eVGA 6800GT AGP for $299 shipped!

[Ruined]

One of the best nVidia card manufacturers, eVGA, has one of Nvidia's top performing 6800GT AGP graphic cards on sale at newegg for $299 shipped after rebate ($329 + $30 mail in rebate)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130203

Featuring:
16 pipelines
350mhz core
1000mhz memory
256-bit memory bus
Shader Model 3.0
FP32 Shader Precision
OpenEXR FP16 HDR Lighting

approx 3x as fast as a 9700pro

By far the best deal of recent times on one of Nvidia's top performers!

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

approx 3x as fast as a 9700pro

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison when the 9700 pro is a 128mb card and can be found for around $200.00 now.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damian

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison when the 9700 pro is a 128mb card and can be found for around $200.00 now.

not meant to be a comparison in that sense, rather a comparison if you have a 9700pro and was thinking of upgrading (i know many on dvdfile got the 9700pro when it was out)

[Hollow Man]

The 9700 series is still at that price? Ack.

-HM

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

The 9700 series is still at that price? Ack.

-HM

Newegg has some refurbs that are down around the $150.00 range.

[Hollow Man]

It's just that the 9700 series came out a couple of years ago at least, right?

-HM

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

It's just that the 9700 series came out a couple of years ago at least, right?

-HM

yeah it's waaaay at the bottom of ATI's cards. None of the vendors that I deal with (Powercolor, MSI and ASUS) even offer a 9700 card so that should tell you right there how important that card is to the industry right now.

Originally Posted by Ruined

not meant to be a comparison in that sense, rather a comparison if you have a 9700pro and was thinking of upgrading (i know many on dvdfile got the 9700pro when it was out)

Okay, so if somebody had saaaay an nVidia 5500 and wanted to upgrade *gasp*, what's the performance difference? You always state how much faster an nVidia card is compared to an older Radeon card, but you never compare it to an older Geforce card.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damian

yeah it's waaaay at the bottom of ATI's cards. None of the vendors that I deal with (Powercolor, MSI and ASUS) even offer a 9700 card so that should tell you right there how important that card is to the industry right now.

Might not be important now, but it was a huge seller that many still have today due to its fast DX9 performance.

Okay, so if somebody had saaaay an nVidia 5500 and wanted to upgrade *gasp*, what's the performance difference? You always state how much faster an nVidia card is compared to an older Radeon card, but you never compare it to an older Geforce card.

Well its pretty obvious that a 6800GT is going to destroy a nvidia FX 5500 by a large margin because that card was a piece of slow junk. It's more useful to compare it to last gen's most popular "enthusiast" card that more are likely using if they are looking to upgrade now (R3xx series). Plus if you bought the FX 5500 as your gaming card, odds are you would not be in the market for a 6800GT, you'd be in the market for a 6200, so its not even relevant.

[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.)

[Ruined]

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
(Copy/paste to browser url)

http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...FarCry0006.jpg
Nvidia 6800GT playing FarCry
(copy/paste to browser url)

***

ATI X800XL/X800XTPE playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Nvidia 6800GT playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

****

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.

[Damian]

Ruined you've once again told some one they made a mistake by purchasing an ATI based card and used ridiculous comparisons to try and show the nVidia card is the better card.
The truth is, I seriously doubt most people would even notice the differences showed in those comparison shots, when they are into the game.
I think what it is is you have very high expectations and expensive tastes and expect everyone else to feel the same way as you when the truth is most people 1) Can't afford the four or five hundred dollar video and 2) don't require the absolute BEST graphics to enjoy their games.

These are screen shots I took while playing Call of Duty on my P4 2.4 with a "piece of slow junk" Geforce 5500 video card.
It's not the best as far as graphics go, but it still looked damn good and it played without a single hiccup.

http://www.damiansplace.com/Pictures/COD/shot0000.jpg
http://www.damiansplace.com/Pictures/COD/shot0017.jpg
http://www.damiansplace.com/Pictures/COD/shot0026.jpg

[Hollow Man]

People have to buy what is right for them, whatever the reasons are. Ruined: you need to realize that whether your opinion is right or wrong, that you make no friends by telling someone they made the wrong decision with their expensive video card purchase, and it's even worse when you go on to explain it in excruciating detail!

And considering where Valve's allegience lies, I find it hard to believe that ATI users will be getting the short end of the stick on any HL2 based game. I say this, and I'm an NVIDIA only buyer (because ATI still can't get their act together when it comes to decent 3D Linux drivers)!

-HM