Quote:
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Originally Posted by Taxi
I went with a X800 XL (Which did better at the games that I play over at the TomsHardware AGP card roundup) which was only 300 bucks when I bought it 3 months ago. (Off the shelf at Fry's.) |
the x800xl is definitely a good card for the price and is competitive with the 6800GT in D3D performance, however its features and image quality are lacking with some of the newer games since it doesn't support SM3.0 or FP16 HDR. Also its not quite as fast in opengl (i.e. riddick, doom3, quake4)
For example:
http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...FarCry0005.jpg
ATI X800XL/X800XTPE playing FarCry
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http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...FarCry0006.jpg
Nvidia 6800GT playing FarCry
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ATI X800XL/X800XTPE playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Nvidia 6800GT playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
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Also for High Quality HDR for the upcoming Half Life 2: The Lost Coast patch you will also need SM3.0/FP16 HDR, again not available on ATI X800 cards (which will default to a lower quality/contrast ratio integer HDR in the upcoming hl2 patch). Other upcoming games like AoE3, UT2007, and Unreal3 will also likely have an advantage on the 6800GT due to SM3.0/FP16 HDR.