How would you spend $300 at CompUSA?

ZappaFan · Post by **ZappaFan** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:23 am

I am about to receive a $300 gift cert for CompUSA, and am going to upgrade my vid card. My current card is a ti4200.

I'll be willing to add around $100 to this gift cert (maybe $200 if I thought it was really worth it), I figure this is a good opportunity to buy a vid card I wouldn't normally blow this kind of money on. Right now I'm kind of leaning towards a Radeon x800 simply because for some reason they have this particular card priced quite a bit below what everybody else does (~$460 at NewEgg, for instance).

Here's a link for that card:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product ... 0&pfp=cat3

I believe the $400 will put me in the neighborhood to be able to get a nVidia 6800 GT.

The rest of my system is pretty "set" for now. I'm running a P4 3.0C with 2x512 Mb Corsair ram, U160 SCSI HD, so the vid card seems like the most logical thing to upgrade. I'm looking forward to playing Doom III and HL2 (and currently playing Far Cry).

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:31 am

X800 kicks (_o_). I just have the 9800 Pro and I'm loving it.

Also, if you don't have an Audigy 2 ZS you are missing out.

ZappaFan · Post by **ZappaFan** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:07 am

I have an Audigy 2 6.1 - what's the ZS?

I only have 4.1 speakers at the moment anyway - Logitech Z-560's. They won't do 5.1 but they do sound very nice anyway. I don't use my computer for movies at all - I have a very nice home theatre setup for that. The only thing my comp is used for is web surfing & gaming (and other tradition computer stuff). I don't use it for listening to music, either (much better home system).

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:07 am

What's so special about Audigy 2 ZS for a gaming computer?

It doesn't make anything sound better or run faster than a SB Live Value, and if anything, the drivers are WORSE (is that even possible?). Maybe for a home theater system it makes sense to go w/ the Audigy cards...

Boycott Creative.

The 6800 card looks tight, stick with that.

Testiculese · Post by **Testiculese** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:10 am

I would spend it in damages I would cause to the employees.

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 8:28 am

My Audigy is 24bit compared to 16 bit for my old Live card. There's a big difference when playing games that take advantage of that. Colin McRae Rally 04 proves that.

Trust me, it's a worth while investment. Zappa, if you already have a Audigy 2, then don't worry about it.

ZappaFan · Post by **ZappaFan** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:37 am

Been doing some reading and I'm starting to lean in favor of the GeForce 6800 GT. Looks like the x800 pro would out-perform it, but that the 6800 GT might be a little better as far as the features it supports...

geez, I was looking at the 6800 Ultra Extreme... the cooler on that thing is huge! You need an empty slot next to it just to accommodate it.

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:57 am

6800 only has the Pixel Shader 3.0 while the X800 has version 2.0. IIRC, the X800 is a better card cept that one feature.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:19 am

you could give it to me as a good faith action

nah JK....

what kind of monitor you running? vid card is a good choice to upgrade.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:24 am

That is false merlin, both the 6800 GT and x800 pro are about equal if you really pay attention. However the 6800 GT is a brand new design so it is highly likely nvidia will find a way to squeeze some more performance out of it. Not to mention that the GT is a 16 pipeline chip where the x800 pro is only 12 pipelines (according to anandtech). If the 6800 GT overclocks well it will be a serious threat to the x800 pro because those 16 pipelines will ramp up speed really fast. Also, the GT has an extra 100 MHz on the memory vs the x800 pro which offsets the fillrate differences.

The reason the x800 pro can match the 6800 GT in benchmarks is because it is running at 475 MHz vs the GT at 350 MHz core. Just do a little theoretical math here; 12 pipelines * 475 MHz = 5,700 million operations per second. 16 * 350 MHz = 5,600 million operations per second.

ZappaFan · Post by **ZappaFan** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:45 am

AceCombat wrote: what kind of monitor you running? vid card is a good choice to upgrade.

My monitor is pretty sweet IMO. It's a 19" Black Samsung 191T flat panel. I'm not using the digital input on it tho, obviously, with a ti4200 vid card.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:31 pm

Go for the 6800 then.

