8800 gtx vs. ultra

[{OF}MillerTime]

is the ultra worth it to play at 1600x1200? Or does it kick in at higher rez.

[{DvT}JonahHex]

I'm not sure I can tell the difference between playing (UT2K4) at 1024x768 and at 1680x1050 (the native resolution of my 22" Samsung flat panel monitor).

I suppose the details are sharper at the higher resolution but, while playing, I'm not gawking at the intricacies of the graphics. However, even if doing fly-arounds before a match starts, I'd be hard pressed to say that I can see a difference...perhaps if I had two systems side-by-side, one at the lower res, one at the higher...but otherwise, not really.

Personally, I think the GTX is still outrageously priced, not to mention the Ultra. I say this after buying a pair of GTXs before the Ultras were introduced and the GTX prices came down. IOW, I thought I was paying too much then but if I had waited until now, I'd still think the GTXs were priced too high.

Having said that, I have no regrets about buy GTXs rather than GTSs.

[{OF}Erad]

I'm playing at 1920 x 1200 on my 8800 GTS 320 on my 24" Samsung TFT, all games MAXED, no problems, looks great.

[{DvT}JonahHex]

While I don't remember any specific numbers off the top of my head, I suppose it might be worthwhile to add that since my FPS in UT2K4 at the higher resolution is usually over 100 (assuming the server is not in the default mode of being capped at 85fps) and I'm sure the FPS at the lower resolution is higher still, I can't say that this is much of an issue either.

[{OF}Erad]

I average 85+ fps in UT2K4 at max settings at 1920 x 1200 on my 8800 GTS 320 on my 24" Samsung TFT. No problems ar all. XP and Vista.
That is with UT2K4, Quake 4, and QW:ET Demo.

[{OF}Malicious Assault]

I have the settings maxed and play 1880x1050 with my 256 ATI 1950 pro in QW:ET and it works great

[{DvT}JonahHex]

Aren't Quack4 and QW signifcantly newer games, and presumably better indicators of current/future game requirements, than UT2K4? If so, it sounds to me like Erad also makes a case for not spending the extra money on an Ultra.

Sooner or later there may be good reason to have/want the extra oomph of the Ultra. At the moment and in the immediate future -- like when UT3 is released -- I'm not sure that there any really good justification for it, given my experience with my GTXs and what Erad has said about his GTS.

Just for comparison purposes, the GTX is a faster GPU than the GTS and each of my GTXs has 786MB of video RAM compared to Erad's 320MB. The point being that he is getting results that, in the real world, are -- on screen while playing -- as good as mine, regardless of what the benchmark numbers say.

To try to illustrate this point I looked at my 3DMark03 (not the current 3DMark06) scores. Way back when, my best 03 score with my Ti4400 vid card was 1,592 and on the first test, "Wings of Fury," the Ti4400 averaged 103.9 fps. My best 3DMark03 score with the SLI pair of 8800GTXs is 66,178 and Wings of Fury played at 900.3 fps. Now, try to imagine those two systems running Wings of Fury side-by-side...what do you think the visual difference would be in viewing 103 fps next to 900 fps? If the numbers were not in front of you, I don't think you would be able to tell the difference...without the numbers and without knowing which card was driving which monitor, IMHO you wouldn't be able to say which was which.

Benchmarks are for locker room bragging rights: "My pekker is bigger 'n yer pekker," but the girl goes home with the one that doesn't rip her to shreds.

At this point in time, my suggestion is to go home with the vid card that doesn't rip your wallet to shreds. While you want a capable card that will provide good service for longer than a month or 6, it is almost never the case that top of the line, state of the art is necessary.

The further beat this point to death, I got an FX5950Ultra when it was TOTL, SOTA and it cost $500, lasted for 4 years, allowed me to skip the 6000 series and 7000 series but required me to upgrade in order to be ready for UT3. Now, the kicker: about 6 months (maybe less) after I got that card, {DvT}WarHawk got an FX5200 (for either $99 or $109), the bottom of the line of the 5000 series. He is still using it; is still happy with it; and is pissed that it appears he will have to spend the money on a new vid card in order to play UT3. The difference between this story and the current situation of anticipating UT3 and other yet to be released games is that both cards, the 5950 and the 5200, were purchased in order to play UT2K4 and we already had copies of UT2K4 before the cards were purchased. Hence, we knew what we needed/wanted -- now (for UT3 anyway) we are all still guessing.

