ATI Radeon HD2900XT 512MB or Geforce 8800GTS 320MB?

i'm just wondering which grapich i should get for my computer? my monitor is at 1440*900 and i want to run all the latest games and last me for a good few years and i want to know which graphic card is better to get? i've seen some benchmarks where 8800GTS is better than HD2900XT and also even when it's not they are still pretty close in FPS. also lately i've heard that HD2900XT is getting better than 8800GTX with the new drivers but i'm not sure about it yet. so which one better to get?

so is it worth the extra 100$ Cnd, getting HD2900XT

At that resolution, I'd strive for the 8800GTS 320MB. It'll max out games for another year or two at that res.

But the price cut on the 2900 XT makes decisions a little more difficult.

I say that if you have the extra money and are willing to pay more, go for the 2900 XT. If you're on more of a strict budget, go for the 8800GTS 320MB.

At that resolution, I'd strive for the 8800GTS 320MB. It'll max out games for another year or two at that res.

But the price cut on the 2900 XT makes decisions a little more difficult.

I say that if you have the extra money and are willing to pay more, go for the 2900 XT. If you're on more of a strict budget, go for the 8800GTS 320MB.

Wesker776

what price cut? is there going to be a price cut for 2900XT?

Hey Wekser Wassssup lol, question though, at that low of a res I would assume he would need AA, and in some situations due to the Readeon's issue with AA, would that bring its FPS lower than the GTS 320MB?Alpha_Omega69

yes thats a good questions anyone knows the answer?

whats your current video card?wklzip

me? well i have a x1300 not very great graphic card but it can run all the games in low setting at least, but i'm tired of playing games at low setting thats why i'm building a new high-end comp so i can play games, and also i wanna play Crysis at max setting.

[QUOTE="wklzip"]whats your current video card?pminooei

me? well i have a x1300 not very great graphic card but it can run all the games in low setting at least, but i'm tired of playing games at low setting thats why i'm building a new high-end comp so i can play games, and also i wanna play Crysis at max setting.

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

[QUOTE="pminooei"]

[QUOTE="wklzip"]whats your current video card?wklzip

me? well i have a x1300 not very great graphic card but it can run all the games in low setting at least, but i'm tired of playing games at low setting thats why i'm building a new high-end comp so i can play games, and also i wanna play Crysis at max setting.

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

i was thinking about waiting but there is a few problems that my budget is kidna limit and when 9800GTX is released i can't afford it, and it'll probably take 6-7 month until the price drops to affordable range, and probably by than nvidia will announce a new card :P (lol technology) also i kinda need the computer for my school also if i wait for nvidia cards than i'll wait for the new CPUs as well, the 8 cores which intel is releasing (forgot it's name). thats why if i wait for 9800GTX i have kinda wait for a whole year till i can afford it and get it. also the most demanding game which requires alot of power is crysis, and havn't heard much about anything more power requiring than crysis so far.

but i was hoping that nvidia releases it's 8900 series sometime soon than i'll get that.

edit. thanks alot for your help :)

Hey Wekser Wassssup lol, question though, at that low of a res I would assume he would need AA, and in some situations due to the Readeon's issue with AA, would that bring its FPS lower than the GTS 320MB?Alpha_Omega69

Hello hello! XD

AA would cripple the 2900 XT's performance, but not to the point that it underperforms to the GTS.

The card loses roughly 30% of FPS when AA is enabled, but since it gets around 150FPS without AA, you won't notice the difference. :/

As I said; it depends on his budget. If he's got plenty to spend, go for the 2900 XT. If he's on a budget, for the GTS 320MB.

stick with the 8800, the 2900 is very loud/noisy and has AA problems. filmography

You don't know noisy until you have the X1800/X1900/X1950 series coolers.

Trust me, the 2900 XT's cooler is better than ATi's old cooler.

okay i've decidend to get 8800GTS beacuse it seems to be doing better in DX10 than HD2900 with the new benchmarks from here

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/dx10-benches-Anandtech-ftopict243308.html

and their DX9 don't matter much cause they both run the games at very high fps

okay i've decidend to get 8800GTS beacuse it seems to be doing better in DX10 than HD2900 with the new benchmarks from here

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/dx10-benches-Anandtech-ftopict243308.html

and their DX9 don't matter much cause they both run the games at very high fps

pminooei

Whatever man. Just dont take those tests to seriously. These arent true DX10 games. Lost planet is crappy non-optimized prot from 360 and i dont wonder that it non-optimized since capcom never cared about PC gaming. Not to mention Call of Juarez, which is even more ******crappy in terms of optimizations. Nothing strange here again since developers are from eastern europe.

CoH is much better optimized but again its not trully DX10 game.

I personally would go with 2900 xt, with the new drivers it is more consistinley beating the gts, and runs with the gtx at times. It can only improve also. As for AA, I doubt ATI would not fix it.duelen

I don't think its something "fixable" because the HD2900XT does AA differently than previous graphics cards.

These arent true DX10 games. Lost planet is crappy non-optimized prot from 360domke13

okay i've decidend to get 8800GTS beacuse it seems to be doing better in DX10 than HD2900 with the new benchmarks from here

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/dx10-benches-Anandtech-ftopict243308.html

and their DX9 don't matter much cause they both run the games at very high fps

pminooei

Don't take that seriously:

Now, look at what the cards get in DX9:

DX10 gaming at the moment is a joke.

Until we see ground up DX10 titles like Crysis and Alan Wake, no one can judge the performance of these DX10 cards.

Crytek, the developer of Crysis (and Far Cry), say that one 8800 GTX is able to max out Crysis at 1900x1200 with max details. Look at Call of Juarez and CoH, you can't even play these games well on a 19" monitor. Don't even get me started on Capcom's slack job porting of Lost Planet...