Arch · Post by **Arch** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:34 pm

WarAdvocat wrote:What's so special about Audigy 2 ZS for a gaming computer?

It doesn't make anything sound better or run faster than a SB Live Value, and if anything, the drivers are WORSE (is that even possible?). Maybe for a home theater system it makes sense to go w/ the Audigy cards...

I'm not sure what you're smoking, but the Audigy2 ZS destroys the SB Live Value (haha!) in terms of both sound quality AND drivers. I had a SB Live 5.1 and it sounded terrible and the drivers had all sorts of bugs when running games using EAX. I bought myself an Audigy2 ZS and it sounds measurably better and the software/drivers work properly. I don't have one problem to speak of.

So before you get all done on the Audigy2, realize that the SB Live Value is so old that is deserves to be running in a machine with a Celeron 300A and the drivers should be running in Windows98. The Audigy2, and the drivers are so vastly superior that comparing them isn't worth the time.

To comment on the X800 or the 6800. Both are very capable cards and my next purchase will most likely be one of those two. I currently have a 9700 Pro, so I don't need to upgrade right away. If I were to buy now I would get the 6800GT.

Flatlander · Post by **Flatlander** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 5:49 pm

Testiculese wrote:I would spend it in damages I would cause to the employees.

Limit it to management, they're the real (_O_)

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:35 pm

I'm not sure what you're smoking, but the Audigy2 ZS destroys the SB Live Value (haha!) in terms of both sound quality AND drivers. I had a SB Live 5.1 and it sounded terrible and the drivers had all sorts of bugs when running games using EAX. I bought myself an Audigy2 ZS and it sounds measurably better and the software/drivers work properly. I don't have one problem to speak of.

So before you get all done on the Audigy2, realize that the SB Live Value is so old that is deserves to be running in a machine with a Celeron 300A and the drivers should be running in Windows98. The Audigy2, and the drivers are so vastly superior that comparing them isn't worth the time.

Thanks a lot Creative! You've designed me a brand new product to sell me to try to correct some of the flaws in the last one I bought! EAX 6.0, what is that, support for the 17.3 speaker setup and the new "underwater effect"? Blah

Anyone tried one of those new VIA-chipset-based sound cards? I hate VIA, but I heard they were super for music-listening, mediocre for gaming.

kurupt · Post by **kurupt** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:52 pm

via? ack. i heard the nforce boards had nice onboard sound though.

Asrale · Post by **Asrale** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:19 pm

Well I don't have advice on any parts, but as a general rule, you should get items you can get ONLY at CompUSA, or items CompUSA has a particularly good deal on (check the weekly ads). It would make no sense to use that gift card on an item that national retailers charge full SRP on, when you can get the equivalent product online for less.

Or, you could do what I would, and buy a whole bunch of products that come out to less than $10 with tax, and execute a return on every item (on separate days, of course). You'd still have the gift card (although with less credit on it), but cold hard cash that can be spent elsewhere. CompUSA cashes out gift card balances that are less than $10.

ZappaFan · Post by **ZappaFan** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 4:13 am

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. In an earlier post I mention that one reason for choosing one of these vid cards is that right now either the x800 or the 6800 vid cards aren't being heavily discounted by anybody. CompUSA has as good a price on them as about anybody around (checked on Pricewatch). So I'm making maximum use out of the gift cert that way. I wouldn't want to use a $300 gift cert at CompUSA on something that I could find on Pricewatch for $200, for instance.

Asrale wrote:Well I don't have advice on any parts, but as a general rule, you should get items you can get ONLY at CompUSA, or items CompUSA has a particularly good deal on (check the weekly ads). It would make no sense to use that gift card on an item that national retailers charge full SRP on, when you can get the equivalent product online for less.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:16 pm

MD-2389 wrote:Go for the 6800 then.

x2

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:24 pm

Zappa .. don't listen to them ... just buy a couple dozen Logitech mouses and hand them out as door prises at your next Lan.

AceCombat · Post by **AceCombat** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:37 am

heh........

Teddy · Post by **Teddy** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 3:54 pm

definitly stick with the 6800, benches of ps3.0 show it will speed up the card by around 15% over ps2.0 putting it well in the lead over ati's card....

