View Full Version : Which NVIDIA card would be a fair trade for an ATI Radeon X800XL
TLE
November 5th, 2006, 06:56 PM
Hey everybody
I have been fighting a desperate battle to get some decent 3D-acceleration for this card. But it seems to be pooly supported by either of the drivers for ATI cards (ati/radeon/fglrx). So I want to switch to NVIDIA but unfortunately I don't have the money to buy a new one right now. So I figured that I would try to trade it with a happy windows user for a NVIDIA card that is a little less worhth, so that it'll be an attractive trade for him to.
So my question is: What NVIDIA card should I propose in the trade. Which NVIDIA card is approximately a little less worth, perfomance wise, than my own. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
My card is this one:
ATI Radeon X800XL/256Mb/DVI & VGA/ICEQ
Regards TLE
Miguel
November 5th, 2006, 08:30 PM
You might get someone to trade his 6600GT. It performs less than the ATi in windows, and the only disadvantage of your card would be lack of SM3.0 support (read no HDR). Of course, in Linux, the 6600GT will outperform nearly everything from ATi.
Dual Cortex
November 5th, 2006, 08:43 PM
I was going to tell you t o sell it on ebay for ~$80 then try to find $30 under your couch and get a 7600GT ($109 + $5 S&H at Newegg)...
But I hadn't checked out vid cards on ebay for a while... x800xl's selling for ~$50
:-#
TLE
November 5th, 2006, 09:37 PM
Thanks for the replies so far
...and the only disadvantage of your card would be lack of SM3.0 support (read no HDR)...
What will that mean in practice ?
Miguel
November 5th, 2006, 11:14 PM
What will that mean in practice ?
It means that, in native WindowsXP, although the ATi is faster, the nVidia would be able to enjoy some additional cool effects (Oblivion's HDR comes to mind, it's very well done). I might get some comparative screenshots from a friend, altough I don't promise anything. Nevertheless, I don't think HDR is important for anything slower than a 6800GT.
TLE
November 5th, 2006, 11:29 PM
It means that, in native WindowsXP, although the ATi is faster, the nVidia would be able to enjoy some additional cool effects (Oblivion's HDR comes to mind, it's very well done). I might get some comparative screenshots from a friend, altough I don't promise anything. Nevertheless, I don't think HDR is important for anything slower than a 6800GT.
Ok just wanted to try and figure out what it is so that it is not some fancy new feature that all apps will be needing tomorrow, but i doesn't seem like it. You don't need to bother your friend for screenshots. Thanks for the offer though. I think I going to suggest the 6600GT and see if anyone is interested
Thank you
\TLE
Miguel
November 6th, 2006, 12:10 AM
Don't need to bother my friend, though. And a bit of information never hurts. Courtesy of google:
Oblivion with HDR (http://home.mindspring.com/~caffeinated/Oblivion_XTX_HDR.jpg)
and without HDR (http://home.mindspring.com/~caffeinated/Oblivion_XTX_HDR_nospell.jpg)
I haven't put both pics here just in case someone is on dialup. The images are big. Keep in mind that the difference is more appreciable in movement, with dynamic lighting. It's also important to note that one cannot use HDR and FSAA at the same time (at least on nVidia hardware).
Good luck ;)
Dual Cortex
November 6th, 2006, 12:18 AM
Don't need to bother my friend, though. And a bit of information never hurts. Courtesy of google:
Oblivion with HDR (http://home.mindspring.com/~caffeinated/Oblivion_XTX_HDR.jpg)
and without HDR (http://home.mindspring.com/~caffeinated/Oblivion_XTX_HDR_nospell.jpg)
I haven't put both pics here just in case someone is on dialup. The images are big. Keep in mind that the difference is more appreciable in movement, with dynamic lighting. It's also important to note that one cannot use HDR and FSAA at the same time (at least on nVidia hardware).
Good luck ;)
OMG the HDR makes the NPC be closer to you :-k .
Might as well get HDR by increasing you screen's brightness!
:p
Here's another one from THG:
http://www.tomshardware.hu/graphic/06q3/060731/images/hdr_comparison.gif
TLE
November 6th, 2006, 12:18 AM
Thank you
Dual Cortex
November 6th, 2006, 12:27 AM
Ok just wanted to try and figure out what it is so that it is not some fancy new feature that all apps will be needing tomorrow, but i doesn't seem like it. You don't need to bother your friend for screenshots. Thanks for the offer though. I think I going to suggest the 6600GT and see if anyone is interested
Thank you
\TLE
I'd prefer going back to windows than giving up a x800XL for a 6600gt!
... ok not that extreme, but whoever you trade it with will be a happy person.
Miguel
November 6th, 2006, 01:06 AM
Yeah, sure, a windows user will be very happy to trade his 6600GT for a X800xl. But the point of view changes when your OS of choice is Linux. You can have a look at linux benchmarks in www.phoronix.com. I don't remember the figures, but I suspect a 6600GT easily matches a X1800.
I've found an old X800XL test in Phoronix, comparing it to an X300, a 6600GT and a 6800GT. While the results are not as reliable as, say, Tom's Hardware, you get the idea. Read it here (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=364&num=3)
ember
November 6th, 2006, 02:02 AM
Well - I would not buy a Geforce 6xxx any more. You can have a 7xxx for nearly the same price with better performance and lower power consumption. If you want to play Oblivion with all details, get a 7950 GTX or so ;) ... however if you head more for Games like Company of Heroes or Warhammer 40K, I rather recommend to use a 7600GT (I have a 7600 GS which is fine fore me, but a little too slow for CoH with full details).
Miguel
November 6th, 2006, 11:12 AM
If the issue was buying a new one, I wouldn't have doubted either to recommend a 7600GT. However, what I understood from TLE's first post, is that he wanted to trade his card, not buy a new one. I don't think anybody would trade a new 7600GT for a year older X800XL.
I also don't know if TLE has windows, or if he plans on dual booting Windows and Linux. However, I dual boot (yeah, gaming) mi laptop (128Mb 9600 Mobility) and I can say it sucks. The card sucks in linux, and it is really boring to dual boot just to play some games.
EDIT: And oblivion runs faster, and has higher lows on ATi than on nVidia, anyway,
TLE
November 6th, 2006, 11:25 AM
I am dual booting but not because I want to. Like you my experience is that gaming in Linux with an ATI card is hopeless. So I have to go to windows for most games I want to play. The second thing I still have to go to windows for is recoding TV. But since mythtv has been updated to 2.0 in Edgy I'm hoping that'll solve that problem. So if I can get gaming running in Linux I finally have no reason to boot to linux.
But by the way this discussion is going I might actually try to sell it instead and put in a little something extra to get the 7600. By the way GS is the silent version right. How much lower is the performance on the silent version?
Dual Cortex
November 6th, 2006, 02:59 PM
The performance difference is quite large.
Here's a good page with charts:
http://www.ixbt.com/video2/g73-1-d.shtml#p16
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