f13.net

Here's a lovely translated review of the Geforce 7800 GTX from a chinese website. (http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=mozclient&u=http%3A//www.hardspell.com/hard/showcont.asp%3Fnews_id%3D14372)

I'm unimpressed with the performance $600 buys you.

(http://www.hardspell.com/newsimage/2005-6-19-21-41-34-643510699.gif)

All i know is after all the BS my ATI card has given me I'm never buying anything but Nvidia again. All my Nvidia cards have worked like charms. This ATI card....

To be fair, the card is alright. Sorta. It's the drivers. I have to use drivers that are 5 or 6 generations behind the current, turn down agp, and turn off fast write. Then my card works. Which is total BS.

Sounds like you have a motherboard problem.

From what I recall, you want fast-write off anyway.  Having fast write on prevents some other AGP things from working, which are more effective than fast-write performance-wise.

I have fast-write shut off in my mobo bios settings, convinced it was the right thing to do.  Have yet to see a convincing argument otherwise, other than the feature has 'fast' in the name.

Alkiera

Fast write will improve performance a small amount but may cause instability with PCI devices on older motherboards.

On the other hand, now that the 7800 is coming out, the 6800s will drop to a reasonable price, and I can finally build my SLI machine of DOOM!  I shall name it Janus.   :-D

I was just looking at card prices over here a second ago (damn bf2) and a 6800 ULTRA is AU$900ish... so yeah.

The twin faced god? Why, pray tell?

Possible but doubtful. I've done some research and a small percentage of people with either Via or Nforce based motherboards who use the ATI model I do have this problem. The theory is it is some kind of driver conflict but of course ATI denies it exists.

I can play games if I:

Put AGP at 4X
Turn of fast write
and turn off AGP read and write.

Thankfully I have a 64 bit AMD and am playing COH and WOW mostly. Neither of them need that great a video card so I can still max them both out.

Does the 6800 support dual monitors?  That would be one good reason.

There is no fucking way I'm paying $600 for a new video card, not even if I have money to wipe my ass with. I'm just too goddamn cheap for the 2 FPS performance increase I MIGHT get if I don't fart around my computer.

Here's an idea, assheads. Instead of making hardware almost no one is stupid enough to pay that much for, or hardware that software won't support for another 2 years, why don't you come out with a good mainstream card? Huh? Is that too much to ask?

I like the 1 pt the SLI nets you. $1200! And some people are dumb enough to spend that on a video subsystem! Video cards have become ridiculously expensive, I have a hard time dropping $300 on one. $600? SLI? Ye gods, man.

I'm still quite happy with my old 9800pro with 256MB DDR2. Zippy little bitch, though she don't like no steenkin shadows. With the cost of upgrading it, I really don't give a shit.

According to some retailers, the 7800 is going for $200 over MSRP, so that's $800 a pop or $1600 for SLI.

I'll buy two X-Box 360's for that.

Hell, the 46xx series supports dual monitors...

No, he's naming it Janus because it will have TWO, TWO 6800s...ah ah ah...as will mine, although I probably won't also name mine Janus...that would be a faux pas, like wearing the same dress to a party...

Also, my current computer is named Jane (after the Ender series).  The symmetry pleases me.

I..suggest..Jenette.
Like a kitten lapping milk off astroturf,
I'm the name on the tip of everyone's tounge.

If you played as a Malk, she and Therese were referred to as the "daughters of Janus".   :-D

Shit, 200 is too much for a video card.  I still kick my ass for the 300ish I paid when they were new for my old Voodoo 5 5500 and my Nvidia 4400 Geforce.  Because it was stupid then.  And the V5 actually IMPROVED my games at the time.  Fuck it.  No more video cards for me.  My ATI 9600 will suffice until I buy a laptop sometime in the next few years as my final computer for a good 5 years or so.

Its just not worth it, especially since I don't really care about MMORPGs, FPSes, or RTS games.  Turn based strategy games tend not to need killer hardware.  Considering my N Gage has the best turn based strategy game since Advance Wars 2 (That would be Pathway to Glory), the PC hardware scene aint for me.

Hell, its one of the reasons consoles are winning.  My 200 when I bought it in 02 X Box plays KOTOR, KOTOR 2, and Doom 3 better than a 1000 dollar computer you would buy in 04!

Right here you lost all credibility

Bleeding edge video cards are too fucking expensive period. I'm waiting for ATi's next offering myself before I look at anything.

I'm personally hoping this SLI/Crossfire thing dies a quick death. Graphic cards are expensive enough without having to buy two of the goddamn things to get a decent framerate in <game of the month>.

So since someone referenced that Vampire Masquerade etc. game in this thread...is it worth buying now that it has been patched, etc.?

Have you played it?  Ok then. 

It's worth playing, but the patches fix none of the performance issues the game has, just many of the bugs relating to quests and crashes. It still runs like ass on most anything out there, but looks good doing so. And despite all that, it's STILL worth playing through.

It's worth playing just for the answers you can give as a malk. 

Yes. They have some incredible writing going for them. And not much else.

Still kicking ass and taking names on my ATI 9800 Pro 256.

I have had a total of 3 video cards in my life:

An old Voodoo3 on my old Gayway. It was good enough to tear shit up in TFC.

A GeForce 5600 128 from Leadtek when I built my system almost 3 years ago. It was fine at first, but using their "tools" FUBAR'ed my system eventually, causing me to upgrade to...

My current ATI card. I have had Zero problems with it, and everything runs like butter. It cost around $270 US. It was worth it.

Actually, the point of it is that you could, for example, buy two $99 cards, and have the power of a card 3 times as powerful.  It's your own choice to buy two of the very expensive cards...

Exactly (fixed your typo for you though).  We just aren't seeing the cost benefits yet because the first SLI-capable cards (the 6800s) haven't dropped that far in price.  In another couple of years, SLI will be the "budget" option.

6600 GT is SLI capable also.

However two 6600 GT's are worse performance-wise than one 6800 GT.

You got benchmarks to back that one up somewhere?  I'm curious to see 'em...

I purposely excluded 6600 GT's because they weren't designed with SLI in mind, and don't do SLI well at all - the interface was kinda slapped on at the last minute.  Calling them "SLI-capable" is pretty tenuous.  Supposedly 6800s and later actually do SLI "right" by nearly doubling your framerate when you use two of them.

It depends on the game. Dual 6600 GTs are faster than single 6800 Ultra or 6800 GT in games like Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 but are slower in games like Far Cry and UT 2004. One of the problems with SLI is that the SLI-specific part of the drivers are still immature with some games displaying graphically glitches when SLI is used and other games not working at all. I expect that the performance of SLI will improve over time as NVIDIA tinkers with the drivers.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2284

The most recent 6600GT SLI performance benchmarks I can find. (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2315)

(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gigabyte%203d1_01030540109/5986.png)

(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gigabyte%203d1_01030540109/5987.png)

(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gigabyte%203d1_01030540109/5989.png)

(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gigabyte%203d1_01030540109/5988.png)

Yes, two 6600GT's are faster WITHOUT AA, but once you factor in AA, a single 6800 Ultra takes the lead. If you're not worried about AA, WTF are you doing considering a $200 card much less two?