![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
PoweredBySoy
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2005
- Messages
- 2,243
Yesterday I installed a 9800GTX+ as a possible replacement for my new 4850 and here are my thoughts below. This is in response to a different conversation, so some of my comments may seem out of context - but I'm sure you'll get the point.
ATI. Nvidia. Fight!
Alrighty, I received the 9800GTX+ in the mail yesterday. Ran some rough benchmarks using FRAPS on the 4850 before taking it out and then installed the 9800. First things first - the 9800 is huuuuuuuuge. It's a good 1/2 inch longer than the 4850 was - and I believe it totals around 10.5 inches. The end of the card literally passes into my harddrive tray. Another problem with that is the 6-pin power connectors are also on the end of the card (as opposed to on the side like the newer 200 series), so you need even more room for the power cords. Anyways, I had to rewire my harddrives in order to make room, but I got it in there (Antec P150/Solo).
Loaded up the latest Nvidia drivers and jumped right into Farcry 2.
The first thing I noticed was that the Nvidia did not look any more vivid, or have more pop, than I had previously thought it would. I think my notion that the ATI was flat was my own skewed perception. The second thing I noticed was that the framerates weren't a huge improvement - which of course I wasn't really expecting to see as these two cards are direct competitors to each other and in the same price point. In fact, I would say that out of their respective boxes the 4850 may, may, have had a slight advantage in raw framerate. But it's very close to dead even. Although I think it's very important to mention that out of the box the 4850 already had a pretty healthy overclock to it, while the 9800 was still reference speeds.
Then after about an hour of playing I confirmed the biggest improvement: no more framerate dips! This was my main reason for ordering the 9800 in the first place, as the 4850 didn't seem like it had a very stable framerate. Now to be fair, it could only just be for Farcry 2, it could just be a driver issue, but still - this game is all I really had to go on so it's what I used. But the 9800, while having roughly similar frames overall, didn't suffer from those random downward spikes. At that point I was already happier with the Nvidia. And that's when it started to get good. Seeing as the Asus 9800 already came with a Zalman-esque hsf preinstalled (spprrtt!), it was just begging to be overclocked. So I downloaded EVGA Precision to do the dirtywork. After a moderate bump in clocks I hopped back into Farcry 2 and instantly saw a 5 to 10 framerate advantage over the ATI. While that might not sound like much, it was certainly noticeable and the game just played smoother. Happy Soy.
The fan on the Nvidia is louder than the ATI (also aftermarket), that's for sure. But it's an acceptable loud. It just sounds like fast moving air - there's no whiney pitch to it or anything, and it only ramps up during gaming of course.
Despite the requirement for 2 6-pin pci power connects, all reviews I've read state that the 9800GTX+ actually draws considerably less power than the 4850. Those ATI 4000 series are power hogs.
Under load my 9800 only reached a top temp of 67C - and that's overclocked and at only 48% fan speed. This is compared to the blistering 75+C the ATI was running at. But to be fair, I saw no adverse effects from the ATI running that hot. That's just normal for the card I guess.
After playing around with Farcry and being convinced the 9800 was my new card I fired up Fallout 3. Now Fallout instantly recognized my video card had changed, so it re-auto-adjusted my video settings. So I went into the video settings and made some further adjusting of my own. I decided to push it a bit. Increased all my draw distances, threw on 2xAA and 4xAF, upped the 'World Detail' slider, etc...... WOW!! I'm not sure what I did, but Fallout looks much better now than how I was playing it before. I'd have to revise my current discussion with Thwak on how well this game looks. It's still no Farcry 2, but damn it sure can be pretty in it's own right. And even still I was running at a solid 55-60 frames. Sometimes I'll get minor dips into the 45 range, but they're very infrequent and brief. Now, I'm not saying the 4850 couldn't have made this game looks just as good - it was probably just user error on my part for not taking time to tweak the settings - but I will say it looks twice as good as before now and running very, very solid.
I think both cards are worth the ~$160. Seeing as how we've been getting raped on video card prices for so long now, it's nice to see some high performance for sub-$200. Overall, apples to apples, overclock to overclock, the 9800GTX+ undeniably has better framerates than the 4850. Not a lot mind you, but the advantage is definitely there, and sometimes all it takes is 5 more solid frames to smooth gameplay out.. I still think the 4850 is a great card though for the price, especially if those framerate dips were an isolated case to Farcry 2.
