2900 or 8800 GTS

The 8800GTS 640MB is currently better, due to ATi's drivers being less than perfect.

I'm expecting the HD Radeon 2900XT to outperform the GTS 640MB though.. once some optimized drivers are out.

So if you had to get the card immediately, go with the 8800GTS 640MB. 

The 8800GTS 640MB is currently better, due to ATi's drivers being less than perfect.

Whaaaaaaaat!?

Right now, they're practically equal with the 8800 GTS winning in NVIDIA optimised DX9 games, and ATi winning in other games.

But yes, the drivers are crap. However, that doesn't warrant the purchase of a GTS, as it (2900 XT) will outperform the GTS by a larger margin once it gets some better drivers. Also, 2900 XT comes with Half Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. That's around $150 worth of games right there.

So if you had to get the card immediately, go with the 8800GTS 640MB.

Save some money now to get shafted in the near future? No thanks.

The 8800GTS 640MB is currently better, due to ATi's drivers being less than perfect. Wesker776

Whaaaaaaaat!?

Right now, they're practically equal with the 8800 GTS winning in NVIDIA optimised DX9 games, and ATi winning in other games.

But yes, the drivers are crap. However, that doesn't warrant the purchase of a GTS, as it (2900 XT) will outperform the GTS by a larger margin once it gets some better drivers. Also, 2900 XT comes with Half Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. That's around $150 worth of games right there.

So if you had to get the card immediately, go with the 8800GTS 640MB.

Save some money now to get shafted in the near future? No thanks.

The 8800GTS 640MB destroys the 2900XT whenever AA is on, thus it is the better choice currently.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is only $50, and it includes Team Fortress and Portal. 

The 8800GTS 640MB is currently better, due to ATi's drivers being less than perfect. Wesker776

Whaaaaaaaat!?

Right now, they're practically equal with the 8800 GTS winning in NVIDIA optimised DX9 games, and ATi winning in other games.

But yes, the drivers are crap. However, that doesn't warrant the purchase of a GTS, as it (2900 XT) will outperform the GTS by a larger margin once it gets some better drivers. Also, 2900 XT comes with Half Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. That's around $150 worth of games right there.

So if you had to get the card immediately, go with the 8800GTS 640MB.

Save some money now to get shafted in the near future? No thanks.

The 8800GTS 640MB destroys the 2900XT whenever AA is on, thus it is the better choice currently.

You missed my point completely.

Tell me, would you buy a faster dual core over a slower quad core, because of today's games that do not support multi core technology (when they're at the same price)? No you wouldn't because you know that soon, the quad core will provide roughly twice as much throughput amount in games.

Similar situation with the GTS and XT. The GTS does provide better performance when AA is turned on, but once better drivers come out, the XT will outperform the GTS.

Not to mention that the XT is highly overclockable on stock cooling (granted you will need an 8 pin PCIE connector for OCing).

Also, even if you have a problem with AA just crankup the resolution!

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is only $50, and it includes Team Fortress and Portal.

Link?

Also, 8800 GTS + HL2:E2 = $440 (according to your prices).

2900 XT is still cheaper.

Similar, but not exactly the same. Plus, the quad-core would be far more expensive than a dual-core. =p

The HD Radeon 2900XT shouldn't destroy the GTS or anything, even with better drivers. There's also the issue of power consumption. The 2900XT uses about 30-40Ws more (don't remember exactly). 

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832130043  

$150 for HL:E2...someones been taking you for a ride mate. Its £25 here in the uk for the next episode, and with news of the new 9800 gts coming out by the end of the year, your looking at a good price drop for the 8800 series in the next couple of months.

At the end of the day the choice is upto you on graphics cards.You wont notice much difference between these cards. +10 or 20 fps here (but that doesnt matter if your getting around 40-70 fps for each game anyway) and there, some games will run better with 1 card, the others with the other card. 

