Radeon XT vs 6800 Ultra

Im looking for a new graphics card and am not sure which to go for. Ive looked for benchmarks comparing a stock X800 XT against a 6800 Ultra but can only seem to find the comparisons of the X800 XT PE against an 6800 Ultra. So my questions are as follows..

1) 6800 Ultra or XT800 XT (Cost of both cards is quite similar now)

2) Although the 6800 Ultra is slower than the X800 XT PE in benchmarks the PE chips are so scarce they are almost impossible to find without a 6 week leadtime

3) Can you overclock a XT800 to the PE standard does it have the headroom??

4) Nvidia offer Pixel Shader 3.0 support and Ultra Shadow 2 which are nice features however I have read that pixel shader 3.0 excutes pixel shader 2.0 routines much quicker keeping the framerate high, whats ATI's answer to this?

Basically im confused on the one hand Nvidia cards run open gl games with intensive shadowing at blistering rates compared with the ATI cards, still ATI appears to bench better overall in Direct 3D and looks like it takes less of a performance hit than the 6800 cards when running with antrop and antialiasing full on. Also image quality still appears better on ATI.

Lets face it I am trying to weigh up Cost, Availability, Performance and Features...

Objective views would be appreciated as I have only had Nvidia cards in the past...

If you can hold on for 1-3 months more then you might get the X850, ATi's new babe. it is, now hold tight babe, 3-5% stronger than the X800 (whoohaaa).
Or you wait for Q3-Q4 for the first ATi 512MB GCs (some say it's just a X850 with more RAM).
As for now....if you can affort 2 68 ultra then get that. Otherwise i would recommend the ATi anytime over NVidea. Oh yeah, lotsa folk missunderstood the 2 CG card thingy. it gives you only more power if you use applications that supports SLI (I think that's what it's called, the dual card thingy). You have two 256MB card but still have only the speed of 1x256. Why they didn't add it up so you could have 512MB(that's what both card should give you) I dunno...NVidea....probably gonna bring out 68 Ultra Extreme or something where the RAM will be simultaneous calculated as 512.

There are some pretty good benchmarks here:

X800XT v 6800 Ultra

Only read about the 3DMark scores and it basically says that in shader 1.1-1.4 68 Ultra is faster, but in shader 2.0 games X800 is faster, unless you OC the Ultra to 450MHz.

Another article I read suggested that ATi were almost hitting their limit in terms of headroom with this card, whereas the Ultra being much more efficient, has much more 'headroom'.

Its an old article but seems to make some sense: Headroom?

let me laugh! an X800 XT has never been greater than a 6800 ultra.(exept for the fillrate). Unreal tournament has always been nvidia sponsored and even with a 6800gt i score much than these results of the XT. these bench are teahat, the testers are clearly for ATI. if you want some good bencharks just go check it out on www.tomshardware.com ...

Even at tomshardware.com the ut2004 benches showed the two cards to be pretty equal until aa and aniso were used, then the XT pulled ahead.
Call of Duty and Aquamark showed a lot of clear 68 Ultra wins however.

tomshardware benchies

My impression is that the 68Ultra will be much more future proof, but at the moment the two cards are fairly equal. Like in the above article about headroom, it just depends upon future drivers and industry support for the 6800 Ultra to win out eventually.

But if there's more ATis sold, then thats what the industry may support, so hard to tell. And by then there'll be other cards for the industry to think about. At the moment tho, hmm depends on which games ur gonna play and whether you like aa/aniso or not..

Originally posted by CpTn_lAw@Dec 30 2004, 12:28 PM
let me laugh! an X800 XT has never been greater than a 6800 ultra.(exept for the fillrate). Unreal tournament has always been nvidia sponsored and even with a 6800gt i score much than these results of the XT. these bench are teahat, the testers are clearly for ATI. if you want some good bencharks just go check it out on www.tomshardware.com ...

I did..