Also, I think you should read this article (8800GTS 320MB vs 2900 XT):

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=581

It's a shame that they didn't review the games at high resolutions (24" and over), otherwise you would see the 2900 XT cream the GTS. Never the less, the 2900 XT outperforms the GTS.

problem is, people read reviews on the first day and never check back. LAter down the road they will stil lcall the 2900xt **** when it really has improved a lot. I see massive potential for the 2900xt and its already beating the gts in a majority of things.duelen

this is like the 4th review that i checked with 2900XT, and i've seen that 2900XT improved alot but how much further can the card improve to? that is the question.

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

wklzip

The next generation of cards always eats up the previous generation. The thing is, in the computer industry, hardware moves so quickly that the next generation is always 4-6 months away, so if you keep with the mindset of "just wait another few months," you'll be waiting and waiting. You've eventually just got to bite-the-bullet and buy, or you'll miss out on a lot of good games in-between.

However, if there are really no games that you're interested in within the next x number of months, then maybe waiting is for you...

Until we see ground up DX10 titles like Crysis and Alan WakeWesker776

[QUOTE="wklzip"]

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

FireBurger

The next generation of cards always eats up the previous generation. The thing is, in the computer industry, hardware moves so quickly that the next generation is always 4-6 months away, so if you keep with the mindset of "just wait another few months," you'll be waiting and waiting. You've eventually just got to bite-the-bullet and buy, or you'll miss out on a lot of good games in-between.

However, if there are really no games that you're interested in within the next x number of months, then maybe waiting is for you...

Totally agreed. If you wait for 4 months for something new, than again something new will come out in 6 motnhs. Waiting is just stupid. But i guess if you dont want to play games like bioshock, crysis maybe even UT3 at full max you can wait.

[QUOTE="pminooei"]

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

wklzip

9800GTX will max games for as long as 8800GTX will, if we count when they are released. Next gen always beats last one.

In 1 year 9800GTX will be no more like it was at release. 8800GTX will max out games probably for 1,5-2 years, and than ill just get G100, or R700. That dont worries me. And belive me prices of GPUs will just go up. See Ultra, we never had such expensive card before. I think that 9800GTX will be around 800$ if these keeps on and G100 around 1000$.

[QUOTE="wklzip"][QUOTE="pminooei"]

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

domke13

9800GTX will max games for as long as 8800GTX will, if we count when they are released. Next gen always beats last one.

In 1 year 9800GTX will be no more like it was at release. 8800GTX will max out games probably for 1,5-2 years, and than ill just get G100, or R700. That dont worries me. And belive me prices of GPUs will just go up. See Ultra, we never had such expensive card before. I think that 9800GTX will be around 800$ if these keeps on and G100 around 1000$.

I don't think the price will go up to those levels.

We have ATi for competition and Intel will be entering the GPU market in the future too.

[QUOTE="domke13"][QUOTE="wklzip"][QUOTE="pminooei"]

Ok your card is bad but i think you can handle, save money and wait for 4 months, the 9800gtx is coming you can buy it if you can but hope to pay at least $600, with that card you will play every game in MAX for a very long time.

You can also buy the 8800gts/HD2900xt but i think the next gen of cards will eat alive this gen.

Edit: btw i am waiting with a crappy geforce 6200 i cant play any of the recent games even in low xD

Wesker776

9800GTX will max games for as long as 8800GTX will, if we count when they are released. Next gen always beats last one.

In 1 year 9800GTX will be no more like it was at release. 8800GTX will max out games probably for 1,5-2 years, and than ill just get G100, or R700. That dont worries me. And belive me prices of GPUs will just go up. See Ultra, we never had such expensive card before. I think that 9800GTX will be around 800$ if these keeps on and G100 around 1000$.

I don't think the price will go up to those levels.

We have ATi for competition and Intel will be entering the GPU market in the future too.

Yeah. But what if Nvidia will release card that ATi wont be able to compete whit it.

Than they will be able to put prices up to 1000$ IMO. Or if ATi release card that Nvidia wont be able to compete whit it.

Doesn't matter.

The basics of economics will occur: price elasticity. Higher priced goods will be purchased less and the market will move toward a cheaper alternative (despite performance factors).

Honestly, how many people on GS own an 8800 ULTRA? I can think of 1 person off the top of my head. Now think how many people bought the 8800GTS 320MB--a lot.

Doesn't matter.

The basics of economics will occur: price elasticity. Higher priced goods will be purchased less and the market will move toward a cheaper alternative (despite performance factors).

Honestly, how many people on GS own an 8800 ULTRA? I can think of 1 person off the top of my head. Now think how many people bought the 8800GTS 320MB--a lot.

Wesker776

Yeah. Youre right. :)

As i already stated IMO ATi drivers have already improved to this point that we wont see any huge gain in performance any more.

Even whit miracle drivers they cant fix AA. Go for GTS. For now 2900XT is VERY unsure buy.

Go with the hd2900xt,in a month or two ati's drivers will be at there best for the card and the performance increase should make it a no brainer.blacktorn

I really do hope so.... It's quite a dilemma for me too :(

As i already stated IMO ATi drivers have already improved to this point that we wont see any huge gain in performance any more.

Even whit miracle drivers they cant fix AA. Go for GTS. For now 2900XT is VERY unsure buy.

domke13

Hm... Sort of yeah.

From here on out, it's all up to the developers of games. If they follow Microsoft's DX10 requirements to execute AA through shaders, ATi's R600 wins. As you may know, the R600 has plenty of stream processing power at its disposal and was built ground up to fully comply with DX10.

It's best to just wait and see for a proper DX10 game. :/