ATI + hl:e2 does sound good, but if you read the story on gamespots news, many people who bought the last ati card because they got half life 2 with it were waiting months to a whole year for their copy of the game.

$150 for HL:E2...someones been taking you for a ride mate. Its £25 here in the uk for the next episode, and with news of the new 9800 gts coming out by the end of the year, your looking at a good price drop for the 8800 series in the next couple of months.

I was under the impression that the three games were being sold seperately. Apologies there.

Similar, but not exactly the same. Plus, the quad-core would be far more expensive than a dual-core. =p

$266 Q6600 (2.4GHz Quad) or $266 E6850 (3GHz Dual) by July the 22nd? 

ATI + hl:e2 does sound good, but if you read the story on gamespots news, many people who bought the last ati card because they got half life 2 with it were waiting months to a whole year for their copy of the game.

I'm not too sure on the last deal, but this deal will be distributed digitally. 

$150 for HL:E2...someones been taking you for a ride mate. Its £25 here in the uk for the next episode, and with news of the new 9800 gts coming out by the end of the year, your looking at a good price drop for the 8800 series in the next couple of months.

At the end of the day the choice is upto you on graphics cards.You wont notice much difference between these cards. +10 or 20 fps here (but that doesnt matter if your getting around 40-70 fps for each game anyway) and there, some games will run better with 1 card, the others with the other card. 

ATI + hl:e2 does sound good, but if you read the story on gamespots news, many people who bought the last ati card because they got half life 2 with it were waiting months to a whole year for their copy of the game.

prophet87

I will probably be able to sell my 8800 GTX to get 9800 GTX in december, so if anyone wants to wait.... 

The 8800GTS 640MB is currently better, due to ATi's drivers being less than perfect. Wesker776

Whaaaaaaaat!?

Right now, they're practically equal with the 8800 GTS winning in NVIDIA optimised DX9 games, and ATi winning in other games.

But yes, the drivers are crap. However, that doesn't warrant the purchase of a GTS, as it (2900 XT) will outperform the GTS by a larger margin once it gets some better drivers. Also, 2900 XT comes with Half Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. That's around $150 worth of games right there.

So if you had to get the card immediately, go with the 8800GTS 640MB.

Save some money now to get shafted in the near future? No thanks.

Drivers are somehow equal to 8800 GTS drivers. ATI did made better drivers for launch than nvidia did, and they also had 6 months time to do that. So i wouldnt be surprised if 2900XT wouldnt gain so much on performance.

R600 also doesnt have 320 shaders. You should know that. It has only 64 shaders, that can do 5 processes per cycle. That is different than G80, and it gaves you less performance than having full 128 shaders, that are always fully used, when those 64 shaders arent always fully used. That is why 2900XT sometimes droppes performance to 1900xt level. There isnt a driver issue, but it is core issue, that isnt exactly issue, but rather some bad work from ATI ingeeners. 

I would take 8800 GTS. It IS good card, MAYBE a LITTLE bit slower, but it also needs less power and has better texture filtrering. 

Similar, but not exactly the same. Plus, the quad-core would be far more expensive than a dual-core. =p Wesker776

$266 Q6600 (2.4GHz Quad) or $266 E6850 (3GHz Dual) by July the 22nd?

Yeah, that's July 22nd bro.. and you're comparing the low-end Q6600 quad-core with a high-end E6850 dual-core with a 1333MHz FSB.

The E6600 will also have a drop to around $160 or so (don't quite remember), and it should be compared to a Q6600 since the Q6600 is nothing more than two E6600 chips in one processor.

If games can evolve fast enough to utilize multiple-cores, then yes... the Q6600 would be a better choice than any dual-core. 

Link?

Also, 8800 GTS + HL2:E2 = $440 (according to your prices).