X800XT dominates the tops of all nonOpenGL benchmarks(abit by a very small margin). so unless u just play id engine games. Toms clearly shows ATi taking Ut2k4, FarCry(-1.3, its a dead tie there), HL2, etc.

also technically the X800XTPE is a decent bit more powerful technically.

also, 6800U is as hard to find as the X800Xt. Even nvidia admits it.

Once u turn on anso and af, well, Nvidia falls like a brick, especially in Ut2k4 and HL2.. HardOCP has some good benchmarks for that.

yeah, that's freakin' amazing....why is there a battle oposing two master producers.....they make me s""t .......or yeah they could produc differents video cards, but don't sponsor this or that game...that's teahat..

Thanks for your input guys but benchmarks for UT2004 arent convincing enough that the Radeon is an overall better performer than the 6800 Ultra. As for availability of the XT800 XT and 6800 Ultra there are quite a few floating about on many of the online stores here in the UK. But it seems that no-one can give me a definative answer which is the overall better card. For example HL2 was optimised for ATI cards and Doom 3 was built for Nvidia, however if Open GL becomes more mainstream for games then Nvidia cards will benefit, also if Shader 3.0 becomes mainstream then Nvidia will win again in the performance stakes. Although ATI does perform overall better in most Direct 3D tests due to its raw power.

I guess what I really want is an X800 XT PE but they are like gold dust. What's the point holding out for the 850 chip when you can't even get hold of the XT PE. Friends of mine have been waiting a couple of months on orders for these cards and thats a ridiculous amount of time to wait when their are XT PE's with PCI Express connection that no-one is buying?? :Oo:

For ATI cards this means the shortage is maxing out the prices keeping them extremley high making the 6800 Ultra a more tempting product. Is ATI becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of HardWare production? Even sites are refusing to reccomend the XT 800 XT PE however well it does because I guess they don't want to look stupid when people can't actually purchase them :bucky!:

Originally posted by {White_Knight}@Dec 30 2004, 04:07 PM
Thanks for your input guys but benchmarks for UT2004 arent convincing enough that the Radeon is an overall better performer than the 6800 Ultra. As for availability of the XT800 XT and 6800 Ultra there are quite a few floating about on many of the online stores here in the UK. But it seems that no-one can give me a definative answer which is the overall better card. For example HL2 was optimised for ATI cards and Doom 3 was built for Nvidia, however if Open GL becomes more mainstream for games then Nvidia cards will benefit, also if Shader 3.0 becomes mainstream then Nvidia will win again in the performance stakes. Although ATI does perform overall better in most Direct 3D tests due to its raw power.

I guess what I really want is an X800 XT PE but they are like gold dust. What's the point holding out for the 850 chip when you can't even get hold of the XT PE. Friends of mine have been waiting a couple of months on orders for these cards and thats a ridiculous amount of time to wait when their are XT PE's with PCI Express connection that no-one is buying?? :Oo:

For ATI cards this means the shortage is maxing out the prices keeping them extremley high making the 6800 Ultra a more tempting product. Is ATI becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of HardWare production? Even sites are refusing to reccomend the XT 800 XT PE however well it does because I guess they don't want to look stupid when people can't actually purchase them :bucky!:

Id wait. ATi is due to show their 520. Thatll have ur o so loved SM3.0, in addition to 3DC, and possible dual modes of HDR.

Originally posted by Sepht@Dec 30 2004, 11:12 PM
Id wait. ATi is due to show their 520. Thatll have ur o so loved SM3.0, in addition to 3DC, and possible dual modes of HDR.

Im running a FX 5600 at the moment so time is an issue. My current card is the limiting factor and preventing me playing most new titles at a decent frame rate. Although I am sure the 520 will be an extremely capable chipset I am concerned about the cost and availability of the cards. If companies can get away with charging £400 for a XT800 XT PE what is the price tag on the 520 going to be?? :rant:

The shocking availability of the PE just proves how ridiculous the rivalry between themselves and Nvidia has become where you have to pre-order technology that is 6 months old. I wish they would let the market stabilise and for customers to actually get to play with the new toys before they throw something new into the mix.