Vista Ultimate

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TomClancey





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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by TomClancey »

Turk is correct, the 9800GX2 (hence the '2'), GTX285 and GTX295 are all single-card Dual GPU's. Basically a dual-core Graphics card. 9800's are hard to come by, new that is, so I would recommend the GTX295, newer and faster as well. It renders higher-resolutions better too, since it has more RAM. 9800GX2 has 512mb per card so it's sluggish in the 1920x1200 and up area, but the 295 does much better with 768mb per card at those higher resolutions.
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mxrider108




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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by mxrider108 »

Yeah, my one 295 can play basically anything max at 60+ fps, plus it draws less power with the 55nm chips.

EDIT:
TomClancey wrote:768mb per card
That's actually per chip, with 1792MB per card.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by neverSHOUTnever »

the gx2 has 1gb with 2 of them......im pretty sure i can run anything

and im going with it because its cheaper than the 200 series where i have looked.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by tucker933 »

neverSHOUTnever wrote:the gx2 has 1gb with 2 of them......im pretty sure i can run anything

and im going with it because its cheaper than the 200 series where i have looked.
Just so you know, the GX2 is well known for its unstable framerates.
I would recommend a 4870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102801
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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tucker933 wrote:
neverSHOUTnever wrote:the gx2 has 1gb with 2 of them......im pretty sure i can run anything

and im going with it because its cheaper than the 200 series where i have looked.
Just so you know, the GX2 is well known for its unstable framerates.
I would recommend a 4870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102801
wha ti really wanted to do was get 2 8800 ultrra cards....

i had one but that machine is long gone....

they don't make that card any more.....at least not where i have been looking
i liked that card.....it was a fatty but it had a hell of a lot of power, it was top of the like back when i bought it....paying clode to 1000 for it
when not to long ago xfx was selling 2 superclocked 8800 ultra cars for 200-400

do you guys know where i could get this card?

i know its got a lot of problems behind it, but for all the games i played using it (BF2, Assassins creed, Splinter cell Double agent, Orange box games, Company of heroes, Crysis) it ran them all with 60 plus on maximized settings
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by tucker933 »

neverSHOUTnever wrote:
tucker933 wrote:
neverSHOUTnever wrote:the gx2 has 1gb with 2 of them......im pretty sure i can run anything

and im going with it because its cheaper than the 200 series where i have looked.
Just so you know, the GX2 is well known for its unstable framerates.
I would recommend a 4870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102801
wha ti really wanted to do was get 2 8800 ultrra cards....

i had one but that machine is long gone....

they don't make that card any more.....at least not where i have been looking
i liked that card.....it was a fatty but it had a hell of a lot of power, it was top of the like back when i bought it....paying clode to 1000 for it
when not to long ago xfx was selling 2 superclocked 8800 ultra cars for 200-400

do you guys know where i could get this card?

i know its got a lot of problems behind it, but for all the games i played using it (BF2, Assassins creed, Splinter cell Double agent, Orange box games, Company of heroes, Crysis) it ran them all with 60 plus on maximized settings
Get some 4850's, their more powerful than 8800Ultras and their well priced.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102770

On top of that, Crossfire scales better than SLi and ATi has better image quality than nVidia.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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tucker933 wrote:
neverSHOUTnever wrote:
tucker933 wrote:
neverSHOUTnever wrote:the gx2 has 1gb with 2 of them......im pretty sure i can run anything

and im going with it because its cheaper than the 200 series where i have looked.
Just so you know, the GX2 is well known for its unstable framerates.
I would recommend a 4870.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102801
wha ti really wanted to do was get 2 8800 ultrra cards....

i had one but that machine is long gone....

they don't make that card any more.....at least not where i have been looking
i liked that card.....it was a fatty but it had a hell of a lot of power, it was top of the like back when i bought it....paying clode to 1000 for it
when not to long ago xfx was selling 2 superclocked 8800 ultra cars for 200-400

do you guys know where i could get this card?

i know its got a lot of problems behind it, but for all the games i played using it (BF2, Assassins creed, Splinter cell Double agent, Orange box games, Company of heroes, Crysis) it ran them all with 60 plus on maximized settings
Get some 4850's, their more powerful than 8800Ultras and their well priced.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102770

