@ best buy this week
because there may be people (like me) who only have pci slots and not any pci-e slots whatsoever on ANY of their machines
hth somebody. it did me
quote: but the remainder of the 6800 Ultra cards are basically high-performance cards at an ultra high cost. Quite a few of them cost as much or more than a 7800 GTX!
Wow... And to think I was contemplatin buying a first 6800U and go SLI some time later as AnandTech always pushed as a wonderful idea. I'm sure glad I didn't make that ***COSTLY MISTAKE***.
For the past few price guides, we've been restating that it's definitely better, performance and price-wise, to go with a single 7800GTX rather than two 6800U/GT's in SLi. ;)
But what will you say when the next iteration comes around? In the end, isn't SLI a pointless feature since (it appears) Nvidia can outdo itself in just one card generation?
I put this in the article, as I never have been a strong proponent of SLI "upgrades":
By the way, have we mentioned that purchasing a single high-end card now and planning on upgrading with the second high-end card in the future might be a bad idea? There's probably a decent number of people out there that by the 6800 Ultra for a lot of money, with the intent of purchasing a second one when the price dropped below $300. Now they're stuck with a single card and the option to upgrade to SLI at a premium that just isn't worth it. Until ATI and NVIDIA get their multi-card solutions to work across generations, we would suggest you either go the whole hog and buy two cards initially, or just buy a single card and stick with it. There will be occasions -- like the 6800 GT -- where the prices do drop to reasonable levels, but we certainly wouldn't plan on that.
Obviously, AnandTech has many writers, and we don't all agree on every point.
Where the heck are the 6600 non gt's? thats probably the most compelling card around the low-mid to low range right now which i am looking into for my little bro's pc.
Ya, i too felt the absence of the standard 6600 for comparisons sake to the X700 series. But... its not exactly the price/performance leader it was a few months ago. A vanilla 6600 is $99 at newegg... the DDR2 version is $117... and the 6600GT's in the $120-125 range. The performance of the 6600GT for only an extra twenty spot really makes it the best choice right now, and ive even seen 6600GT's drop as low as $105 AR. The performance of the DDR2 6600's is deffinitly stronger than the vanilla 6600, but not GT levels, and the price gap is too small to reccommend that purchase either.
The 6600 is a solid card, to be sure, and its something worth keeping an eye on... but right now, the GT's are probably the better choice.
God ATI's X800 line of cards is a mess. You have the X800, X800Pro, X800XT, X800XL, X800GTO, and the X800GTO2. I would have recommended an ATI card to my brother-in-law but with ATI having so many version of one core I just told him to get a 7800GT. I myself will switch from my X800 to Nvidia on my next purchase because ATI has made buying one of their cards a great big confusing mess. Pretty soon Anand will need a price guide just for ATI cards to help us sort out all of their crap.
At least with Nvidia they dont have 6 version of one chip.
I don't mind the similar names... it's the stuff like 7800 GTX 256MB vs. 7800 GTX 512MB. No other card (that I'm aware of) has such a huge discrepancy in clock speed between cards that apparently only differ in the amount of RAM. Imagine:
AMD Athlon 64 GTX 512K = 2.0 GHz with DDR400 support
AMD Athlon 64 GTX 1024K = 2.8 GHz with DDR600 support
That's about what we have right now with the two GTX cards.
If you're going to include the Phantom Edition, then do not forget the 6800 Ultra Extreme. Once again, ATI is still worse, but not what I would call "far worse".
Recommending an X850 wouldn't be as bad as recommending either an X800 or 6800. I believe that is why it was not included in this thread. Imagine telling someone to get an X800GT (not that you would, but just imagine). They go to the store without having X800GT written down. Was is GT? GTO? XT? Now imagine the same situation with the 6800GT. Was is GT? GS? XT?
It boggles my mind that ATI and Nvidia believe that such a huge range of cards is necessary. They already have three model levels (X300, X600, X800 and 6200, 6600, 6800 looking at the last generation), so why do they need to have 3+ levels in each of those categories? They could really simplify things with three model levels, and limiting each to two (or at MOST three) levels.