ATI. Nvidia. Fight!
Alrighty, I received the 9800GTX+ in the mail yesterday. Ran some rough benchmarks using FRAPS on the 4850 before taking it out and then installed the 9800. First things first - the 9800 is huuuuuuuuge. It's a good 1/2 inch longer than the 4850 was - and I believe it totals around 10.5 inches. The end of the card literally passes into my harddrive tray. Another problem with that is the 6-pin power connectors are also on the end of the card (as opposed to on the side like the newer 200 series), so you need even more room for the power cords. Anyways, I had to rewire my harddrives in order to make room, but I got it in there (Antec P150/Solo).
Loaded up the latest Nvidia drivers and jumped right into Farcry 2.
The first thing I noticed was that the Nvidia did not look any more vivid, or have more pop, than I had previously thought it would. I think my notion that the ATI was flat was my own skewed perception. The second thing I noticed was that the framerates weren't a huge improvement - which of course I wasn't really expecting to see as these two cards are direct competitors to each other and in the same price point. In fact, I would say that out of their respective boxes the 4850 may, may, have had a slight advantage in raw framerate. But it's very close to dead even. Although I think it's very important to mention that out of the box the 4850 already had a pretty healthy overclock to it, while the 9800 was still reference speeds.
Then after about an hour of playing I confirmed the biggest improvement: no more framerate dips! This was my main reason for ordering the 9800 in the first place, as the 4850 didn't seem like it had a very stable framerate. Now to be fair, it could only just be for Farcry 2, it could just be a driver issue, but still - this game is all I really had to go on so it's what I used. But the 9800, while having roughly similar frames overall, didn't suffer from those random downward spikes. At that point I was already happier with the Nvidia. And that's when it started to get good. Seeing as the Asus 9800 already came with a Zalman-esque hsf preinstalled (spprrtt!), it was just begging to be overclocked. So I downloaded EVGA Precision to do the dirtywork. After a moderate bump in clocks I hopped back into Farcry 2 and instantly saw a 5 to 10 framerate advantage over the ATI. While that might not sound like much, it was certainly noticeable and the game just played smoother. Happy Soy.
The fan on the Nvidia is louder than the ATI (also aftermarket), that's for sure. But it's an acceptable loud. It just sounds like fast moving air - there's no whiney pitch to it or anything, and it only ramps up during gaming of course.
Despite the requirement for 2 6-pin pci power connects, all reviews I've read state that the 9800GTX+ actually draws considerably less power than the 4850. Those ATI 4000 series are power hogs.
Under load my 9800 only reached a top temp of 67C - and that's overclocked and at only 48% fan speed. This is compared to the blistering 75+C the ATI was running at. But to be fair, I saw no adverse effects from the ATI running that hot. That's just normal for the card I guess.
After playing around with Farcry and being convinced the 9800 was my new card I fired up Fallout 3. Now Fallout instantly recognized my video card had changed, so it re-auto-adjusted my video settings. So I went into the video settings and made some further adjusting of my own. I decided to push it a bit. Increased all my draw distances, threw on 2xAA and 4xAF, upped the 'World Detail' slider, etc...... WOW!! I'm not sure what I did, but Fallout looks much better now than how I was playing it before. I'd have to revise my current discussion with Thwak on how well this game looks. It's still no Farcry 2, but damn it sure can be pretty in it's own right. And even still I was running at a solid 55-60 frames. Sometimes I'll get minor dips into the 45 range, but they're very infrequent and brief. Now, I'm not saying the 4850 couldn't have made this game looks just as good - it was probably just user error on my part for not taking time to tweak the settings - but I will say it looks twice as good as before now and running very, very solid.
I think both cards are worth the ~$160. Seeing as how we've been getting raped on video card prices for so long now, it's nice to see some high performance for sub-$200. Overall, apples to apples, overclock to overclock, the 9800GTX+ undeniably has better framerates than the 4850. Not a lot mind you, but the advantage is definitely there, and sometimes all it takes is 5 more solid frames to smooth gameplay out.. I still think the 4850 is a great card though for the price, especially if those framerate dips were an isolated case to Farcry 2.
).