Video Cards and such

[Murgos]

I ordered the X1600 PRO (139) I mentioned in the Oblivion thread, should have it by Monday or Tuesday.  I'll let you all know how it works with Oblivion compared to the 9800SE I have been using.  I limited myself to just looking at the AGP solutions, I'll talk a little about the AGP vs PCIE stuff at the end.

Other AGP cards I looked at were the 6600GT ($139) the X800GTO ($170) and the 6800GS ($215) (the 7800 GS is right out, 299 bucks for a video card I only plan on using for another 6 - 8 months is retarded).

The 6600 GT just doesn't compare on paper vs the X1600 pro and from what benchmarks I could find just confirmed that.  The X1600 has SM 3.0, more pipelines and more video ram, seems like a no brainier.  The 6600 GS doesn't come in an AGP flavor which seems pretty dumb to me as it is a nice clear step between the 6600 GT and the 6800 GS and if it has been available in AGP for < 170ish I would have gone for it.

The X800GTO looked good too but it was running about $170 and doesn't have SM 3.0 support - but it has almost three times the memory bandwidth.  I know a little something about how memory fetches work and what kind of bottleneck they represent which seems right in line with the way oblivion works so I might end up swapping the X1600 for this and giving up the SM 3.0.  For 30 bucks I'm not too worried about the price.

The 6800 GS seems to blow everything else (that doesn't cost $300, or more) away in the benchmarks even though it also doesn't have SM 3.0 support, still at $215 it was more than I could justify to myself for an AGP card unless I just can't get the performance I want out of the X1600 PRO or X800 GTO.

What is really bothering me though is the price difference between AGP and PCIe solutions.  Sticking the newer chipsets onto an AGP interface seems to be reason enough to up the price 33% or more.  You can get a PCIe card one or two generations above an AGP card at the same price.  Since I do know a bit about hardware design I smell bullshit.  Lots of bullshit.  The change in interface is just not enough to justify a 50 dollar price jump on what is otherwise a $100 piece of equipment.  AGP bus systems are well known and the controllers for them have got to be dirt cheap, as in pennies a part, this late in the cycle of the design.  There is no way that you can sell me on the pin out from the GPU requiring that expensive/complex a part to adapt back to AGP on the newer designs.  Considering the installed base of AGP systems out there I think the first one of these producers that wise up and start offering their AGP parts in quantity at the same (or nearly the same) price as the PCIe part should make a mint.

Frankly, from what I have read on the subject AGP still has lots of life left even the newest GPU systems are not even close to maxing out the throughput available on an AGP bus right now.  The whole thing smacks of massive price gouging.

[HaemishM]

Frankly, from what I have read on the subject AGP still has lots of life left even the newest GPU systems are not even close to maxing out the throughput available on an AGP bus right now.  The whole thing smacks of massive price gouging.

Well, yeah.

There is NOTHING wrong with AGP, nada, zip, zilch. There is exactly fuckall which even comes close to pushing it so hard that you need the extra bandwidth, and there probably won't be for another generation. What you are paying in the extra AGP price is the "it's time to upgrade, you silicon monkeys" fee. The hardware business feels it is their moral imperative to up the ante at regular business cycles regardless of whether software has caught up. It's just one of the reasons I really fucking hate the PC game industry because it's always attempting to one up the last iteration even when such oneupsmanship isn't necessary, and continually disparaging perfectly good games because they don't have the latest shiney.

[Trippy]

What is really bothering me though is the price difference between AGP and PCIe solutions.  Sticking the newer chipsets onto an AGP interface seems to be reason enough to up the price 33% or more.  You can get a PCIe card one or two generations above an AGP card at the same price.  Since I do know a bit about hardware design I smell bullshit.  Lots of bullshit.  The change in interface is just not enough to justify a 50 dollar price jump on what is otherwise a $100 piece of equipment.  AGP bus systems are well known and the controllers for them have got to be dirt cheap, as in pennies a part, this late in the cycle of the design.  There is no way that you can sell me on the pin out from the GPU requiring that expensive/complex a part to adapt back to AGP on the newer designs.

