7800gs AGP or x850xt platinum edition AGP?

[Azn Tr14dZ]

SM3 renders stuff you won't notice unless you are looking and will lag you up alot . X850XT all the way, and if you dont want ATIsilencer5, zalman has a good VGA cooler.

Yes, I agree, Zalman does have a really good cooler. I have the Zalman VF700 Cu LED myself and it''s really great and lowers your temps by quite a bit. The only problem I have is that it doesn't exhaust the air out of the case unlike the ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2 but I have great cooling anyway so it doesn't bother me. Also, with the ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2, like the Zalman VF700 Cu LED, it blocks the adjacent(next) slot by the PCI-e, and maybe even the slot next to that. From my friend's experiences, he has an X800 XT with ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2 and it blocks the next 2 slots. He can't fit a card into the third slot not unless it's an SFF card but it won't give it much breathing room at all! So if you have decent cooling that exhaust decent air out of the case go with Zalman but If you don't have any other PCI cards besides your graphics go with Arctic Cooling. Yes, this will void the warranty but will help with o/c's and temps.(The fan on the X850 XT/PE generates a lot of noise compared to other stock fans, like say the X800 XL stock fan, which was pretty quiet.)

 

[15th Warlock]

Also Warlock the x1600 Pro 512MB AGP wasnt out when they were doing those reviews. Only the 256 was and even then the drivers for it were first gen. Also don't overwelm people with soo much by quoting it just give a bunch of links.

You know that even at 512 MBs of RAM, the X1600 is still a 128bit video card, so I can't really see what's your point there, I can come with another bunch of links to show you that the X1600 no only losses to the 7800GS and the X850 in every single benchmark, but also to the X850Pro, the X800XT, the 6800GS, and so on, why do you keep recomending a slower product?

And I'm not trying to overwhelm anyone, in fact, the person who posted this thread just asked which AGP card was faster, the X850XT or the 7800GS, and if you look at the first page of this thread, you'll notice, that all I posted was "The 7800GS"

But when ppl came and started to say missinformed things like, "Gee, look, SM3.0 is only about pretty shiny visuals, and all it can do is HDR", well, I thought that perhaps I could enlight them with some real facts about it. All I needed was google and a little bit of Ctrl+C and then another bit of Ctrl-V.

Just remember this is not about Ati vs nVidia, all the guy did is ask for the fastest AGP card available, and I see a lot of missinformation in most of the posts here, if IMO the fastest and most future proof card would have been an Ati card, I would have mentioned it, but it happens to be an nVidia card, look at all the hardware reviews, and perhaps you'll notice every single one of them agrees with me on this...

Listen ppl, neither Ati, nor nVidia pays my bills, or feeds my family, if Ati has the fastest card for the money I have in a particular moment, I buy it, and if it's the other case and nVidia has the best card for my hard earned $$$ I buy it, end of story, no feeling sorry for "betraying" the other side. I did it before when I had to choose between an GeForce4MX, and a Radeon 9200 (bought the Radeon and OC'd like crazy), then again when I had to choose between a GeForceFX5900 and a Radeon 9800Pro (bought the radeon and modded it to an XT and enjoyed every moment I had it until it died on me), and this one last time when I had to choose between a Radeon X850 and a GeForce 6800GS (bought the GeForce, and unlocked it, it was a lot cheaper at the time)

All I'm telling you, is that I take no side on this so called "graphics performance battle", I simply choose the fastest or more feature rich card I can get with the money I have in my pocket, and then live with it, life has many more hard decisions to make to waste both my energy and my money in little things like these silly arguments

 

[warup89]

But isnt the 7800GS has a core of 375MHz and mem of 300MHz and the ati radeon x850xt has a core of 520MHz and mem of 540MHz. and yet the 7800GS is faster?......soo that means its technology that is in the gpu?

 

[15th Warlock]

But isnt the 7800GS has a core of 375MHz and mem of 300MHz and the ati radeon x850xt has a core of 520MHz and mem of 540MHz. and yet the 7800GS is faster?......soo that means its technology that is in the gpu?

Most of the time you cannot compare different GPU architectures by just looking at their clock speeds, there are more things that dictate which card is faster.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Most of the time you cannot compare different GPU architectures by just looking at their clock speeds, there are more things that dictate which card is faster.

