best agp card: ati or nvidia?

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lagos

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im looking to upgrade my 9800pro 128meg. i want to get the best agp card i can, to hold me off untill i decide to upgrade the whole system and move to pci-x. here are my sytem specs

p4 3.0ghzHT
1gig of ram in dual chanel mode
abit ic7g mobo
9800 pro 128

now, ive pretty much have my card choices down to 2 from all the reviews ive been reading. ATI x850XT PE or Nvidia 6800 GT . any recomendations on what one i should go for? im leaning to the ati because it seems like an overall faster card, but at the same time ive seen some benchmarks that show the 6800 doing better in doom engine based games.

happy to hear your input
thanks
lagos
 
If prices are equal I'd get the ATI. If they're not equal, I'd get whichever was cheaper at the time, they'll be close in performance.

I've read that the ATI card doesn't have full shader support...? So weigh that in to your decision too, you might google around a bit.
 
ATI = Faster
Nvidia = more "features" HDR looks nice if that floats your boat.
 
another 1 :rolleyes: :p

x850xt pe is a LOT faster than the 6800gt.....trust me buy the x850xt pe
 
if u want to experience HDR and stuff buy the 6 series, if not a X850XTPE will kill any other in terms of raw speed
 
The nVidia 6800GT. Get an eVga, XFT or BFG model with the 3 year warranty. (My HSI 9800Pro/256 died at 14 months. It came with a 12 month guarantee. Meanwhile my GF3 is still going strong.)

If you're going to overclock, then probably the BFG OC or the PNY. And if you can afford it, why not just buy the Ultras?

I don't buy ATI based cards any more because of their warranty, just as I no longer will buy WD disc drives.
 
X850XT-PE is the fastest, until some AGP 7800GTs surface - they were promised by nVidia iirc, but who knows when they'll turn up?
 
nVidia hands down. There's no comparison...unless all you play is Half-Life 2. ;)
 
Doesn't really matter- AGP is DEAD.

If you're thinking of spending that much money on a video card, you should be buying a 7800GT for $289 AMIR at Tiger Direct, a nForce 4 PCIE motherboard, and a 939 Processor.

It makes no sense to spend $400+ on a dead architecture, the value on those things is going to drop like a stone.

Besides which a 7800GT slaughters any AGP card.
 
I'd vote a used 6800GT. Cheap, and will last till you want to upgrade your whole system. Also has good Linux drivers if you ever want to experiment with the dark side :D
 
I vote 6800gt here.. since all the quake games and doom engine and such are coming out ;P
 
X850XTPE

No doubt. As for the nvidia option, the 6800 however they are no where near as fast as the X850XTPE
 
Rollo said:
It makes no sense to spend $400+ on a dead architecture, the value on those things is going to drop like a stone.
Click to expand...

You can say that about graphics cards in general, you just accept it and move along. The thread starter is doing the right thing, you can still get some use out of that CPU/motherboard before going to PCIe.

Huge upgrade over that 9800pro, whether you go for the ATi or nvidia card. Have fun ;)
 
I purchased my card more so on the type of games I played--when I had just AGP of course. Since I played mainly BF games, no matter what I tried, Nvidia seemed to work better for me. ATI might be faster in some benchies and other games, it's up to you if benchies or those other games meet your criteria. BTW, I've been with ATI for as long as NVIDIA...I have no preference...just whatever gives me better performance with the games I currently play.
 
uggh, its obviously the nVidia. no reason, and I don't need to back the answer either.
 
PikachuMan said:
You can say that about graphics cards in general, you just accept it and move along. The thread starter is doing the right thing, you can still get some use out of that CPU/motherboard before going to PCIe.

Huge upgrade over that 9800pro, whether you go for the ATi or nvidia card. Have fun ;)
Click to expand...

He's got a P4 3GHz motherboard he could sell for $200+. $250 will get him an AMD motherboard that will blow his away. Big Upgrade.

He's got a GB of RAM he can sell to defray the cost of another GB.

A 7800GT stomps a 6800U or a X850XT PE, the best AGP cards, and costs $100+ less, which he can use to defray the cost of his RAM/Motherboard.

He's also got a 9800Pro thats worth $100..

This guy has no reason whatsoever not to buy the stuff I just listed. He won't have any more money out of pocket, and his computer will be WAY faster than if he had stuck with the P4 3Ghz.

You may want him to stay in the "AGP 4-evah" club for company, I want him to make the choices that make the most sense and give him the fastest, most modern computer he can have for the same money.

Paying top dollar for an AGP card now is foolish, especially on a P4 platform.
 
Rollo said:
He's got a P4 3GHz motherboard he could sell for $200+. $250 will get him an AMD motherboard that will blow his away. Big Upgrade.

He's got a GB of RAM he can sell to defray the cost of another GB.

A 7800GT stomps a 6800U or a X850XT PE, the best AGP cards, and costs $100+ less, which he can use to defray the cost of his RAM/Motherboard.

He's also got a 9800Pro thats worth $100..