On top of that, Crossfire scales better than SLi and ATi has better image quality than nVidia.
is that a fact?

im really not that familiar with ati products....
how is crossfire with compatibility on the games i mentioned?

i went to the ati website.... its good...it could probably save me a lot in the long run..... what do you know about 4870?


and woh wtf is ddr5 and what can it do?
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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It is a fact, Crossfire is more efficient than SLi, and nVidia cards have been cross tested against ATi for image quality and ATi wins out.
Games are made to either take advantage of multiple cards or not, its not SLi, Crossfire or both, so it wont matter.

Also an important thing would be to see what your chip set supports, if its an nVidia chip set you have to go with either SLi, or single cards of either ATi or nVidia, with an Intel chip set you can go with either ATi or nVidia, and with ATi chip sets... well I think you get the picture. Though if your only running a single card you don't have to worry about who made the chip set.
I would recommend a single fast card over 2 lesser cards because of game support. Not all games can make full use of multi-card setups, and two cards don't equal twice the performance either, there's extra processing power required to sync the cards so your not getting exactly twice the performance than one card, and that goes for both SLi and Crossfire.

I don't personally have a 4870, I'm running a couple 4850's but I know plenty of people who do and have told me about it. Its a very reliable, very fast card, the second fastest ATi currently has to offer. It supports DX10.1 and is DX11 ready, so you won't have to upgrade your graphics processor when DX11 comes out to make use of it. The 4870 most closely matches the GTX260 core 216 graphics card from nVidia, but marginally faster.

GDDR5 is the latest graphics memory type and so far ATi is the only one to take up on it. It offers much much higher memory bandwidth, double that of GDDR4, which will help you out at higher resolutions.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by neverSHOUTnever »

tucker933 wrote:It is a fact, Crossfire is more efficient than SLi, and nVidia cards have been cross tested against ATi for image quality and ATi wins out.
Games are made to either take advantage of multiple cards or not, its not SLi, Crossfire or both, so it wont matter.

Also an important thing would be to see what your chip set supports, if its an nVidia chip set you have to go with either SLi, or single cards of either ATi or nVidia, with an Intel chip set you can go with either ATi or nVidia, and with ATi chip sets... well I think you get the picture. Though if your only running a single card you don't have to worry about who made the chip set.
I would recommend a single fast card over 2 lesser cards because of game support. Not all games can make full use of multi-card setups, and two cards don't equal twice the performance either, there's extra processing power required to sync the cards so your not getting exactly twice the performance than one card, and that goes for both SLi and Crossfire.

I don't personally have a 4870, I'm running a couple 4850's but I know plenty of people who do and have told me about it. Its a very reliable, very fast card, the second fastest ATi currently has to offer. It supports DX10.1 and is DX11 ready, so you won't have to upgrade your graphics processor when DX11 comes out to make use of it. The 4870 most closely matches the GTX260 core 216 graphics card from nVidia, but marginally faster.

GDDR5 is the latest graphics memory type and so far ATi is the only one to take up on it. It offers much much higher memory bandwidth, double that of GDDR4, which will help you out at higher resolutions.
all the chip sets I have been looking at have support for both crossfire and Sli
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by TomClancey »

mxrider108 wrote:
TomClancey wrote:768mb per card
That's actually per chip, with 1792MB per card.
Twas' referring to each of the cards within the card, but yes, 768MB per chip would be more accurate. Thanks for catching that, by the way.

