Info on the latest Graphics Card Race

**omnislash124** · April 19th, 2005, 22:34

Hello all, I need some basic information between the two large graphics card companies (nVidia and ATI) So therefore, I'm asking the comparison between Radeon Lines of Cards vs the GeForce Line of Cards. Which are "Supposed" to match up with each other, and which card is the best deal? My Specs are in my Signature, please reply soon. Thanks.

**Clements** · April 19th, 2005, 23:08

The best deal lies with how much you're willing to spend. For performance comparisons, check a hardware review site like Anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/

6600GT is a good deal for mid-range (it's faster than a Radeon 9800 Pro), and would suit your kind of processor. No point getting a card too fast when your CPU will bottleneck it badly.

**omnislash124** · April 19th, 2005, 23:22

Ok, a second part to that question....I'm probably gettin it off newegg.com, since it looks like a pretty good deal....also, I need to ask about the companies I see.....For Radeon, I see companies like Power Color and Sapphire and for GeForce, it's Apollo, PNY, or MSI. Is there anything I should look out for in these companies and probably many others unlisted?

EDIT: 6600GT is a bit on the expensive side, I was lookin at either Radeon 9600 or GeForce 5700. What's the comparison between 6600 and 5700 for GeForce?

**Clements** · April 19th, 2005, 23:29

For NVIDIA, BFG is a good choice since they come factory overclocked, have a lifetime warranty and do not cost an arm and a leg. Other decent ones include Leadtek, MSI, Gigabyte, Galaxy and Asus.

**omnislash124** · April 20th, 2005, 01:13

If Leadtek is good, then i think I just found a decent priced GeForce 6600....$113 for a GeForce 6600 at Newegg....Also, which matters more, Memory Clock, Core Clock, Memory Interface or Memory Size?

**Clements** · April 20th, 2005, 01:37

Sounds like a good choice to me, you'll be very happy with it.

Memory size matters the least, core/mem clocks equal importance but not the most important factor, and memory type is most important (i.e. 128-bit or 256-bit, DDR or GDDR3). Of course Pixel Pipelines is most important of all.

As an example, a 6600GT and a 6800 comparison. These cards are around a similar price.

A 6600GT has a core clock of 500MHz and memory clocked at 1GHz, both clocks are higher than a 6800 which is clocked at just 325/700. However, the 6800 is the faster card overall, since it's memory is 256-bit (as opposed to the 6600GT's 128-bit only interface) and it has four more pixel piplines and two more vertex units.

Memory size only really counts in high resolutions, especially 1600x1200 where 256MB is useful. 128MB is good enough up to 1280x1024. Having more memory will not boost your frame rate at a lower resolution at all.

EDIT: 6600GT is a bit on the expensive side, I was lookin at either Radeon 9600 or GeForce 5700. What's the comparison between 6600 and 5700 for GeForce?

6600 is about 2 to 3 times faster than a 5700.

**omnislash124** · April 21st, 2005, 00:32

Ok, when you say bottleneck, that means that the computer will slow down the card right? So if I got a 6800 right now, it would be completely worthless since a 6600 would provide the same? Also, PCI-Express and AGP. Which is faster? I think the $113 GeForce 6600 was PCI-Express. Is PCI-E the newer version that I probably don't have? and how does PCI (not PCI-E) compare with AGP?

EDIT: Also, what is roughly the Radeon equivilent of these GeForce Cards....namely the 5700, 6600, 6800?

EDIT AGAIN: Also, I see a promising card from Pine Technologies. Is that a good company or should I keep looking for a better deal.....?

**Clements** · April 21st, 2005, 04:55