2900 XT is still cheaper.

 

 

thats not very accurate,

the cheapest 8800gts 640mb is around $320,  

Yeah im not eneducated on the matter i came in here for peoples oppinions, atm i can get a Leadtek 8800GTS 640 mb for $517 AU and the Powercolor 2900XT for $560 AU, but yeah i can also get the HIS 2900 XT for $540 AU, but im not sure if there is a difference between the two ( the two ATI's that is ) and im not sure whether the HIS ATI comes with HL2-Ep2. I have looked at all the benchmarks and my main discrepincy lies in the fact that im not sure whether it is just the ATI drivers or whether the 8800GTS also posses driver issues, atm i am getting an E6420, 2gb 800mhz RAM, a graphics card from above case etc. for around $1200 AU im just really stuck on what card to get im really not sure. Also how does the intergrated sound work with the ATI card?

Any more help woould be greatly appreciated. 

right now, you should probably get the 8800 GTS because it kills the HD2900XT on the highest settings because it has more video memory than the the HD2900XTs 512MB

ATI really should have figured out a way to put 1GB of memory on the HD2900XT

Uh.. the 8800GTS 640MB never kills the HD Radeon 2900XT. It outperforms the 2900XT when AA is on, but that's it.Hiryuu_

That's because ATi's drivers have not optimized the 2900XT for AA. =/Hiryuu_

Don't buy the 2900XT. It looks like you've been talking to the same couple of people who clearly don't have a clue. It's a piece of garbage. Truely a horribly inefficient and poorly designed card. I suggest you go read an honest review, like the one over at HardOCP. It comes out underperforming in every single game compared to the 640mb GTS, and consumes 100W more power. It's also hot (runs at about 90C) and loud and it costs more. It was delayed for six months because ATI/AMD knew it had a turd on its hands.

Yeah, maybe they can fix some of the performance problems with better drivers. But I really would advise you to stay away from it. ATI/AMD is probably going to be very quick with a refresh of the card that uses a smaller process.

And I'm not an Nvidia fanboy or anything. My last two cards were ATI. I'm just trying to keep you from making an expensive mistake. This is basically just like when Nvidia released its disastrous FX5800 a few years back...

Who in this day and age doesnt run AA? Why would you buy a high-end video card and not run AA? That's a pathetic cop out. And the 2900XT is overpriced. It's almost $100 more than the GTS, which can be had for around $340 after rebates. Also, go back and look at some power consumption charts. It consumes far, far more power than the GTS, especially under load or if you plug in the extra connector and overclock.  The thing is a horribly inefficient piece of junk, and I have no idea why you are defending it.

Maybe you made the mistake of buying one before all the negative reviews came out that panned the card?

It can run AA, but just not well due to the poor drivers. Overpriced? It's $400.. same price as most 8800GTS 640MBs, and I've actually seen the 8800GTS 640MB for around $320 with a rebate. ;]

It uses about 65Ws more than the GTS under full load, and if you factor in overclocking for the 2900XT then you have to factor in overclocking for the 8800GTS as well. -_-

Horribly inefficient... do you even know why the 2900XT is "inefficient"?

Say, are you and and cmdrmonkey the same person? You guys pretty much said the same damn thing.

The reviews came out before the 2900XT was released so I couldn't have bought it.

And no, I'm going to stick with my good ole 7600GT for a while longer. 

Seems like you're enjoying yourself. 3 edits? =p 

Yes, same person. Brain was on autopilot didn't realize I had logged into my old account.

I don't get why you can't add it all up and see the big picture.

It's more expensive, performs worse, uses more power, it's noisy and runs hot. Seriously, why would anyone buy or recommend this card other than ATI brand loyalty?

More expensive yes.

Performs worse? Only with AA on.

Uses more power? That's true.. it even uses about 20Ws more than the GTX, but if you get an 8800GTS now you'd surely have a PSU that can power a 2900XT.

Runs hot? From what I've seen it idles in the 50s and under load gets around 70-80C. That's nothing, since my 7600GT idles 59C and under load can hit up to 85C.

Oh, and before you call me ATi fanboy or something.. I've never had an ATi card. ;]