replacing my 9700

[vampireuk]

I've grown tired of the extremely crappy ATI drivers so I'm switching cards, since I've not been following hardware for ages I'm wondering if this (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=58644) is a good choice :cool:

[NightFire]

Well, I checked some benches, and an AIW 9700 Pro had higher scores overall, but go for it if you want.

[vampireuk]

I'm willing to sacrifice some performance for a card with drivers that just works

[NightFire]

Then it looks like a very affordable alternative. I'd recommend it.

However, if you want to spend a bit more money, there's always this:
http://www.saveateagle.com/
They have a Gigabyte 5950 for about 190 pounds, by my estimation.

[ragejg]

Um, vamp, I think you can get a 6800LE in your area...

[anzak]

I'm willing to sacrifice some performance for a card with drivers that just works

That's an understatement when your talking about Half Life 2. Here is a good example.

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_fx_half-life2/images/tri1280.gif

The 9800XT is over twice as fast as the 5950 in DirectX 9. Even the 9600XT can spit out a playable framerate where the 5950 can't. I would highly recommend you look for a 6800le or wait for the 6600GT. Otherwise stick with the 9700 and live with the crappy Catalyst.

[vampireuk]

I'd rather play my games without the constant screwups to be honest, plus I have no real interest in HL2 :D

[saturnotaku]

What's your budget vamp?

[vampireuk]

Around £150 max

[MUYA]

mate, dun go out for a few weeks save a few bobs and get yerself at least a 6800? ;) heck even 6600GT maybe mate. I dun think old generation is gona cut it for you gaming needs 9ie with aa and af at high res).

[MUYA]

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=62623

that's only £159 quid dude!!!

[anzak]

If that's a little more than your wanting to pay get this 6800LE (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=75002). Almost every LE softmods to a NU.

[MustangSVT]

What's the problem with the ATI drivers, seriously? The FX cards are not future proofed in any way, that's the bottom line. You're going to be losing major image quality by switching to an FX card.

All I have is, stay away from ANY GeForce FX at all costs. The least you could buy is a GeForce 6800 128MB. For the price you mentioned, you should buy a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB for around 110-120 quid. Just don't get an FX card, they are the worst generation of nVIDIA video cards.

[anzak]

What's the problem with the ATI drivers, seriously?

ATI cannot fix something without breaking three.

You're going to be losing major image quality by switching to an FX card.

IQ? How?

For the price you mentioned, you should buy a Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB for around 110-120 quid.

Vamp wants to get away from ATI drivers. Why would he buy a Radeon 9800 pro?

[NightFire]

You might check out this site:
http://store.yahoo.com/buyxg/vc125134.html

I'm not sure if they ship to the UK, but its only 95 pounds or so.

Another one is on tiger direct,
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=706685&Sku=P450-8519&SRCCODE=GOOPROD&CMP=OTC-FROOGLE
Its about 110 pounds.

[kahloq]

Definitely try to get a 6x series. That one 6800 128mb for 159 looked like a real good deal for you and is what you were looking to pay anyhow. However, a 6600GTwould also be a great choice for you, but they aren't available in agp slot version yet so you';d have to wait a month or 2.

[MUYA]

Guys...calm down just a bit

[anzak]

Flame Content Removed --ChrisRay

OMG! For you to call me an nVidiot is out of the line. I am one of the few people here at nVnews who will stick up for ATI even though I own an nVidia card. I believe this thread is a good example http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=38875 . I do agree, the NV3x sucks, but you are wrong on a few things.

They have worse IQ than the ATI cards because they run fp16 precision most of the time

First off the NV3x cannot do FP16 only the NV40 can. Your thinking of 16bit precision. 16bit is only used when it does not affect IQ (which is most of the time). Based off of what you said I could make the argument that the NV40's 32bit gives better IQ than ATI's 24bit which is not true.

They are not true DX9 cards, they only emulate it and that's why they suck it at it.

:lol2: Did someone from Rage3d put you up to this? The NV3x may suck at PS2.0 but it does not emulate it. If that were the case every SM2.0 shader would be placed on the CPU instead of the GPU.

ATI's drivers are good, they're not as bad as you make it seem.

I never said that ATI's drivers were bad. But they do have this bad habit of breaking things while fixing others. Also, ATI does not support many of the features which make nVidia's drivers great (i.e. Digital Vibrance).

Edit: Flame Content removed --ChrisRay

It's funny you say this to me when you clearly have no idea what your talking about. The NV3x fails to run PS2.0 well because it has poorly designed shader units! Also, the older 4x2 config is not as efficient as a true 8x1 in todays games. For the record I do own an FX based card. A PCI FX 5200 which I used for gamming for about 3 months.

[pat777]

GeForce FX is the only DX9 card with angle independent AF. I personally care about that. I'm not saying a 5900 is better than a 9700 but a 5900 does have it's advantages.

[tristancarton]

I would highly recommend you look for a 6800le or wait for the 6600GT. Otherwise stick with the 9700 and live with the crappy Catalyst.
Agree with anzak. Either save up for 6800 nu or hold out a month till you see agp 6600 cards on the market. I assume you have had your 9700 for a while. A few more months of having ati drivers isn't going to kill you. I would try and stay away from the nv3x line from nvidia. The nv4x line is much much much better.

[rohit]

OMG, relax guyz, this is turning out to be more of ATi Vs Nvi thing
Relax, jus an advice, if u really want a good nv card, wait for 6600GT Agp version or else, go for the 6800 as said by some1.
All of us are jus trying to explain u, that the FX series wasnt as great as the ATi 97xx/98xx series performance wise n feature wise. So it aint correct to spend money on something that aint that great. If u want only a FX card go for the 5950, will giv u good performance or else go for wat u are goin for 5900XT, but get of a good company, that wuld overclok well, not xfx, get MSI or sumthin.
Will b value for money!

[vampireuk]

Yeah it would have been nice if the ATI fan boys would keep their noses out since I have no intentions of buying anything but NVIDIA. Thanks for the advice guys, I'll decide in a couple of weeks once my bank balance has built up again :D

[aaahhh52]

Edit: Flame Content Removed --ChrisRay


lol who sounds like the fan boy now :lame: , vamp, i personally have a 5950 and love it, great peformce im most games, and overclocks like a biatch, but i see that some 5950's are still more expensive then some 6800's so yeah a 6800 NU looks to be the best deal for you.

[ChrisRay]

Alright guys, Cut it out, I'm tired of the personal attacks, Muya said once to settle down. If you guys dont we'll start enforcing the rules.


First off the NV3x cannot do FP16 only the NV40 can. Your thinking of 16bit precision. 16bit is only used when it does not affect IQ (which is most of the time). Based off of what you said I could make the argument that the NV40's 32bit gives better IQ than ATI's 24bit which is not true.


You are thinking of Floating Point Blending, Which is only supported by the NV4x in FP16.

Fp16 (64 Bit precision) Is fully supported by the NV3x. And 128 Bit (Fp32) is also fully supported by the Nv3x. In Any Event, Your right. he Geforce FX series are fully compliant DirectX 9.0 cards (with a few minor exceptions) They run shader 2.0 code. Albeit slowly, especially in Fp32 mode. But they can usually run partial precision adequately fast in some cases.

[GlowStick]

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=62623

that's only £159 quid dude!!!
omg buy that insted!