This guy has no reason whatsoever not to buy the stuff I just listed. He won't have any more money out of pocket, and his computer will be WAY faster than if he had stuck with the P4 3Ghz.

You may want him to stay in the "AGP 4-evah" club for company, I want him to make the choices that make the most sense and give him the fastest, most modern computer he can have for the same money.

Paying top dollar for an AGP card now is foolish, especially on a P4 platform.
Click to expand...

I just did this similiar thing, sold my p4 cpu/mainboard and 6800 ultra and bought athlon 64 cpu/mb and 7800gt, did not cost me much at all out of my pocket to do it. sold the 6800 ultra oc on ebay for 385, bought the 7800gt for 389 (1.5 months ago).

As for what card in the agp world, I would personally go with 6800gt I think. I think you would be missing to much from new games with last generation ati cards. Buddy just this past week replaced his 9800xt with a 6800 gt, and he said there is alot he notices now in games that just were not there on his 9800xt. (granted 9800's may be missing some stuff from the x800's as well)
 
good info guys, but im really not looking to upgrade the whole system just yet. i want to get one more agp based card to tie me over for a little while. my 9800pro still does a good job in most games, but i feel like im long overdue for an card upgrade.

the 7800 really is the best card out there now, but i see no reason to move to pci-x just yet.
 
lagos said:
good info guys, but im really not looking to upgrade the whole system just yet. i want to get one more agp based card to tie me over for a little while. my 9800pro still does a good job in most games, but i feel like im long overdue for an card upgrade.

the 7800 really is the best card out there now, but i see no reason to move to pci-x just yet.
Click to expand...

I'd buy a 6800Ultra then as it's the only "high end" SM3 AGP card. (6800GT if money is an issue)
 
wallijonn said:
The nVidia 6800GT. Get an eVga, XFT or BFG model with the 3 year warranty. (My HSI 9800Pro/256 died at 14 months. It came with a 12 month guarantee. Meanwhile my GF3 is still going strong.)

If you're going to overclock, then probably the BFG OC or the PNY. And if you can afford it, why not just buy the Ultras?

I don't buy ATI based cards any more because of their warranty, just as I no longer will buy WD disc drives.
Click to expand...

Well.. that may have been a problem with HIS. I personally had my 9700Pro AIW for over 3 years without a problem.
 
magnetik said:
Well.. that may have been a problem with HIS. I personally had my 9700Pro AIW for over 3 years without a problem.
Click to expand...
...and I still have that very same AIW 9700 Pro, as I bought it from Magnetik in our own FS/T forum. Still works great :) There's a lot of voodoo accounting work that goes into formulating warranty policies, and reducing warranty lengths may actually _increase_ the reliability of a given product - funds that would be tied up by supporting warranty replacement inventories can instead be used to make a higher quality product. Accounting considerations are far beyond our care/understanding. Also, the BBA brand has a pretty small share of the ATI board market today, and I'm pretty sure that Sapphire in fact makes the BBA boards nowadays anyway.
 
Well, your best option (in my opinion) is to sell the 9800pro and get the x850xt for about $370 because it is faster. If money's tight, the 6800gt can get the job done (just not as quickly) for about $290.

Bear in mind too that AMD is coming out with the M2 processor soon, upgrading everything right now wouldn't be a good idea. Upgrading the card itself if probably the best choice for the moment.


P.S. The prices were taken from Newegg.

Edit: ATI cut the warranty on THEIR cards, not everyone else's.
 
u can do like i did and buy the ati x850pro(12pipeline) and flash the bios to the Xt(16pipeline) and reflash back to x850 pro mem/core settings so no temp problems.
and/or add a different cooling and overclock the cards core/mem settings until u find artifacting.

card was only $250 bought at compusa pricematched bestbuy, and buy warranty for $30-$60 and u can take card back in within year and get *Credit* towards another card so pci-express could be a option then. and /or just buy the x850xt and overclock it.

Fear plays great, and Bf2 with textures on high and 6x aa and 4xanisoptic,Pariah cool game, plays awesome.and DOD:s and CS:s.

ive already seen a good jump in Frames per second. benched in Cs:s test 150+ on aa 6x antisoptric 8x throughout test but final was 125fps,but this on a amd64 2800+cpu, so maybe if cpu was faster id get more fps, not sure.

i did switch the anisoptric to 16x and got 1fps less as final result.
u can get bootdisk for Xp pro or any windows at www.bootdisk.com

Here's what I did:

Downloaded ATIflash 3.09 and saved the EXE to the hard drive

Downloaded X850 XT BIOS (AGP, non Platinum) and renamed that long filename to "xt.bin"

Uninstalled all ATI software

Boot disk to DOS and run ATIflash

BACKUP OLD BIOS:
atiflash -s 0 oldbios.bin

FLASH TO NEW BIOS AND OVERWRITE ALL SETTINGS:
atiflash -p 0 xt.bin -f -newbios

FLASH TO OLD BIOS AND RETAIN PIPELINES:
atiflash -p 0 oldbios.bin -f

Reboot, install Catalyst drivers

Check pipelines using ATITool
all you have to do is flash your old bios back onto the card with atiflash:

atiflash -f -p 0 oldbios.bin

this should flash ur old bios back but leave the 16 pipes in the rom settings.

to flash back to 12 pipes completely, you would use:

atiflash -f -newbios -p 0 oldbios.bin

the only difference is the -newbios option which lets u flash basically the same way flashrom does
 
Get an X800XT All-in-Wonder for $255 at Buy.com. It's faster than the 6800 GT in many games and is only a little bit behind the X850XT PE.
 