You do have to cut NVIDIA a bit of slack with the 6800 GS. They get to stop production of the more expensive 6800 GT and Ultra, since they drop to 12 physical pipelines and 110 nm. The X850 didn't really change anything from the X800; it was just a tweaked process and manufacturing release.
Ideally, it would be nice to see no more than two or three low-end, midrange, and high-end cards from each company, with model names that make it clear what you're getting. It's sad when you can point to Intel and AMD names as being better. :p
I'd really like to see a summary page on these things with a final recommendation for high, mid and low end systems. Something like: I"n the mid range area, the ATI-Nvidia Geforce X7800 GTO is nice."
I figured there might be some sort of comment in this article about the availability issues with the GTX 512MB. I'm sure Anandtech has many more reliable sources of information than the rest of us. It would be nice to hear more than just rumours from sites like INQ about what is really going on.
Wow, NVidia has really dominated the market on all levels. I'm trying hard to stay an ATI fanboy, but it's just really not that feasable at this point. Maybe by the summer...
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unclebud - Thursday, December 15, 2005 - link
@ best buy this weekbecause there may be people (like me) who only have pci slots and not any pci-e slots whatsoever on ANY of their machines
hth somebody. it did me
h7o - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
"...and less you're a diehard ATI fan" on the first page.semo - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
what the hell is happening with the low end cards. they're approaching the cost of mid-range and mid-range keeps getting higher and higher.this situation is not helped a lot by cards from the last century still being in the market me thinks.
GhostlyGhost2 - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
Wow... And to think I was contemplatin buying a first 6800U and go SLI some time later as AnandTech always pushed as a wonderful idea. I'm sure glad I didn't make that ***COSTLY MISTAKE***.
I sure feel for those who did, though.
rrcn - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
For the past few price guides, we've been restating that it's definitely better, performance and price-wise, to go with a single 7800GTX rather than two 6800U/GT's in SLi. ;)GhostlyGhost - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
Yeah,. Ok. Great.But what will you say when the next iteration comes around? In the end, isn't SLI a pointless feature since (it appears) Nvidia can outdo itself in just one card generation?
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
I put this in the article, as I never have been a strong proponent of SLI "upgrades":By the way, have we mentioned that purchasing a single high-end card now and planning on upgrading with the second high-end card in the future might be a bad idea? There's probably a decent number of people out there that by the 6800 Ultra for a lot of money, with the intent of purchasing a second one when the price dropped below $300. Now they're stuck with a single card and the option to upgrade to SLI at a premium that just isn't worth it. Until ATI and NVIDIA get their multi-card solutions to work across generations, we would suggest you either go the whole hog and buy two cards initially, or just buy a single card and stick with it. There will be occasions -- like the 6800 GT -- where the prices do drop to reasonable levels, but we certainly wouldn't plan on that.
Obviously, AnandTech has many writers, and we don't all agree on every point.
VooDooAddict - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - link
The best use for SLI that I have found is this:Two brothers are building new systems around the 7800GT.
Both get inexpensive SLI boards (Biostar or Abit KN8 SLI come to mind).
When one of the brothers upgrades to the next generation. The other can buy the replaced 7800GT and get a nice boost.
Sure, they have to get slightly beefier powersupplies. Is that really such a bad thing?
rgreen83 - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
Where the heck are the 6600 non gt's? thats probably the most compelling card around the low-mid to low range right now which i am looking into for my little bro's pc.Cygni - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
Ya, i too felt the absence of the standard 6600 for comparisons sake to the X700 series. But... its not exactly the price/performance leader it was a few months ago. A vanilla 6600 is $99 at newegg... the DDR2 version is $117... and the 6600GT's in the $120-125 range. The performance of the 6600GT for only an extra twenty spot really makes it the best choice right now, and ive even seen 6600GT's drop as low as $105 AR. The performance of the DDR2 6600's is deffinitly stronger than the vanilla 6600, but not GT levels, and the price gap is too small to reccommend that purchase either.The 6600 is a solid card, to be sure, and its something worth keeping an eye on... but right now, the GT's are probably the better choice.