If you are comparing apples to apples at the low to mid range the difference is more like $20 - $25 now though it used to be more. There is a bridge chip that's involved which means higher parts cost and higher board costs (more traces) so some added cost is reasonable though adding $50 to a $100 board is clearly not from a consumer's perspective. Here's a picture of the bridge chip on a 6600 GT:

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/geforce-6600gtagp/index.x?pg=1

As you can see that's a pretty big chip package.

Edit: I forgot to mention that AGP versions often have a power connector which means more added cost where the PCi-e might not since the AGP bus slot can't provide as much power as the PCI-e one can.

[Strazos]

I never understood the power issue with the AGP slot. Why can't they just....shunt more power to it? Or, design the board to put more power to that slot?

[Ironwood]

Because of the engines.  They just cannae take it capn.

[Strazos]

Pfft, newb.

Learn2Mod.

[Sky]

I'll just run down to the warp core and crank it up a few notches! See you in a few!


*bzzt*

[Trippy]

I never understood the power issue with the AGP slot. Why can't they just....shunt more power to it? Or, design the board to put more power to that slot?

It's a standards thing. If Intel doesn't make it a standard then the motherboard manufacturers have to come up with their own way and video card manufacturers will still have to include the power connector since they can't assume every motherboard will provide the extra power so what's the point? And Intel didn't want to push for an upgraded AGP standard since they were busy promoting PCI Express.

[Modern Angel]

I'm in the same boat and really debating what card to upgrade to. The ATI card mentioned above... I've been an Nvidia guy for years now. The old ATI style of bad drivers and worse site navigation turned me off but I'm hard pressed to take the 6600GT over the X1600 PRO.

How big a difference will I see between those cards on Oblivion? Should I still be disdainful of ATI in comparison to Nvidia? Are there as many nifty tweaking tools for ATI cards?

These seem sort of like noob questions but I'm finding I'm a bit noobier (machine is two years old) than I thought. It used to be fairly cut and dry: 256>128>64, etc. It seems like other stuff is as important in more recent cards.

[Engels]

I've had the Nvidia 6800 Ultra and now have the x850 Pro and the X850 outperforms the 6800 ultra in all games I've played, from EQ2, to Planetside, to BF2, and so on. I have always been an Nvidia person, but this card's convinced me ATI's worth checking out in the future.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, I'm starting to lean toward the X1600. Seems like way, way more bang for the buck.

[Strazos]

I had some Voodoo cards as my first cards, then went to Nvidia.


I hated that damn card. I had to RMA one because the heatsinks were so heavy on it that it slipped out of the AGP slot, while the system was on.

I've been very happy with my ATI cards since.

[Nazrat]

Well, after reading the New Release Oblivion thread, I am picking up today another 268MB of ram to take my system to 1gig which is the system max.  I am also picking up a base DVD ROM drive.  I am also picking up a BFG NVidia Ge Force 6800 GS.  After performing the same review as Murgos, I am going to go ahead and max this system out now.  It should last me for another year or so at which point it becomes my 5 year old's personal computer/door stop. 

So, after spending $355 in upgrades, I will pick up Oblivion today for $50.00.  After a few hours hiding the purchases from the wife, I hope to install them tonight after everyone is asleep so that I can then install Oblivion so that I can play it for a couple of hours after T ball practice and during the family's Saturday afternoon nap.  So $400 later, I will get to spend the next 3 weeks not sleeping so that I can play the game after the children and wife are asleep but not too much so that I won't be too sleepy to put people in jail all week long.

Damn, I need a new hobby.

[Murgos]

I am also picking up a BFG NVidia Ge Force 6800 GS.  After performing the same review as Murgos, I am going to go ahead and max this system out now.  It should last me for another year or so at which point it becomes my 5 year old's personal computer/door stop. 

Yeah, I'm just not ready at this point to do a whole new motherboard swap and upgrade which is why I went for the lower end of the upgrade cycle.  I know full well that I will be spending another 4 - 5 hundred bucks in 6 to 8 months so the 60 bucks I saved off not getting the 6800 GS is going to go to a nice porterhouse w/trimmings and copious amounts of alcohol :)

Watch, I'll end up sending the X1600 back and going with the 6800 GS in 3 weeks anyways.

[Modern Angel]

Stop, no! You must pick, Murgos, so I can pick.

I'm having a hard time picking. You tech nerds pick for me: 6600GT or X1600?