[ChemicalWarrior]

Do not buy the Ultra, it is not worth it. It only has slightly faster core and memory speeds. However, do not go as low as a GTS 320MB. I’ll say this again (I’ve said it before), the 8800GTS 320MB is a very bad choice to pick if you want any kind of real life out of your video card. I’d be very interested to know if you’re using any anti-aliasing Erad, and how well the card scales with more demanding video games like Ghost Recon 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Bioshock, Company of Heroes, Call of Juarez, for example. I believe strongly that you’re very much going to be disappointed when it comes to say Crysis or even UT3 with a 320MB GTS. It will run out of memory footprint with these games, especially if you enable features such as anti-aliasing.

So, either the 8800GTX or 8800GTS 640MB. The GTX is faster, and at the tip top end it will perform better, especially if you go into enabling high end options like AA and AF with transparency and alphas on. However, the 8800GTX really is not going to have a longer life than a 8800GTS 640MB.

The sentiments about benchmarks... well all I have to say is that if you looked at the right ones you'd know how bad the GeForce FX series was. You might not have ever noticed it because UT 2K4 is a DirectX 7 game (only a few Dx8 extensions) for the most part. The FX issues with Dx9 are very well documented.

[{OF}Blong]

Originally Posted by ChemicalWarrior

Do not buy the Ultra, it is not worth it. It only has slightly faster core and memory speeds. However, do not go as low as a GTS 320MB. I’ll say this again (I’ve said it before), the 8800GTS 320MB is a very bad choice to pick if you want any kind of real life out of your video card. I’d be very interested to know if you’re using any anti-aliasing Erad, and how well the card scales with more demanding video games like Ghost Recon 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Bioshock, Company of Heroes, Call of Juarez, for example. I believe strongly that you’re very much going to be disappointed when it comes to say Crysis or even UT3 with a 320MB GTS. It will run out of memory footprint with these games, especially if you enable features such as anti-aliasing.

So, either the 8800GTX or 8800GTS 640MB. The GTX is faster, and at the tip top end it will perform better, especially if you go into enabling high end options like AA and AF with transparency and alphas on. However, the 8800GTX really is not going to have a longer life than a 8800GTS 640MB.

The sentiments about benchmarks... well all I have to say is that if you looked at the right ones you'd know how bad the GeForce FX series was. You might not have ever noticed it because UT 2K4 is a DirectX 7 game (only a few Dx8 extensions) for the most part. The FX issues with Dx9 are very well documented.

LOL MT upgrades about once every 18 months anyways so im sure that wont be a problem .

Hey MT what y ou going to do with your old video card *wink *wink .

[{DvT}JonahHex]

It appears that we are all taking our own routes to get to the same conclusion: the Ultra is not the way to go.

Originally Posted by ChemicalWarrior

The sentiments about benchmarks... well all I have to say is that if you looked at the right ones you'd know how bad the GeForce FX series was. You might not have ever noticed it because UT 2K4 is a DirectX 7 game (only a few Dx8 extensions) for the most part. The FX issues with Dx9 are very well documented.

"If you looked at the right ones..." Basically I was/am suggesting looking at the one that really count: what do you use your computer for? Does it perform those functions up to your expectations and to your satisfaction?

As I indicated, WarHawk's 5200 does what he wants and needs it to do. It allows him to play UT2K4 and he is satisfied with the way it lets him do that. The 5200 would not do the same for me nor Chem but we aren't using Hawk's system. I rather doubt that Hawk really knows or cares what DirectX is. He has it because he has been advised by people such as Chem and myself that it is free, it is easily installed, it doesn't require any real maintenance, and it will enhance his UT2K4 experience without any additional effort on his part...so, ok, why not?

The real point of this discussion is to get all these viewpoints, from high-end to low-end, on the table to allow those who are looking for advice and guidence to determine which aspects can/should be considered and which are important to them.

The point I was trying to get across in my benchmarks comments was that it is easy to get caught up in the numbers -- "OOOOO! 900 fps! Awesome." But what does 900 fps really do for you compared to 100 fps when playing on-line, having the latency from the servers and from the routers between you and the servers, factoring in human reaction times - especially Old Fart reaction times , etc? Not much other than the ooooh, awww factors of quoting the numbers. This was the trap I was suggesting to avoid. I'm not saying benchmarks are useless; this isn't true at all; I'm just saying don't get enamored with them as I've seen a lot of people do.