bbomb - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
God ATI's X800 line of cards is a mess. You have the X800, X800Pro, X800XT, X800XL, X800GTO, and the X800GTO2. I would have recommended an ATI card to my brother-in-law but with ATI having so many version of one core I just told him to get a 7800GT. I myself will switch from my X800 to Nvidia on my next purchase because ATI has made buying one of their cards a great big confusing mess. Pretty soon Anand will need a price guide just for ATI cards to help us sort out all of their crap.At least with Nvidia they dont have 6 version of one chip.
RandomFool - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
ATI and Nvidia both have too many card with similar names.JarredWalton - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
I don't mind the similar names... it's the stuff like 7800 GTX 256MB vs. 7800 GTX 512MB. No other card (that I'm aware of) has such a huge discrepancy in clock speed between cards that apparently only differ in the amount of RAM. Imagine:AMD Athlon 64 GTX 512K = 2.0 GHz with DDR400 support
AMD Athlon 64 GTX 1024K = 2.8 GHz with DDR600 support
That's about what we have right now with the two GTX cards.
Tanclearas - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
6800, 6800GS, 6800XT, 6800GT, 6800 UltraGranted, that is only five (versus six), but I'd hardly say that's much better.
Live - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
Add the 6800LE to that list and you got the magic number. ;)PrinceGaz - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
You can add the X800GT to ATI's X800 range making seven in total.JarredWalton - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
Actually, ATI is far worse. We missed several. In approximate order of power:X800 SE
X800
X800 GT
X800GTO
X800GTO2
X800Pro
X800XL
X800XT
X800XTPE
And don't forget:
X850Pro
X850XT
X850XTPE
Tanclearas - Saturday, December 10, 2005 - link
If you're going to include the Phantom Edition, then do not forget the 6800 Ultra Extreme. Once again, ATI is still worse, but not what I would call "far worse".Recommending an X850 wouldn't be as bad as recommending either an X800 or 6800. I believe that is why it was not included in this thread. Imagine telling someone to get an X800GT (not that you would, but just imagine). They go to the store without having X800GT written down. Was is GT? GTO? XT? Now imagine the same situation with the 6800GT. Was is GT? GS? XT?
It boggles my mind that ATI and Nvidia believe that such a huge range of cards is necessary. They already have three model levels (X300, X600, X800 and 6200, 6600, 6800 looking at the last generation), so why do they need to have 3+ levels in each of those categories? They could really simplify things with three model levels, and limiting each to two (or at MOST three) levels.
JarredWalton - Monday, December 12, 2005 - link
You do have to cut NVIDIA a bit of slack with the 6800 GS. They get to stop production of the more expensive 6800 GT and Ultra, since they drop to 12 physical pipelines and 110 nm. The X850 didn't really change anything from the X800; it was just a tweaked process and manufacturing release.Ideally, it would be nice to see no more than two or three low-end, midrange, and high-end cards from each company, with model names that make it clear what you're getting. It's sad when you can point to Intel and AMD names as being better. :p
RandomFool - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
I'd really like to see a summary page on these things with a final recommendation for high, mid and low end systems. Something like: I"n the mid range area, the ATI-Nvidia Geforce X7800 GTO is nice."Tanclearas - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
I figured there might be some sort of comment in this article about the availability issues with the GTX 512MB. I'm sure Anandtech has many more reliable sources of information than the rest of us. It would be nice to hear more than just rumours from sites like INQ about what is really going on.Shortass - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
Wow, NVidia has really dominated the market on all levels. I'm trying hard to stay an ATI fanboy, but it's just really not that feasable at this point. Maybe by the summer...lexmark - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
bah, any chance of crossfire cards before X-mas? ;/Visual - Friday, December 9, 2005 - link
yeah, the x1300 :pthey dont need master cards... or am i confusing them with the x1600s?