Ok, now that I waited six months and ran out and bought this thing can anyone tell me if its good for anything other than games?
Why do I want 16 pixel pipelines? Is it useful for video editing? If I ever find a 30 inch high resolution screen will I need it? It may be heresy to say this here but I don’t have a lot of interest in games…..yet.
Benny,
The X800XL is probably the best value/performance card on the market right now. 16 pipes is the max available, and to be honest, the pipes are more important than clock speeds as they control data flow.
As to video editing, I can't answer that because i have no experience there....good card and good buying decision though
The only requirement for video editing is directdraw as this alows the frame buffer from the video to be writen directly to the screen, so your $300 card will add nothing to your video editing. all that stuff is for gaming.
btw i have the same card and i love it killer performance with out breaking the bank. I got this card not because my previous card could not do 1920x1200 res which is what my monitor runs rather it can do that res runing HL2 and thats worth the $$. not that im all that into games either.
"Don't open that! It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!"
yeah, the card market hasn't really changed any since then. New stuff should be hitting the street sometime in June, and until then stock and prices should be about the same.
i still think 6800GT is better buy, due to fact even with out modding it run way faster than x800 in 3dmax or any render apps i am using, and alot of program is using Opengl where nv shine, i also prefer 16/32 system bit than 12/24 biut.. also ati sux @ driver for any platform....expecially linux and unix
come to think of it, why do i need af or faa if i can go to 1600*1200? and ok ati is slightly better in D3D, but do i care if is 80fps or 100fps? but in OGL... 10 and 30 fps does make huge difference
i have to dissagree, in almost every test the X800XL beats out the 6800GT and costs $100 less, its also a ful 16 pipeline card it the X800Pro that is 12 pipes. The other nice thing is the X800XL is now verified by ATI to work with Crosfire, so talk about a bargin
"Don't open that! It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!"
infinitevalence wrote:The only requirement for video editing is directdraw as this alows the frame buffer from the video to be writen directly to the screen, so your $300 card will add nothing to your video editing. all that stuff is for gaming.
Correct. Video editing is very CPU and memory intensive so if you are looking for performance in that area I would suggest upgrading those components (mainly CPU). Pentiums are typically better performers (i.e. - rendering time) in the video editing arena mostly due to the hyperthreading although I do all of my video editing with transitions, graphics, music etc. on my Winchester 3500+.
allenpan wrote:i still think 6800GT is better buy, due to fact even with out modding it run way faster than x800 in 3dmax or any render apps i am using, and alot of program is using Opengl where nv shine, i also prefer 16/32 system bit than 12/24 biut.. also ati sux @ driver for any platform....expecially linux and unix
come to think of it, why do i need af or faa if i can go to 1600*1200? and ok ati is slightly better in D3D, but do i care if is 80fps or 100fps? but in OGL... 10 and 30 fps does make huge difference
Sure its better, but its atleast 50$ more expensive. You can get a HIS X800 XL for 288$ and that includes thier custom (IceQ) artic cooler. Way better than any 6800 gt card you can get, unless you are leaning toward SLI.
even at 275 the x800xl is still a better deal. it will win almost any game/bench against the 6800gt other than Doom3 so unless Doom3 is the only game your going to play the xl is a better buy.
"Don't open that! It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!"
The X800XL was meant to compete with the 6800NU (unlocked to 16 pipes sometimes). It (the XL) is 16-pipe and can be OCed easily. Unfortunatly, I bought a 12-pipe 6800NU that will not unlock, should have waited...
To be honest, the XL is a pretty crappy overclocker, you might get 450-475 out of it on a good day. It's not nearly as good of OC'er as some of ATI other cards. ATI should have put the extra power connector on the cards standard...............