Exactly, just look at the X1600 series. Look at the speeds on that thing, but it still gets beat by a 6800GS or X800XL! Even with 512mb its still beaten by a 256mb card with lower speeds. It's not all about speeds here.

 

[yogurt_21]

But isnt the 7800GS has a core of 375MHz and mem of 300MHz and the ati radeon x850xt has a core of 520MHz and mem of 540MHz. and yet the 7800GS is faster?......soo that means its technology that is in the gpu?

you must be thinking of the 7300gs lol.
7800gs specs here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130275
depends on the manufacturer but core ranges from 375-440MHZ and mem ranges from 1000-1300MHZ.

 

[MDK22]

Warlock i was just sayin you did a real long 2 posts and just to put the links up so its faster. Also it depends on what game he is playing and what the rest of his hardware is. Not to mention the fact that you really should go back and look at the scores instead of just qouting what you read at the end of the review.

Another thing i am not a flamer dude i go off of real world experience. Plus if he plans on overclocking unless im mistaken which im 99% sure im not ati overclocks alot better then nvidia and in most of the reviews you have listed there the x850 isnt even on the list of compared cards. Not to mention the ones that do beat the normal ati brand x850 are bfg and evga where it is actually over 300 if u are going off newegg. You could get a sapphire one and realize that since its going to be better then a stock ati it will run faster then the 7800gs. Not to mention the ability to overclock alot more.

My suggestion is get a pci-e board and wait till prices drop more before you buy a card like whats out there. If you want sm 3.0 wow go with gs if not go x850 im done im tired and i dont feel like arguing the point anymore.

 

[yogurt_21]

you know I just noticed that the guy is on socket 754, which is hardly agp bound 60$ will get you a 754 pcix board, then he could get an x1800xl or a 7800gt.
and has anyone noticed that he hasn't poste don this topic in awhile, maybe he got tired of all the arguing and just bought something lol.

 

[trog100]

one thing that puzzles me about this SM3 stuff is that being as we all know ati and nvidia love to slag each other off.. how come SM3 has only just become a big plus point.. how come nvidia havnt been slagging ati off for not having it when they did and ati didnt..

now they both have it.. its something we must have.. when only nvidia had it.. it never got a mention.. ???

the nvidia 6000 range had it.. the ati x800 range didnt have it.. what kept nvidia mum if it had something so bloody wonderfull..????

i think the hidden downside to SM3 is all the stuff it can do will take lots more horsepower.. to me its a "tommorow" thing and the type of cards we are talking about wont be up to the job when it really does start getting used a lot..

trog

 

[yogurt_21]

because the early 6800's couldn't handle sm3 with aa and af, which made the technology pointless. so now that the 7800 series is powerful enough to run them and ati has a few cards also powerful enough to handle it it becoms an issue. but honestly when running 3d06 I can't determine a difference between the sm2.0 hdr and the sm3.0 hdr.

hopefully future games will show an actual difference but right now I still think it's a load of bull and i have a shader3 card lol.

 

[trog100]

he he he.. well that explains that then..

trog

 

[15th Warlock]

Not to mention the fact that you really should go back and look at the scores instead of just qouting what you read at the end of the review.

Well, the bottom line is, most of the reviewers conclude that if you're using an AGP system, and want to upgrade to either the X850 or the 7800GS, you should definitely get the latter, and don't you think they also read the scores before arriving to that conclusion? What's your point?

one thing that puzzles me about this SM3 stuff is that being as we all know ati and nvidia love to slag each other off.. how come SM3 has only just become a big plus point.. how come nvidia havnt been slagging ati off for not having it when they did and ati didnt..

now they both have it.. its something we must have.. when only nvidia had it.. it never got a mention.. ???

the nvidia 6000 range had it.. the ati x800 range didnt have it.. what kept nvidia mum if it had something so bloody wonderfull..????

i think the hidden downside to SM3 is all the stuff it can do will take lots more horsepower.. to me its a "tommorow" thing and the type of cards we are talking about wont be up to the job when it really does start getting used a lot..

trog

Funny you would mention that, as a matter of fact, if memory serves me right, nVidia did promote SM3.0 from the day they released the series 6 cards, but both Ati video card owners (myself included) and hardware review sites downplayed it, and rightfuly so, as back then, there where no games that made use of it. But nVidia promoted it using catch phrases like: Does Your GPU Have the Power of 3?

