Discussion
Hmmm there i was all ready to go out and buy a nice new shiny ATi 9800Pro Card then i goto
www.hardwarezone.com/articles/articles.hwz?cid=3&aid=758
And now find out that the 5900 card from Nvida is better.
Can someone please explain to me then why many people say that the 9800 is the better card. I hate it when i confused.
thanks
D3
www.hardwarezone.com/articles/articles.hwz?cid=3&aid=758
And now find out that the 5900 card from Nvida is better.
Can someone please explain to me then why many people say that the 9800 is the better card. I hate it when i confused.
thanks
D3
Depends what its going to be used for...
In the days I used to play Quake3 online (alot!) I would always pick the card which showed highest framerates for it. People who played other games picked the cards that perfomed best for those.
Maybe one review is focusing on DirectX performance, another on OpenGL, another on DVD playback, another on 2D clarity etc etc
In the days I used to play Quake3 online (alot!) I would always pick the card which showed highest framerates for it. People who played other games picked the cards that perfomed best for those.
Maybe one review is focusing on DirectX performance, another on OpenGL, another on DVD playback, another on 2D clarity etc etc
AJLintern said:
Just buy the best you can afford at the time - it will always be obsolete within a few months, but if you worried about that you'd never get a new PC. I've just spent £1500 on a new Dell 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 18" digital flat screen, ATi 9800 Pro - It's very nice
Is this a special offer? Is that including VAT? I'm looking to get a similar spec and can't seem to get it priced that low from Dell...
edited to say: just checked and it comes out at £2,180 at the moment
>> Edited by julianhj on Thursday 7th August 00:11
julianhj said:
I've just spent £1500 on a new Dell 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 18" digital flat screen, ATi 9800 Pro - It's very nice
Is this a special offer? Is that including VAT? I'm looking to get a similar spec and can't seem to get it priced that low from Dell...
edited to say: just checked and it comes out at £2,180 at the moment
You're right about the £2k price if you configure it manually on the website, but this PC was from a magazine review so it had an E-value code (200-D52REV) It's still available and you can get it even cheaper now if you reduce the warranty to 1 year collect and return. It's even got the double memory offer running at the moment too!
AJLintern said:
AJLintern said:
I've just spent £1500 on a new Dell 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 18" digital flat screen, ATi 9800 Pro - It's very nice
Is this a special offer? Is that including VAT? I'm looking to get a similar spec and can't seem to get it priced that low from Dell...
edited to say: just checked and it comes out at £2,180 at the moment
You're right about the £2k price if you configure it manually on the website, but this PC was from a magazine review so it had an E-value code (200-D52REV) It's still available and you can get it even cheaper now if you reduce the warranty to 1 year collect and return. It's even got the double memory offer running at the moment too!
hmmm looked at this, but found i was limited to what i could and couldn't have.
I don't need a monitor for instance, but there is no way that i can rid of it. Also don't need any software.
I think that the best bet is for me to build one.
Thanks anyway AJ
d3ano said:
With the ATI card you get the smoothshader that uses some kind of magic to make arches and shapes more life like i.e. no straight edges. Does the new 5900 card have similar trickery?
Sounds like a fancy name for antialiasing, which most decent GFX cards have had for years.
pdV6 said:
With the ATI card you get the smoothshader that uses some kind of magic to make arches and shapes more life like i.e. no straight edges. Does the new 5900 card have similar trickery?
Sounds like a fancy name for antialiasing, which most decent GFX cards have had for years.
My GeForce3ti500 doesn't have it. for emxample when i used to play quake 3 the arches were square and not round like they should be.
And that card was the dogs a year ago.
d3ano said:
My GeForce3ti500 doesn't have it. for emxample when i used to play quake 3 the arches were square and not round like they should be.
And that card was the dogs a year ago.
I'm pretty sure it did... my old GF2MX did - its a standard part of the unified NVidia driver IIRC.
Did you try changing the antialiasing settings? (hidden away in the control panel when the NVidia driver is properly installed)
For best visual results, set to 4x antialiasing, but watch the framerate drop, as each frame is effectively being rendered at 4x the resolution its displayed at!
Perhaps this 'SmoothShading' is a fancy trick to antialias only the parts of a scene that need it, rather than the entire frame?
Somebody who knows what they're talking about might be along in a minute...
d3ano said:You mean tru-form, either the developer can provide hints or it guesses what shapes are supposed to be curved as automagically adds in the extra polygons to smooth out the shape.
With the ATI card you get the smoothshader that uses some kind of magic to make arches and shapes more life like i.e. no straight edges. Does the new 5900 card have similar trickery?
ErnestM said:
The NVidia is much easier to install/use. One driver file for every card they make. Easy easy.
Absolutely spot on! I have never installed a driver for an ATI card that hasn't caused some sort of mental breakdown (either myself or the computer).
ErnestM
I've had exactly the opposite, NVidia was renowned for clashes with certain motherboard chipsets and the NV4.inf loop error.
NVidia drivers are generally good, but their unified application across all of their cards is matched by that of ATI's efforts.
I'm currently running a Sapphire ATI 9700pro with the latest driver set from ATI, WIN XP, DX9.0b, Athlon XP2500+, Epox 8RDA+ etc etc and am having no problems.
Admittedly to install updated ATI driver sets is a little more complicated but look here for some ideas
www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?s=789960bf64c8ed567ecb5d67658b9ab0&forumid=59
For overall image quality I'd go for the Radeon.
For out and out framerates I'd go for the NVidia.
But don't forget, if you're into gameplay and have VSYNCH locked by the application/3rd party Tweaking software, your framerate will and can never exceed the refresh rate at which your monitor is set. People overlook this frequently and moan incessantly about poor frame rates....
Tivster
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