Geforce 6600 GT or Radeon x800 (Non-pro)? | Forums

[Pur3_0wnag3]

I've finally saved up some more money and I'm in a big dilema right now and I'm having a very hard time to decide which card. They are both mid-range. The Radeon x800 (Non-pro) I'm planning to buy has 12 pixel pipe lines vs. Geforce 6600 GT which has 8. They are almost the same price range except x800 costs a few $$$ more, but that doesn't bother me. I'm also pretty sure the Geforce 6600 GT has less vertex shaders. And the Radeon x800 has a 256-bit compared to the 6600 GT with only 128-bit. While we put our specifications aside, the Radeon x800 seems to do a worser job with Doom 3 than 6600 GT because it wasn't designed for ATI cards. Just like x800 does better with Half-Life 2. The x800 seems to whoop the 6600 GT's *** in Far Cry. But I'm not looking to run only 3 specific games. I am also aware the fact that the 6600 GT has Pixel 3.0 shaders. But, I could care less. I want people's opinions on which one do they think is better, and I want quick replies if possible because I'm ordering the card this Tuesday.

[thrustmaster01]

i myself prefer the ati radeon cards im using xt800 pro
for more info i always use http://www.tomshardware.com
they do reports on evrthing i dont buy until ive read what they have to say

[marts123]

I've been using ati's for a long time, but I've heard many times nvidea's best is better then ati's.

[Pur3_0wnag3]

Argh...the choices are so hard to pick...I like both cards, but I want just one. I hope I don't make a wrong decision though...

Far Cry - Best works on x800
Doom 3 - Best works on 6600 GT
Half-Life 2 - Best works on x800

But I like I said earlier, I don't want to run only 3 specific games. I want it to last me for the future. With the 6600 GT sporting 3.0 pixel shaders and only 8 pixel pipelines and 3 vertex shaders vs. Radeon x800 with 12 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex shaders, and 2.1 shader versions.

[hazards32]

The only reason to buy the 6600gt over the x800 is if you want to see real HDR with that card.
The sm3 pathway will allow you to experience HDR in farcry and the soon to be released "Lost coast" add on level for HL2. The x800cards do not have support for fp16 blending that is required for true HDR,they can do a lower quality HDR that will also be in the lost coast.

In all other ways the x800 will hump the 6600gt and is an all round better card if you want good fps at 1280x1024 with AA. If your monitor is very low res(1024x768) then the 6600gt will be the better bet for its superior shader model.

The unknown factor in this equation is what shader version the next Unreal engine will really require. Epic are working with NV so it is a fair bet that the HDR in Unreal3 will be SM3 only and the x800 will be unable to show off all the glorious visuals to the max. This is very important because a masive amount of games will be using this engine in the future.


So to recap..
farcry-best on 6600gt because you get to experience HDR
Doom-best on 6600gt period
HL2- better fps with the x800 but no real HDR in the new level.
Unreal3- not released till next year and neither card can realisticly run it maxed out..

Oh god i have confused myself now......6600gt....no no x800....

[marts123]

Seeing how your fr with the gt will be I would guess at least in the 50's,I would go with the gt.

[Pur3_0wnag3]

Originally posted by hazards32:
The only reason to buy the 6600gt over the x800 is if you want to see real HDR with that card.
The sm3 pathway will allow you to experience HDR in farcry and the soon to be released "Lost coast" add on level for HL2. The x800cards do not have support for fp16 blending that is required for true HDR,they can do a lower quality HDR that will also be in the lost coast.

In all other ways the x800 will hump the 6600gt and is an all round better card if you want good fps at 1280x1024 with AA. If your monitor is very low res(1024x768) then the 6600gt will be the better bet for its superior shader model.

The unknown factor in this equation is what shader version the next Unreal engine will really require. Epic are working with NV so it is a fair bet that the HDR in Unreal3 will be SM3 only and the x800 will be unable to show off all the glorious visuals to the max. This is very important because a masive amount of games will be using this engine in the future.


So to recap..
farcry-best on 6600gt because you get to experience HDR
Doom-best on 6600gt period
HL2- better fps with the x800 but no real HDR in the new level.
Unreal3- not released till next year and neither card can realisticly run it maxed out..

Oh god i have confused myself now......6600gt....no no x800....

Actually, I've looked at benchmarks and the x800 performs better than the 6600 GT in Far Cry because of the more vertex shaders I believe that renders those beautiful forests, etc. Gotta agree with you on Doom 3 hands down that the Geforce 6600 GT simply smokes the x800 out of it's waters. But it really smokes it hard. And I haven't seen that much smoking of the 6600 GT in Half-Life 2 then the x800 getting beat real hard in Doom 3. I don't think none of these cards are even ready for Unreal 3 since that is going to be a monster, but the Pixel Shader 3.0 might give the 6600 GT a huge advantage. I'm just unhappy it has less pixel and vertex shader pipelines, not to forget it's only 128-bit.

[Pur3_0wnag3]

After searching for the 6600 GT with HDR benchmarks at http://www.techreport.com this is what I got that was interesting:
Without HDR

With HDR Lighting (I really don't notice any difference)

"Purdy. Unfortunately, Far Cry's HDR lighting effects only work on GeForce 6-series cards, so I wasn't able to test performance on the Radeons. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, because at least on the GeForce cards, the performance hit associated with HDR lighting is huge:"




"As lush as the HDR lighting is, the 6600 GT barely manages 30 frames per second at 1024x768. It looks great, but on the GT, I'd rather have higher resolutions with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering turned up."


HDR doesn't seem to great after all...due to the huge FPS drop and I really don't see any difference with the naked eye.

[marts123]

Friend I know does not get fr's like that at all with his card and look at the reflection of those tree's there,which is the most noticable difference.The whole pic look's more sharper to me.

[CuZtds_Lst_Stnd]

Those pics dont do HDR justice

Try this thread

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/452106891/m/383...571053613#5571053613

CuZ