Anyway, I find it ironic that even though Ati carefuly avoided the fact that their flagship cards didn't support SM3.0, as soon as Ati got the R520 based cards, their new motto would be "Shader Model 3 Done Right"

because the early 6800's couldn't handle sm3 with aa and af, which made the technology pointless. so now that the 7800 series is powerful enough to run them and ati has a few cards also powerful enough to handle it it becoms an issue. but honestly when running 3d06 I can't determine a difference between the sm2.0 hdr and the sm3.0 hdr.

Would you care to provide a link that proves what you're saying? right now I play all my games at highest detail, at the highest resolution my monitor supports, 8X AA, 2X FSAA, and some of them do use SM3.0 and I don't see my video card (a series 6 nVidia video card mind you) being slower in these games than in SM2.0 games, where do you get the notion that SM3.0 make 3D applications slower?

Didn't you read the SM3.0 specifications I posted before? or the comparison in benchmarks that use SM2.0 path and SM3.0 path? because in case you didn't notice, SM3.0 is actually faster and more efficient than SM2.0, allowing for especial effects that would be too slow or even imposibble to render using SM2.0.
Please show me a respected hardware site that proves the contrary.

I think that what you're trying to say is that the first cards with SM3.0 support will default to using SM2.0 rendering path in future games or something like that, well let me tell you that in my experience, that is not the case, in fact you sound exactly the way nVidia fanboys sounded back when Ati released the first SM2.0, Direct X 9 video card, the R300 based 9700Pro, back then, M$ hadn't even released DX9 for download, and yet Ati already had a video card that met the specification. I remember nVidia fanboys trashing the card, saying that by the time SM2.0 games would arrive, the R300 would be too slow to render SM2.0 only effects, even though every respected hardware site praised Ati, and recomended the 9700Pro as an upgrade because of the fact that it was a future proof product when compared with what nVidia was offering at the time.

Using your logic, you would rather have a SM2.0 video card rendering a native SM3.0 game with degraded IQ, than having a bit slower but much better looking game when using the SM3.0 render path, cause that's exactly what happened when Valve released HL2, a lot of ppl who bought "faster" nVidia cards like the FX5900 had to default to Direct X 8.1 rendering to get some decent framerates, because of their faulty SM2.0 architecture, while venerable SM2.0 cards like the 9700 allowed it's users to play HL2 in all its glory, funny how history repeats itself, don't you think?

So maybe I won't be playing those games with AA, FSAA enabled, but at least I will get all of the effects most SM2.0 video cards will be missing; and if you think about it, after all, who would prefer to play HL2 with DX8.1 effects, instead of DX9 effects, even without FSAA and AA?

Anyway, arguing in this thread is pointless, the person who posted the original message hasn't posted in a long time, so I think that by now, he has already picked one of the two cards anyway...

 

[warup89]

can my ATI RADEON x1800xl handle SM3 with AA and AF ?

 

[yogurt_21]

links? here ya go!
check your 06 score notice how canyon flight is less than yopur proxy score?
run 05 at 1280x1024, and check your score, you'll note that in 2.0 canyon flight runs much better than proxy. hmm coincidence I think not.

next
http://www.behardware.com/articles/491-6/preview-nvidia-geforce-6800-ultra.html
read up my freind, nv didn't even have an sm3.0 working driver upon the 6800's release. and it clearly states that shader 3.0 must be more taxing, meaning that if you don't notice an fps drop on those games you're probably running in 2.0 mode.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=36
next read the whole article again! reading the first part alone can be easily misconstrued.


and of course theres this
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=36&type=expert
"7) What aspects of the screenshots seen at the launch event are specific examples of the flexibility and power of Shader 3.0?

In current engine there are no visible difference between PS2.0 and PS3.0. PS3.0 is used automatically for per-pixel lighting depending on some conditions to improve speed of rendering."


