to ATI or not to ATI

vectoravtech · Post by **vectoravtech** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:42 am

I found this BFG card for a good price here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 1c3grabb3r It came out as the best buy on pricegrabber. Its factory overclocked with a lifetime warranty and 24/7 free tech support.

Heres the price grabber search results: http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attr ... B+BFG/rd=1

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:50 am

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... cture=eVGA

n thats CAD

vectoravtech · Post by **vectoravtech** » Sat May 19, 2007 12:23 pm

Thats great for a designer but for me being a gamer the factory oc BFG version is faster. The more links the better in my opinion; more choices. $\:D/$ Are you aware of the toms hardware benchmarks? Heres an example: http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_ ... &chart=318

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sat May 19, 2007 4:38 pm

i can just oc it myself

cant w8 tho, next up for my comp=new ram, then q6600, then water cooling :D

vectoravtech · Post by **vectoravtech** » Sun May 20, 2007 12:19 am

Maj0r that will void your warranty. But BFG does it at the factory and gives you a warranty with it.

brites · Post by **brites** » Sun May 20, 2007 9:44 am

In terms of watts and temp we can't say the <> isn't that big, see http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/vi ... id=3&pg=10

this talking 2900xt vs 8800GTX/ultra

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:09 am

vectoravtech wrote:Maj0r that will void your warranty. But BFG does it at the factory and gives you a warranty with it.

Water cooling EVGA, XFX will not void anything (check and read their warranty).............

XFX just came out with a new modders warranty for the North Americam market place. You just have to return the cards (undamaged) to their original state before returning them for RMA/warranty coverage................

Read and understand this thread from XFX support.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13271

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sun May 20, 2007 2:22 pm

zomg see, some places show the 2900xt beating the 8800ultra when oc but some benches show otherwise, but does it even matter, can my antec 550watt psu handle 2900XT when oc?

SethC · Post by **SethC** » Sun May 20, 2007 6:08 pm

maj0r_pawnage wrote:zomg see, some places show the 2900xt beating the 8800ultra when oc but some benches show otherwise, but does it even matter, can my antec 550watt psu handle 2900XT when oc?

I think it does matter. Look at all the benchmarks and tests and take them in aggregate to see which card - overall - is performing better. The old bell curve is a great guidepost.

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sun May 20, 2007 6:50 pm

well i can get a 8800gts 640mb for 365 after rebate..... but i only 10days left before the price goes up to 470.... so should i just get the 8800gts or the 2900? will it perform better??? ive been seeing so many different things, 2900 getting beat by 320mb 8800gts, 2900 beating 8800ultra??.. so confused, and i really dont have 500bucks to just blow away i need to make the right choice

CAD^

Zertz · Post by **Zertz** » Sun May 20, 2007 8:00 pm

It's hard to know which one is better right now since the ATI drivers are what Nvidia's drivers we're almost 6 months ago. So the 2900 might be a better long term buy assuming that the not so good results are due to drivers, otherwise, the 640GTS is better at the moment. Although the ATI -seems- to generally having pretty good results in higher resolutions.

And yeah, the benchmarks between the 2900 and 8800GTS320/640, GTX and Ultra only show that Nvidia has a good linear price/performance in their high-end series. The ATI jumps around from being top, then going back to bottom...

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sun May 20, 2007 8:05 pm

well does that jumping mean its just driver issues? and once they get those out of the way they will be on top?

Zertz · Post by **Zertz** » Sun May 20, 2007 8:07 pm

maj0r_pawnage wrote:well does that jumping mean its just driver issues? and once they get those out of the way they will be on top?

Maybe... maybe not.

If you can wait a week, maybe ATI will release new drivers and we'll see how it does.

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sun May 20, 2007 8:09 pm

ive got til the end of this month to order my card til the 77dollar rebate is fin... okay well when it comes down to it, here are my choices

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... cture=eVGA

OR

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... re=Diamond

if it wasnt for the rebate they would be the same price

and my psu has only 2pci-e 4pin plugs so ill need to buy some adapters anyway

Zertz · Post by **Zertz** » Sun May 20, 2007 8:29 pm

The 640GTS for that price is a pretty good deal!

Btw, if you compare the core/memory clock, memory interface/bandwidth, stream processors, ATI has bigger numbers on everything so, IMO, it's safe to assume that ATI will perform better when better drivers are released.

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Sun May 20, 2007 10:29 pm

what range of performance do you assume it could be better than the 640gts because at this price the gts seems much better?unless the 2900 is atleast 25%+better

Bio-Hazard · Post by **Bio-Hazard** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:36 am

Zertz wrote:The 640GTS for that price is a pretty good deal!

Btw, if you compare the core/memory clock, memory interface/bandwidth, stream processors, ATI has bigger numbers on everything so, IMO, it's safe to assume that ATI will perform better when better drivers are released.

And the ATI card will dump a ton of heat into your system.............

If you don't have heat issues now, you very well may after you install one of those.
You might as well just wait till the R650 is released, it's coming out shortly and should have all those nasty heat and power draw issues resolved. If you can't wait, just get a 8800 series for right now, you'll be much better off.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio ... 2&Itemid=1

Recognize the week points of R600

Our sources confirmed that ATI is working hard to release its R650 chip. The 65 nanometre chip is getting closer to launch day by day and aims for some high clocks.

This won't just be a simple die shrink of an existing marchitecture as ATI plans to redesign some parts of the chip. The major architectural difference is that R650 will have more texture power as this was recognizes as one of the weakest points of R600.

ATI aims for higher clocks, closer to 1,000MHz and obviously it will improve the usage of the available bandwidth.

As the chip is going to be shrunk, you can expect significantly less energy consumption. All together this will be what R600 was suppose to be, a Geforce 8800 GTX / Ultra killer, but the problem is that Nvidia will also have something new by the time ATI finishes R650.

We are looking at a August to September launch for R650, but can we really trust ATI in its plans. We hope for MAD.ATI (DAAMIT)'s sake that they can pull this one off. And in case you haven't heard it before, R650 will be comertially known as Radeon HD 2950 XTX and HD 2950XT.

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:05 am

%#%&% it, im gunna get 8800gts.... only because of the 100off after rebate price tag (365CAD) ive been waiting months for some kind of new card from ati, the x1600pros were only supposed to hold me over until dx10 ati, im not waiting til sept ! ! thanks for the help lol

stereo55 · Post by **stereo55** » Mon May 21, 2007 12:08 pm

IMO ... 8800gts FTW !

Less heat , less power neeeded , drivers are solid ,overclocks nicely .

maj0r_pawnage · Post by **maj0r_pawnage** » Mon May 21, 2007 12:28 pm

but no sli

i got a crossfire board

Legit Reviews

to ATI or not to ATI

BFG8800GTSOC2 or HD 2900XT????

BFG

nice