X800XT Platinum or Geforce 6800 Ultra?!

[Friction]

Hi guys!

A question which has probably been asked before, but I'm going to ask anyway.

My Brother is considering a graphics card upgrade (Has to be AGP, Single slot - He has a Shuttle SB75G2 System), and he is looking at either

The Asus X800XT Platinum, 4th one down here

OR

The Asus V9999 Ultra Deluxe Geforce 6800 Ultra, 2nd one down here

So which one? Any advice, recommendedations, benchmarks etc will be most welcome

Cheers!

[replicant]

There is only one choice

Gforce 6800 Ultra.

Had one since July, and it eats all games. Half Life 2, Doom 3....awesome.

The X800XT PE is a nice card too, however if you are going down the ATI route then get the x850 XT PE. Bit faster.

Just noticed he needs a single slot. That rules out the 6800U, its a dual slot cooling system. A great alternative is the 6800 GT.

[Friction]

Where can you get the X850s from? Never seen those before!?

The upgrade as mentioned is for my brother and he's looking to max out his system and not upgrade anything else - the machine is a P4 3.4 so nothing else to do other than beef up the graphics.

I notice you say he can't have the U but the GT instead, is that still a beefy card, and how does it compare to the ATI card?

Thanks for the help

[Ciaran]

The GT can normally be easily overclocked to Ultra speeds.

[Mr Ono]

The GT can normally be easily overclocked to Ultra speeds.

Yep. Mine is and it is brilliant.

[IainMcC]

Where can you get the X850s from? Never seen those before!?

They've only just come out, and they need two slots anyway, because they've got a HUUUUUUUUGE heatsink and fan. I've got an X800XT and it's fabulous - no problems with any game out there, even with everything turned up to the maximum. Half-Life 2 looks good enough to eat. To be honest, there's not much between an X800XT and a 6800 - either card will handle just about anything for the next couple of years, so you might as well decide on price.

[marcus]

Ive an X800 Pro, but by a reasonably simple modification this can be essentially turned into a XT, although Ive not got the confidence to try this myself. Not much point anyways as right now the Shuttle pc I have with this card runs everything I care to throw at it flawlessly.

Heh incidently I had a 6800GT which I intended to use in the shuttle, but overlooked that the AGP is to the far right of the motherboard and anything larger than a single slot card wont fit :/

D'oh! ..was what I said at the time of finding this out.

[PH]

I (well, a friend did it for me) modified by X800 Pro into a XT a couple of days ago. Well pleased with the results - although i have to say my Pro was running everything flawlessly anyway.

Its worth pointing out though (according to my friend) that not all Pro cards can be modified. Its only the VIVO cards that can be modified.

[Friction]

Thanks for all the info guys!

I think my brother has gone and ordered the X800XT.

Now if someone can lend me about ?400 I can join the club too!?

Anyone?

[PeteJ]

It's funny you should make this thread - I'm planning on buying a shuttle PC with a X800XT! I've been out of the PC market for so long now that I've lost track of whats hot and whats not...but I'm getting there, slowly. The gist of this thread is - if buying a shuttle, get an x800xt?

I'm coming back to the PC market! TFC here I come!

[marcus]

Just make sure its single width not double mate, or you may fall into the same trap I did.

[PeteJ]

Don't worry, I'm not that foolish

[marcus]

Well lets just say Im not the only one who found they couldnt fit the 6800GT into the shuttle case :P

[Valken]

You'll have a hard time fitting a 6800GT in a shuttle alright... most come with massive coolers to facilitate overclocking...

I got a Gainward that was so big that it wouldn't fit right in a standard case.

The Gainward I ordered wasn't much smaller, still takes up the room of two cards!

[marcus]

Ive just finishing updating my X800 Pro bios to that of the X800XT card and so far so good. Atitools has shown that all 16 pipes are now open, whilst a first test on 3dMark 2005 which has come in at a whopping 4744 for the 3 graphic tests, which is over 1500 points more than previous tests. Clock speed is now 520/560 and its notably noisier than before which isnt a big deal for me. If I come across any adverse effects Ill update, but quite satisfied so far, as Ive got the performance of a card which costs about ?100 more then the one I bought.