I'm refering your your series, the 6800/6600/6200 series only, the 7800 and 7900 series do fully support and are capable of running sm3.0 with aa and af. as are the x1800 and x1900 series. (though the 7800gs has similar architecture to the 6800ultra so it's kind of a toss up to whether or not it is actually capable, depends on the system most likely as most agp rigs can't handle the extra taxation from aa and af anyways lol)

but I wasn't refring to the actual x850 vs 7800gs question at the ime, just merely pointing out wht had happened and how i don't see any advantage to shader 3.0 right now. when oblivion comes out or perhaps hl2 aftermath, mayby we'll see a difference.
and seriously look at the tests in 06, can you notice a difference in quality?

 

[MDK22]

My point was the 7800gs does not always beat x850 in scores. So if it doesn't always beat it in scores and it doesn't beat it unless its a better brand they are equal at best and at least u could buy a sapphire card that far exceeds the normal ati. SO therefore in my mind it is worse. Not to mention what yogurt just said. Look i have nothing against Nvidia i like their cards its just not as good for a majority of the games out now. Espeacially the bigger ones like Half Life 2, Counter Strike: Source,Day of Defeat: Source, Doom 3, Quake 4. That is mainly because these games are built to run off ati cards.

Look i still think he should just get a pci-e board then buy a pci-e video card.

 

[15th Warlock]

links? here ya go!
run 05 at 1280x1024, and check your score, you'll note that in 2.0 canyon flight runs much better than proxy. hmm coincidence I think not.

next
http://www.behardware.com/articles/491-6/preview-nvidia-geforce-6800-ultra.html
read up my freind, nv didn't even have an sm3.0 working driver upon the 6800's release. and it clearly states that shader 3.0 must be more taing, meaning that if you don't notice an fps drop on those games you're probably running in 2.0 mode.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=36
next read the whole article again! reading the first part alone can be easily misconstrued.


and of course theres this
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=36&type=expert
"7) What aspects of the screenshots seen at the launch event are specific examples of the flexibility and power of Shader 3.0?

In current engine there are no visible difference between PS2.0 and PS3.0. PS3.0 is used automatically for per-pixel lighting depending on some conditions to improve speed of rendering."
I'm refering your your sereis, the 6800/6600/6200 series only, the 7800 and 7900 series do fully support and are capable of running sm3.0 with aa and af. as are the x1800 and x1900 series. (though the 7800gs has similar architecture to the 6800ultra so it's kind of a toss up to whether or not it is actually capable, depends on the system most likely as most agp rigs can't handle the extra taxation from aa and af anyways lol)

but I wasn't refring to the actual x850 vs 7800gs question at the ime, just merely pointing out wht had happened and how i don't see any advantage to shader 3.0 right now. when oblivion comes out or perhaps hl2 aftermath, mayby we'll see a difference.
and seriously look at the tests in 06, can you notice a difference in quality?

Sorry to dissapoint you my friend, but FYI, nVidia hardware can do HDR plus anti aliasing, it doesn't support an FP16 frame buffer but the HDR textures are stored in a 4.12 (fixed point) linear colour space.

That's how you can enable HDR and anti-aliasing for ANY nVidia card out there (6 and 7 series, both the same architecture, the only difference is the 7 series support transparency FSAA), in directX games out there that use this feature, like HL2: Lost Coast, Day of Defeat Source, Call of Duty 2, NFS:MW AND Farcry (when using patch 1.33, not 1.3 as in your quotes) among many others...

I mean, if you're just going to quote info about the first game that used SM3.0, you might as well check your sources, cause your link was to an article published in 2004, and since then, there's been a lot of drivers and patches releases

The 7800GS use the same proc as the 7800GT and the 7800GTX but it has some pipelines dissabled, it uses nVidia PCIe to AGP bridge in order to be used in AGP systems.

As for 3dMark06, you tell me:






IMO, there's a huge difference

You know this argument could go on an on and on (ad nauseam...) but as you pointed out, it looks like the guy who asked which card was better doesn't give a rat's a$$ anymore, so what's the point in keeping this thread alive?