[Nazrat]

I couldn't find a 6600GT with 256MB for a decent price.  There don't seem to be many 6600GT's with 256MB.  I can't justify "upgrading" from a FX 5200 with 256MB to a 6600GT with 128MB.  That just seems asinine.  I know the benchmarks show a difference but common sense says it is bullshit.

So, for about the same price as the 6600GT with 256MB AGP, I can get the 6800GS with 256MB and AGP.  6800BS is supposed to be the top of the line for the middle price line for the AGP upgrade line.    Damn, this video card nonsense has gotten ridiculous.

[Samwise]

Speaking from professional experience: ATI drivers suck ass.  ASS.  Every goddamn time I've spoken to a customer or a coworker that has a problem with display driver stability, it's been an ATI card.  Every.  Goddamn.  Time.  Upgrading the drivers rarely works since their latest drivers are invariably just as shitty as their outdated ones, and the best solution ATI support has ever offered me is "disable hardware acceleration". 

I never see problems of that nature with nVIDIA cards.  That more than anything is what keeps me buying nVIDIA.

[Fargull]

Went and picked up the X1600 (AGP) over lunch today and wow, what a differnce.  I have a 2.8Pent IV and 1.5GB of Ram.  Had a FX5200 with 128MB and it would run Oblivion like glass melting.  Now I have everything to the max and it screams.  Booted WOW to give it a gander and maxed everything there (obviously not much changed, but I can now see 8x as far as before and that will help  in the PvP).

Picked it up from Best Buy.

[Murgos]

Picked it up from Best Buy.

$249 WITH rebate!  Holy crap!  Thats $110 bucks more than newegg.  I'm all for convienience but you could have done overnight shipping and come out 80 bones ahead without even worrying about a rebate.

[HaemishM]

Yes, Newegg has it all over trying to pick up a video card at the local Best Buy, unless you absolutely have to have it right this very minute.

[Fargull]

Got this X1600 Pro from Bestbuy, which I can still use the mail in rebate.  I got it for $249.00 before the rebate, so overall I am netting the card for $199.00 and didn't have to worry about mail to return feature.

I could have run over to Fry's and checked over what they might have had, but honestly I am cool with the purchase.

[Nazrat]

My video card is not in stock.  It might be in on Tuesday but more likely Thursday.  So, I guess I will spend the weekend staring at the Oblivion box.   :-(

[Sky]

I find it odd that my old 9800 pro seems to run Oblivion better than some of these later cards people are upgrading. Are they just cheap cards or something? I tend to wait until the end of a product cycle and buy the last super-card when it dives in price and everyone else is jumping on new architectures. My old GF2 Ultra 64MB was the same way, it was dusting a lot of later gen cards, even two gens later!

[Murgos]

If you snagged the last gen high end 9800 XT with 256 MB ram and a 256 bit bus and the high clock speeds and 8 pixel pipes then yes, you should be much better off then people with the low end but newer cards.  The 9800 XT card still goes for 170 bones by the way.  In comparison the 6600 GT also has 8 pixel pipes but only 128 bit bus, and 128 MB of ram and roughly equivalent clock speeds.  The 6600 GT is only 120 now in PCIe and with a rebate though so yes, the 9800 XT is still a good card.  What you don't have is the new whiz bang graphical doodads that your card just doesn't even know about.

[Strazos]

Speaking from professional experience: ATI drivers suck ass.  ASS.  Every goddamn time I've spoken to a customer or a coworker that has a problem with display driver stability, it's been an ATI card.  Every.  Goddamn.  Time.  Upgrading the drivers rarely works since their latest drivers are invariably just as shitty as their outdated ones, and the best solution ATI support has ever offered me is "disable hardware acceleration". 

I never see problems of that nature with nVIDIA cards.  That more than anything is what keeps me buying nVIDIA.

Omega Drivers. For the win.

[Trippy]

Stop, no! You must pick, Murgos, so I can pick.

I'm having a hard time picking. You tech nerds pick for me: 6600GT or X1600?

6600 GT. It's a little more expensive than the X1600 Pro and it has less memory but the X1600 Pro needs the extra memory since it has a gimpy memory bus (half the bandwidth of the X1600 XT) but the 6600 GT is still the faster card and NVIDIA drivers are still more stable than the ATI ones even though ATI has made great strides since the pre-Radeon days.