Tucker, I don't know if I've been living under a rock or not, but I'm almost positive nVidia is more powerful then ATI at the moment. :|
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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TomClancey wrote:Tucker, I don't know if I've been living under a rock or not, but I'm almost positive nVidia is more powerful then ATI at the moment. :|
Point being? He's not buying the best card out there, and hes not looking to. Only a few weeks ago did nVidia retake first over ATi, and just barely I might add, the GTX295 is not that much faster than the aging 4870x2, and with ATi gearing up for another launch right around the corner what do you think it will be then? =P
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by mxrider108 »

Except if you play games with PhysX. In that case, nVidia (obviously) straight-up demolishes ATI.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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But if you buy ATi, you feel like such a renegade when the "It Plays better On nVidia" Splash comes up.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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Cuda wrote:But if you buy ATi, you feel like such a renegade when the "It Plays better On nVidia" Splash comes up.
which is why i brought up BF2 and hitman cause i play those often

and they always say its better with nvidia.

probably the only game that actually says its better with ati is Black and white 2

but it plays fricken awesome with the 8800
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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neverSHOUTnever wrote:
Cuda wrote:But if you buy ATi, you feel like such a renegade when the "It Plays better On nVidia" Splash comes up.
which is why i brought up BF2 and hitman cause i play those often

and they always say its better with nvidia.

probably the only game that actually says its better with ati is Black and white 2

but it plays fricken awesome with the 8800
It's just about marketing, its their slogan.
"nVidia, the way it's meant to be played."
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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I always thought so. like when I bought my ATi 9200 (so futuristic.) it came with Deus Ex: Invisible War and it had the nVidia splash in it, I felt like I got shortchanged on it.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by neverSHOUTnever »

but are the games with the nvidia mark on them really better with nvidia?
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Re: Vista Ultimate

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neverSHOUTnever wrote:but are the games with the nvidia mark on them really better with nvidia?
It's just there because they sponsored a certain game so they have to advertise them. It's nVidia's slogan their trying to say games in general run better on nVidia, they aren't referring to the game itself, though it is not true that all games run better on nVidia, there are exceptions where they do, and exceptions where ATi runs a game better. Crysis is one of those examples where nVidia does run it better, but it has nothing to do with nVidia making better cards. Crytek isn't the most well off of gaming companies, and they needed extra funding, and nVidia was there with the money, and in return, other than advertising nVidia at start up, part of the deal was to code the game to give nVidia an advantage over ATi when running the game. Same with benchmark's they donate money there to in attempts to rig the system, consumers often look at benchmarks to see how cards stack up. nVidia plays a smart but very cheap game, they can get away with it because their not doing anything illegal, just donating money for 'advertising' rights.

This doesn't mean stick with nVidia, just because they rigged the system doesn't mean their the only choice, ATi makes great cards, and less games than you may think are effected by nVidia's 'game'. And just because you see 'nVidia, the way its meant to be played' splash on the screen doesn't generally mean the game is rigged for nVidia, a good majority of the time its just innocent advertising.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by neverSHOUTnever »

tucker933 wrote:
neverSHOUTnever wrote:but are the games with the nvidia mark on them really better with nvidia?
It's just there because they sponsored a certain game so they have to advertise them. It's nVidia's slogan their trying to say games in general run better on nVidia, they aren't referring to the game itself, though it is not true that all games run better on nVidia, there are exceptions where they do, and exceptions where ATi runs a game better. Crysis is one of those examples where nVidia does run it better, but it has nothing to do with nVidia making better cards. Crytek isn't the most well off of gaming companies, and they needed extra funding, and nVidia was there with the money, and in return, other than advertising nVidia at start up, part of the deal was to code the game to give nVidia an advantage over ATi when running the game. Same with benchmark's they donate money there to in attempts to rig the system, consumers often look at benchmarks to see how cards stack up. nVidia plays a smart but very cheap game, they can get away with it because their not doing anything illegal, just donating money for 'advertising' rights.

This doesn't mean stick with nVidia, just because they rigged the system doesn't mean their the only choice, ATi makes great cards, and less games than you may think are effected by nVidia's 'game'. And just because you see 'nVidia, the way its meant to be played' splash on the screen doesn't generally mean the game is rigged for nVidia, a good majority of the time its just innocent advertising.

and ati in general is cheaper..am i correct?

you make some very plausible points.
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Re: Vista Ultimate

Post by Cuda »

neverSHOUTnever wrote:and ati in general is cheaper..am i correct?
You'd have to check that source by source. With uncontrolled marketing, and discount rates on each sometimes random, it all depends on what you pick up if you're really looking at the lowest price. Most online retailers will take a bit off of the MSRP and pass the savings off, so it all depends on where you look.
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