EDIT: seems you edited your original post about me lying (or giving you BS as you said), about running my games with HDR and FSAA enabled, but as you can see you can perfectly do that with my hardware and still run in SM3.0 render mode, not SM2.0

 

[zekrahminator]

...which one is sm3 again? lol

 

[15th Warlock]

...which one is sm3 again? lol

Sarcasm... do we really need to get that low? :shadedshu
You know in my country we have a saying, and it would be roughly translated to something like this:

"There's no worst blind man, than he who doesn't wants to see"

 

[zekrahminator]

*sigh* well maybe SM3 isn't so bad after all... . But then again, that was with HDR and FSAA enabled. HDR cuts your FPS by 33% usually, and SM3 just...well, serves to lag your system up. If you're looking for a card to last a while, X850XT. If you're looking for a card that will make you happy for a couple months with HDR and FSAA enabled, and then you have to disable all the fun stuff, go get that 7800GS.

 

[15th Warlock]

*sigh* well maybe SM3 isn't so bad after all... . But then again, that was with HDR and FSAA enabled. HDR cuts your FPS by 33% usually, and SM3 just...well, serves to lag your system up. If you're looking for a card to last a while, X850XT. If you're looking for a card that will make you happy for a couple months with HDR and FSAA enabled, and then you have to disable all the fun stuff, go get that 7800GS.

You know... I apologize for my last post, I really wish it wouldn't have got to this point, in the end, both cards are good cards and the only real AGP options left; in the end, what really matters is that you're happy with the card you chose, and after all, beauty does lie in the eye of the beholder...
Sorry if I offended anyone in this thread...
Peace

 

[zekrahminator]

lol don't worry about it . And yes I'm very happy with my X850XT lol.

 

[trog100]

those 2005/2006 comparison pics appear to make SM3 much better than SM2..

but the 2006 one is an example of just what SM3 could do.. designed to cripple an uptodate powerfull grfx card..

the 2005 one designed to cripple a similar power but SM2 grfx card would look a hell of lot better than the 2005 example does

takeing one grfx card of xxx power and showing a pic of what it can do with SM2 at xxx fps.. takeing another card of double xxx power and showing what it do with SM3 at the same xxx fps really aint a fair comparison..

lets say at best the 2006 example is SM3 maxed out and requiring a super card to produce lousy frame rates.. the 2005 example is SM2 just cruising and could be made to look one hell of a lot better..

still such examples will help the SM$ hype along and help to sell new grfx cards.. even thow they are comparing oranges to apples..

basically 2006 requires double the power to run than 2005 does.. on that fact alone any pic comparison pretties are just not fair..

trog

 

[yogurt_21]

wow! you actually compared hdr to non hdr. we're not talking hdr here lol. we KNOW that hdr improves video quality just look at hl2 lostcoast vs hl2
I told you to cpompare the hdr 2.0 to the hdr3.0 and see if you noticed a difference, wow if you really thought that the same I've got a shiney penny for you and I'll sell it to your for two dollars. lol
not to mention the resolution difference, and the overall newness of the bench vs the old. did you even read my post?

edited to remove insults but seriously that was a rather dumb move my friend.

 

[yogurt_21]

http://techgage.com/review.php?id=4007&page=3
this where you got those?
you conveniently left out the 2.0 hdr scrrenies vs non hdr hmmm. alterior motive here.
I'm stating fact while you my freind are making things up and purposefully leaving out information.

 

[MDK22]

OK Warlock what would you say your card is equivalent to. Mine is an ATI Brand x850 Pro AGP @ 540/579 /w 16pp 75°@Max Load on Stock Cooling. So it is almost equivalent to an x850 XT PE at stock speeds.

Well i see your 6800GS is more or less equivalent to the 7800GS and my x850 Pro is more or less equivalent to x850 XT PE. Now your system specs thrash the hell out of mine. But we should at least try it.

Ok, you have 3DMark 05 and 06. I will get 06 already have 05.

Now i am going to ask Yougurt and trog to post stating what we should use as requirements. Then once i get 06 we can run the tests. We can then compare what you are arguing and we will have proof as to which is better. That is unless we have someone here who has a 7800GS and someone with an actual x850 XT PE that are willing to duke it out.

Also what games do you have that we might wanna test i have

Half Life 2
Counter Strike: Source <-- Although i will have to untweak this.
Doom 3
Quake 4

I am also running tweaked drivers if you want me to go to ATI Drivers i can.

I think we should run urs on sm3 and mine on sm2 same resolution same aa, af, and hdr settings for 06 and select certain times to take the pictures during the tests.