[Modern Angel]

Ended up going witht he 6600GT and holy fuck is it smooth. While the settings are in the upper end of medium it still looks phenomenal with no hiccups at all. 1260x780, distant land/full view distance, good water effects... this is with 768 RAM and a 1.8 CPU. Never seen a game where the vid card is almost the sole bottleneck.

[Murgos]

Thought I would update this with my X1600 impressions though I already mentioned them in the Oblivion thread.

The installation was smooth, too smooth, so I went and screwed it up by downloading the latest drivers and catalyst version after whose installation everything went wonky after the mandatory reboot.  Fortunately, that only lasted the length of time it took to do another reboot and I haven't had a problem with the drivers since (admitedly only a few hours).  Possibly some strange registry thing that updated and then needed to be updated again.  Regardless, it works fine now.

The X1600 PRO is quieter than the 9800 SE was, not that the 9800 SE was loud but there is a noticible decrease in machine noise.

Oblivion autdetected that I had changed my graphics adapter and asked me if I wanted to go to high quality settings which I accepted.  I am not a frame rate addict, as long as I am above 16 FPS or so I am generally pretty happy.  Frankly, I doubt the veracity of most peoples complaints ovre framerates anyway, I think most framerate whores whine about poor framerates only because they have been told they need 60+ FPS.  That said, I have no idea what framerate I am getting now but to me it is very smooth at 1024x768 with everything on except self-shadows and canopy shadows, textures set to large and HDR on, most sliders pushed toward the 'good' end and water effects on max settings.  I'll look up what the console command in oblivion is to turn frame rates on and report back tonight or tomorrow with various settings in a couple of places like in Oblivion and in a town and out in the wilderness.

HDR looks really good, I wasn't a big fan of bloom effects when the concept was first introduced (Thief 3 I'm looking at you) but Oblivion has done it in such a way that it does enhance the look of the game and HDR just really makes all the colors pop so I am glad I went for a card that could handle it.  Plus HDR/SM 3.0 supposedly provides better quality for less work which should help extend the life of the card a bit.

The X1600 Pro I ordered was the OEM version from newegg so no box and the only software it came with was the driver disk (which I never used).  The card did come with an S-Video cable and an S-Video to RGB adapter which is nice because I had been wanting one to hook my computer up to my big screen.

If anyone has any questions about the X1600 I'll be happy to try and give you an answer.  Oh, delivery took three full work days, not bad, not great either.

[Morfiend]

I have had the 6800GT since right after it was released, and I have been nothing except happy with its proformance. I have been able to run pretty much every game on high and have it look beautiful. I have been a nvidia fan for a long time.

[Furiously]

I have had the 6800GT since right after it was released, and I have been nothing except happy with its proformance. I have been able to run pretty much every game on high and have it look beautiful. I have been a nvidia fan for a long time.

I'll second that one. I'm thinking that now might be a good time to ebay it for someone looking to go SLI though...

[Yegolev]

Omega Drivers. For the win.

Unfortunately these don't exist for anything higher than Forceware 66.93, otherwise I'd have them.  Latest OEMs work well enough I guess.

[Soukyan]

I have had the 6800GT since right after it was released, and I have been nothing except happy with its proformance. I have been able to run pretty much every game on high and have it look beautiful. I have been a nvidia fan for a long time.

Same here. I don't know how much it sells for now or how the 6600 GT and GS compare, but I will third the 6800 GT vote.

[Ironwood]

I have had the 6800GT since right after it was released, and I have been nothing except happy with its proformance. I have been able to run pretty much every game on high and have it look beautiful. I have been a nvidia fan for a long time.

Me too, until Oblivion.  Don't get me wrong, the game runs fine and looks beautiful, but there's a deep and whorish part of me that wants it autodetected on 'Supreme' rather than 'High'.

:)

[Furiously]

Ok - I turned on shadows and it ground to a slide show... Dammit. Now I have to look at a new card and sli....

[Sky]

I have an unhealthy craving for shadows. Full shadows with multiple specular sources in EQ2 is amazing. I can't wait until hardware comes out that can actually render it at a playable framerate. That's when I'll be upgrading.