9800 pro vs 6800 le

[oSo]

Hi everyone... well im realy having trouble deciding between these two and was wondering if you could help.

First up , 9800 pro - price £165

HIS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR IceQ TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-006-HT)
Powered by ATI RADEON™9800PRO, HIS Excalibur 9800PRO IceQ is the advanced Enthusiast class graphics board, featuring ATI's RADEON™ 9800PRO Visual Processing Unit (VPU) with Innovative cooling solution. Through a combination of incredible 3D rendering performance, sophisticated real-time visual effects, unsurpassed image quality and cutting-edge video features, it takes the PC entertainment experience to a totally new level. HIS Excalibur 9800PRO features 8-pipeline architecture for twice the rendering power, 128MB of DDR or 256MB of DDR2 memory to accelerate latest 3D games and new SMARTSHADER™2.1 technology supporting DirectX and the latest OpenGL functionality to give developers the freedom to create more complicated and realistic visual effects than ever before. HIS Excalibur RADEON™9800PRO supports the AGP 8X standard and 256 bit memory bus, which allows extreme large volume of texture and vertex data to be transferred faster from system memory to the chip. With ATI's new VIDEOSHADER™ technology, HIS Excalibur RADEON™9800PRO continues the tradition of providing industry-leading video and DVD playback and also offers FULLSTREAM™-a new technology that removes blocky artifacts from video and provides sharper image quality.

- ATI Radeon 9800 Pro GPU running at 380MHz
- 128MB DDR memory running at 680MHz
- 256-bit memory interface
- Innovative cooling solution
- First Graphic Board with selectable cooling and noise level
Unique mounting clip
- DHES (Direct Heat Exhaust System)
- Memory Cooling by efficient discrete heatsink
- Features ATI's TRUFORM™2.0, SMARTSHADER™2.1 and SMOOTHVISION™2.1, and HYPER™Z III technologies
- SMARTSHADER™2.1 technology supports DirectX?.0 and enables more complex and realistic lighting effects
- Sharper-looking 3D graphics with ATI SMOOTHVISION™2.1 technology
- TRUFORM™2.0 technology that makes the outlines of 3D characters and objects look smoother and more natural than ever before
- Dual display support with HYDRAVISION™
- Integrated TV-Out support up to 1024 x 768 resolution
- Integrated DVI-compliant TMDS transmitter

Or this, a 6800 le , Price - £170

AOpen GeForce 6800 LE 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (AGP) & DOOM 3 Bundle - Retail (GX-006-AO)
The groundbreaking new NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 graphics processing units (GPUs) and their revolutionary technologies power worlds where reality and fantasy meet; worlds in which new standards are set for visual realism and quality, performance, and video functionality. The GeForce 6800 GPUs deliver powerful, elegant graphics to drench your senses, immersing you in unparalleled worlds of visual effects for the ultimate PC experience. nVidia GeForce 6800 LE offers high performance levels at a great price. Featuring the latest technology of the 6800 GPU allows this card to play the latest and upcoming gaming titles like never before and at a great price makes this card exceptional value for money.

- nVidia GeForce 6800 LE GPU
- 8 Pixel Pipelines
- 300MHz Core GPU clock speed
- 700MHz DDR memory clock speed
- CineFX 3.0 Engine
- The Industry's First On-Chip Video Processor
- UltraShadow II Technology
- 64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending
- Intellisample 3.0 Technology
- Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
- nView Multi-Display Technology
- Digital Vibrance Control 3.0
- High-Speed DDR Memory Interface
- 256-Bit Memory Interface with Advanced Memory Control
- 128-Bit Studio-Precision Computation
- Full-Speed 32-Bit Color Precision
- Advanced Adaptive De-Interlacing
- Video Scaling and Filtering
- TV-Out
- Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
- 0.13 Micron Process Technology
- Aopen Software & Games bundle
- Full version of DOOM3 supplied



Hope this info helps, its realy between these two. My mums currently pestering me, I should have decided a few hours ago .... Im mainly looking into running World of Warcraft and HL2.

Thanks alot,
oSo

[kram 2.0]

For games like Half Life 2, definately the former - the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. ATI cards run Half Life 2 very well and with AA and AF turned on, the picture quality on the games is fantastical. On top of that, the only thing that was holding the GeForce 6800 on top of the Radeon 9800 Pro was the four extra rendering pixel pipelines - with those absent in the crippled LE version, the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, with the 256-bit buswidth, looks to be a far better deal - I can say in firsthand experience that ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is a wonderful card. The choice, though, is up to you.

kram

[oSo]

Heh thanks for the reply, I was definately leaning towards the 9800 pro, I was being told by friends also if the 6800 is your choice go for the GT, but thats way out of my budget So i guess im finally settled. 9800 pro it is.

Merry christmas all!
oSo

[Moose on the Loose]

If I'm not mistaken thos HIS ICEQ Cards are *very* nice overclockers as well

[milkman4_hi_r]

i looked around and didnt find a HIS iceQ card anywhere. i read a few articles and revievs on them tho and they sound like a good card. i wanted to get a 9800 pro AIW but if this card is better, with ddr2, then i could just get a seperate tv tuner card. and how does ddr2 compare to ddr3?

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Moose on the Loose If I'm not mistaken thos HIS ICEQ Cards are *very* nice overclockers as well

If I recall correctly, aren't the HIS cards the ones that occupy the PCI card slot directly next to the AGP slot? In that case, such cooling mechanism will surely allow for some overclocking

kram

[milkman4_hi_r]

yea i just read that. it has an arctic cooler heatsink on it. very noce card, no where in the usa to buy it tho. u can get the new cards tho but i dont have the money for that. i looked at some bench marks and this card didnt fair too much better than the 9800pro AIW from ATI. only by a few points on most benchmarks, and it has ddr2 and that cooler on it. now what about it would make it that little bit better? the ddr2 or the card staying nice and cool. i would have thought there would be a bigger difference if it was the memory that was the factor, but since it was only by a little bit, im wondering if keeping it cool is the thing you need.