you know, i have to say this thread reads like a bunch of kids in the play ground.
a question of support:
the world and his dog knows ATI has god awful openGL support so of course quake 4 running on the DooM 3 engine is going to be won by Nvidia, simply because they have better openGL support. now go get FEAR or farcry and crank the AA + AF on and ATI will stomp the floor simply because Nvidia has terrible issues with AA + AF performance, again, the world and his dog are quite well informed.
The X1800XT IS NOT THE CONTENDER AGAINST THE 7900GT:
as for the X1800XT, the 512mb version does match it quite well which is very good given the 7900GT is supposed to be the Nvidia match for the X1900XT NOT the X1800XT. (seems some of you have forgotten this small fact??) as for the 7900GT against the X1900XT, go look up the benchies, 80% of the time is doesnt come close, the rest of the time it beats it by a few fps.
the 7900GT is basically the 7800GTX with a modified GPU instruction set and a GPU thats undergone a smaller micron manufacturing process, there are less transistors on the GPU which means less power is needed and thus, less heat. just think of them as an effecient 7800GTX.
Shaders, pipelines, and the G71:
the 79XX range has not been released to take over the top spot, but mearly to compete whilst nvidia gets the G80 GPU ready for the summer. ATI are keeping tight lipped about there next GPU but have hinted that they will be going even further with the shader model routes as opposed to pixel pipelines. the performance gain in more modern games like oblivion where shaders are everything has been remarkable when compaired to Nvidias top card at the moment, its akin to the type of drop we see ATI take in DooM 3, plus ATI are the only people at the moment whos cards can use both HDR and AA at the same time.
at the end of the day, i go where my wallet is, over the last 18 months ive had a 9800pro, 6800NU, X800GTO2, 7800GT, and now i have an X1800XT 512mb. am i happy? sure, do i care that its an ATI or Nvidia? not a dot, why? because its the last card im buying till DX10 comes out in early 2007 and its the current best bang for buck card you can get due to the half a gig of ram, dual 256bit memory pipes (making a 512bit ringbus memory architecture) and its not a bad overclocker
Thank you bro