Throw in ati's wonderful driver support

and i'd say you definitly cant go wrong with the 6800.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:45 pm

spoken like a true nVidiot.

there really is not much difference between the 6800 and the x800. both edge each other out marginally in certain areas of most tests. www.maximumpc.com

PS3.0 support will not be implemented until at least a year from now. remember how long it took for the current pixel shaders to be implemented? you'll see them working just now in games like FarCry.

Me? I wouldn't spend any money on either the x800 or the 6800. I'd rather get a generation behind, and get some other stuff.. like a bigger hdd, faster CPU, DVD burner.. etc

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:00 am

Uhhh, the previous generation sucked ass Ferno, the 6800 and x800s are the first cards to actually take the modern games with full details and run them at a reasonable framerate. I would not waste $300 on a FX card or 9800 xt, the next gen parts arent that much more expensive but they are double as fast.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:51 am

I think Teddy is (or at least was) a long-time ATI owner, Fern.

Can anyone tell me if it is still true that ATI can't FSAA D3 (something like because it's 16-bit)? If this is the case, and if one's still interested in Descent, I think the bottom line is that an nVidia card would be best, and we could save the "real" video card debate for another juicy thead.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 2:31 am

Krom, you have a geforce.. so what do you know?

I have a 9800pro and it runs UT2k4 at a good clip (>60fps. i've seen it hit 90 with all details cranked to high w/ 6xaa and 16x AF. so nyah.)

Jeff: doubt it.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:04 am

Actually jeff is correct, I don't know if ATI has fixed it yet but their drivers can't run FSAA in Descent3 because it is always in 16 bit color mode.

Ferno, quit playing ATI fanboi, if you read my post you would see that I said "don't waste any money on Geforce FX OR 9800 Cards".

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:34 am

lol @ krom..

i'm just telling you what i've experienced.

ZappaFan · Post by **ZappaFan** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 8:49 am

Finally received my gift money, and ran out and picked up a PNY 6800 GT on Monday night. Only one in the store. They were out of stock of the X800 as well - which is outselling the 6800 GT by about 4:1 or more from what the salesman was saying. I had to add $127 to the $300 gift money in total.

The new card installed flawlessly. First thing I did was fire up Far Cry with all the settings at max/very high, etc. Wow!!

Very nice!!

Sage · Post by **Sage** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:41 am

I want a gift card too.

STRESSTEST · Post by **STRESSTEST** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:43 am

With the new benches released for Doom3, the selling ratio will most likely reverse.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:20 pm

HEH yeah, the GT is beating out the X800XT-PE, impressive.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 6:22 pm

I smell drivers updates ....

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:10 pm

I donno, Doom3 and the 6800 cards were practically made for each other, in this case ATI might be as screwed as people comment Nvidia is for Halflife2.

-Krom

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:31 pm

I know that games can be coded slanting to a type of codex; eventhough this is becomeing more rare as the times goes on.

This might have been the case between the two games. As I recall, these two franchises feed the vid coding "wars". Both cards are great. Each doing things a little differently. The market these last 3 years has REALLY improved and quite frankly, i think that it's great that we can enjoy such a healthy compitiion between ATI and Nvida. "best" in this industry is not unlike deciding what Best is in ice skating. Everyone is SOO good that "What is best" is mostly splitting hairs.

Just MHO.

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 12:08 am

you know how hype works Krom. just wait and see what does what.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:59 am

Nvidia builds their cards for a broad market D3D/OpenGL Hardware wise (open GL being a stong point). ATI on the other hand barely gets by with OpenGL compatiblity and features on their retail cards(then they take 12 months to make a software change that is game specific). Hence DIII rocks on Nvidia, DIII is OpenGL with a vengence!!!!!11!!

Ferno · Post by **Ferno** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:50 am

how about we see how well it runs on each card when people are playing it (meaning it's in the stores and being bought in droves) BEFORE making a judgement call like that?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:55 pm

And I heard that Valve spent three times as much time optimizing for Nvidia as they did for ATI. Just what they were doing was flat out better on ATI hardware then NV hardware. Or perhaps they were doing it absolutely wrong for NV hardware. I just say "Whatever".