chewy]

yeah Im just going to give it some time and oc my card with more vgpu soon..

from what I seen this time ati has better AA while nividia seems to have some better AF (though its not as noticable as the AA...

AA means alot to me since I use a 22" monitor.. now if I had a x-fire board I would just get one 2900xt right now since it seems it will do very well in crossfire.. but that would be to much upgrading for me lol, mobo, cpu, ram, eventually 2 xt's.. ram, cpu and dx10 are on my list already for this year :) thats enough for me... unless I win big $$$.

[kwchang007]

We gave them 6 months already. How much longer to they want?

yeah...i have to agree with you there. i am not a nvidia or ati fanboy either, but right now...it's just not really close to what i expected (r600)

[Tatty_One]

No hardware is perfect when it first comes out. Look at the 8800GTX, it fired in a few days due to bad resistors. Look at the drivers with the 8800's. Give Ati some time just like we gave nVidia time.

Thats just my point, in here the 8800 was not cut any slack, the most popular comment of ATi suppoorters was "ATi would never bring a product out without functional, mature and stable drivers", why is it that many of those people seem to be a little quiet at the moment and in fact some of them not even coming near these couple of threads that critisise ATI and the 2900XT?

I too think it will be an excellent card once the driver issues are sorted which to be fair, for all we know could be next week and ATi will not take as long as NVidia did to fix the issues, but thats because they cant, NVidia had no competition, ATi are up sh%t creek without the preverbial paddle if their product cannot compete soon after taking so long to reach the shelves.

I actually prefer ATi cards, just a personal thing but always buy "Bang for Buck" and am hoping when the issues are sorted and more DX10 becomes available there will be some really good choices out there but TBH, I am a little concerned!

[JousteR]

Well tbh i dont know what AMD/ATI are playing at.Ive always had AMD/ATI from as far back as the 3 series geforce when i made the switch to ATI and an 850 AMD but some people like myself just like performance,So when AMD couldnt really match CPU performance with the conroe chip i switched..And now iam a few generations behind graphics card wise it is to be questioned again ATI or NVIDIA..?
I will be brutally honest here i'am (and i dare say like some on here are)a graphics whore i like all the bells and whistles on a game (Hey thats why we pay hundreds of £/$ is'nt it.?)So like i say do i go ATI or NVIDIA i'll just wait for benches and hopefully a price war before i decide..:)

[mandelore]

We gave them 6 months already. How much longer to they want?

people tend to forget that most driver improvements rely on bug reports and user feedback, 8800 has had 6 months of this, and you cannot deny the drivers have improved.

ATI r600 just came out, as did the drivers, but hey, who has working 64bit drivers? ATI does!

so give time for user feedback and improvements based on that

[mandelore]

Well tbh i dont know what AMD/ATI are playing at.Ive always had AMD/ATI from as far back as the 3 series geforce when i made the switch to ATI and an 850 AMD but some people like myself just like performance,So when AMD couldnt really match CPU performance with the conroe chip i switched..And now iam a few generations behind graphics card wise it is to be questioned again ATI or NVIDIA..?
I will be brutally honest here i'am (and i dare say like some on here are)a graphics whore i like all the bells and whistles on a game (Hey thats why we pay hundreds of £/$ is'nt it.?)So like i say do i go ATI or NVIDIA i'll just wait for benches and hopefully a price war before i decide..:)


ATI offer 24x AA, hmmm, silky smooth goodness

[Tatty_One]

ATI offer 24x AA, hmmm, silky smooth goodness

But by the looks of the performance of the card, any card to be fair, even 640MB GTS's are only averaging around 30FPS, it is doubtful in DX10 from the demo threads here whether you could use it :D

[mandelore]

But by the looks of the performance of the card, any card to be fair, even 640MB GTS's are only averaging around 30FPS, it is doubtful in DX10 from the demo threads here whether you could use it :D

but ATI has always had the advantage when it comes to AA i believe, especially at high resolutions, as for previous cards like the x1900xtx, that really takes the lead on its direct competator when you crank up the rez and throw on all the AA and anisiotrophic filtering :)

[Chewy]

main thing 2x2900xt looks decent :P and can max itselfd graphics in dx10 for sure. well I like playing my games with the best visual image/graphics so manybe I have to wait and rethink of my nexted graphic card setup.. who knows I'll see as time goes on :P atm my 1900gt will max any dx9 game practically when I crank it up a little more (minus Oblivion at complete max but It looks good close to max anyway).

I thoght the xt was doing good for its price so far, coming close to gtx when overclocked from stock. havent been reading tooo much on it though just the initial release.

gtg work

[Tatty_One]

but ATI has always had the advantage when it comes to AA i believe, especially at high resolutions, as for previous cards like the x1900xtx, that really takes the lead on its direct competator when you crank up the rez and throw on all the AA and anisiotrophic filtering :)

I agree but as I said earlier, I really do think youi will find that those days are over, although early days, there are real IQ issues with the 2900XT, to the extend that reviews who are by nature "pro ATi" are saying thats it's "abysmal and a huge disappointment" maybe the maturing of drivers will sort that out but one thing is clear this early on.......the 2900XT is not competing with the 8800 series (ANY 8800) in image quality, if we beleive what had been reviewed so far.

In time, I think we would all hope that is sorted, even NVidia fanbois should want the ATi products to compete because thats the only way we will see reduced pricing.

[Ketxxx]

Both are roughly equal. Support wise ATi got nVidia beat hands down tho, unlike nVidia, ATI actually have working Vista drivers. Tho thats not reason enough alone as Vista is crap right now. I would wait for some DX10 games and see which performs best with quality settings like AA enabled.