I would have to say go with a 6800GT or 6800ultra....its SM3.0 which ATI is not (in the AGP flavor).
 
I got one of those x800xt pe refurbs this summer, really was more of an upgrade than I expected from a 9700pro. So I am sure you will enjoy either a 6800gt or ultra or an x850 gto2 with a bios flash. :)
 
the X850XT's are fastest, but are expensive.
6800GT's are fast enough and much cheaper. AND you can find them in the FS: forum really cheap $220-$250 all the time. (mine might be in there soon)

Though as some others mentioned you should consider possibly upgrading to get PCIe as there might not be many more highend AGP cards made anymore. :(

I've been thinking about getting the Albatron 915 mobo that uses socket 478, DDR and PCIe 16x ! SO I can reuse all my parts (3.4EE & 2Gb) and get a 7800GTX!!
 
The X850XT-PE is without a doubt the fastest of all AGP cards. However, best bang for the buck is going to be the X800XL or the 6800GT. As to which one I'd get? I'd recommend which ever can be purchased for the lowest price. Image quality and performance are comparable.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
The X850XT-PE is without a doubt the fastest of all AGP cards. However, best bang for the buck is going to be the X800XL or the 6800GT. As to which one I'd get? I'd recommend which ever can be purchased for the lowest price. Image quality and performance are comparable.
Click to expand...
Common the ATI x800xt AIW is the best bang for the buck. Its faster than both the x800xl and 6800gt and has a TV tuner for an added bonus. Right now it is running about the same price since ATI is offering a $20 rebate until the start of december. Buy.com has it for $277 right now which is cheaper then the very few AGP 6800gts I have seen for sale. I got the x800xt AIW last week for $255 :) so look for one of buy.com 5% coupons. Also noteworthy is the x800xt should easily overclock to x850xt speeds or x850xt pe with good cooling.

Looked real quick to see what coupons buy.com has avialiable right now.
New buy.com customers can save another $15 with this coupon
http://www.buy.com/retail/coupon.asp?prid=88301879&adid=17662
New total = $262

Obviously you can find better video cards and pricing on the pci-e side of things, but this is the best deal I have seen for agp.
 
ClearM4 said:
Common the ATI x800xt AIW is the best bang for the buck. Its faster than both the x800xl and 6800gt and has a TV tuner for an added bonus. Right now it is running about the same price since ATI is offering a $20 rebate until the start of december. Buy.com has it for $277 right now which is cheaper then the very few AGP 6800gts I have seen for sale. I got the x800xt AIW last week for $255 :) so look for one of buy.com 5% coupons. Also noteworthy is the x800xt should easily overclock to x850xt speeds or x850xt pe with good cooling.

Looked real quick to see what coupons buy.com has avialiable right now.
New buy.com customers can save another $15 with this coupon
http://www.buy.com/retail/coupon.asp?prid=88301879&adid=17662
New total = $262

Obviously you can find better video cards and pricing on the pci-e side of things, but this is the best deal I have seen for agp.
Click to expand...

I never looked at the X800XT All-In-Wonder's price before. You're right if it can be found that cheap. I wouldn't let the AIW feature set lure you though, if you don't plan to use it, and you can find a better deal on teh X800XL, or the 6800GT, then I'd go with that.
 
recently I found myself at the crux of this same dillema, and if you care or not , here is my solution. As listed in my sys specs below my powerfull a64 system is being held back by an aging 9800. I had to wait longer than I would have wanted because I needed a powersupply as well (when I oc my cpu past 2.65ish my fans slow down and voltages become erratic) and much to my dismay my original choice (leadtek 6800LE) was sold out. So I got the leadtek 6800 vanilla , it has an excellent stock cooler and fits nicely into my agp slot. Hopefully it will be unlockable without artifacting , but even if it isn't it should be a significant upgrade and allow my fast cpu to really push games. Not to mention its only 165$. I will then migrate my 9800 into my wifes gaming rig the nf2/axp machine. then i'm selling my dealer my 9500np for 40-60$ (we will negotiate over work this evening) to further lesson the financial blow. My next videocard will be pci-x because then I will be ready to replace my wifes mb/cpu with a suitable replacement, so far its looking like pentium D , but by then it might be some M2 socketed athlonX2 processor. ahh... it never ends.
 
Check my main system in my sig. I recently went from a 9800XT to the 6800GT and I OCed to it's limit without water. Now I can play all the latest games at my native resolution of 1280x1024 which is fine with me. As long as you don't game at high resolutions you should be fine until you do a major upgrade.
I just got the card cuz I got some extra cash and am waiting for a complete new system build around xmas.
 
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