I am looking to get one of the best graphics cards available, and am unsure as to which one to get... Geforce FX 5900 Ultra, or Ati 9800 Pro, I know they are both very good graphics cards, but whats your opinion? and what do they score in tests, thanks for your help

ScoobyDoo69

ATI 9800 Pro.

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.
FX5900 might have a slight lead looking at some of the early reviews but when you put cost into the equation its ATI all the way. Don't waste your money on a 256mb card either. 128mb is plenty :)

Darren

but what about for when games like Doom3, and HL2 which do you think will be in the lead then? because this is my main reason for wanting such powerful graphics cards

ScoobyDoo69

Check out Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com/)

There are reviews of both the cards you mention. They also managed to get a demo version of Doom III to test against

My read on this is that whilst both cards seem almost identical in performance today the FX will be better for the games you are talking about. The doom test illustrates this best.

I too am waiting for these games to come out to buy a new card. At the moment it will be an FX5900 ultra

Cheers

thanks for that website its very good, any more comments from anybody? or opinions?

ScoobyDoo69

9700 Pro, not much slower than 9800 but loads cheaper. Most overclock easily and safely to 9800 speeds.

how do i go about overclocking it?

The nvidia drivers have already been optimised for Doom 3 as nvidia has access to the game code whereas ATI do not (probably because it was ATI who released the alpha version of the game on the net).

At the end of the day, nvidias own 'Dawn' DX9 demo runs faster on a Radeon 9800 Pro than it does on a FX5900 with no ATI optimisations and better IQ.

Nuff said ;)

Post Nvidia 'cheating' fiasco review here http://www.ukgamer.com/article.php4?id=3&page=1

Don't attempt overclocking if you're not sure what you're doing - you could wreck your card. Mr Footlong (Nick) is the man to talk to on overclocking.

The developer of the Doom games, John Carmack, keeps a log of his opinions on both cards. The both seem fairly equal in his eyes, each strong at different things.

Both companies, NVidia and ATI are on 6 month product cycles and the next series of ATI cards are due shortly.

If money is no object I'd go for a Radeon 9800 Pro, which as mentioned, is essentially and overclocked 9700 Pro. Buy them from www.crucial.com (click international > UK)

Make sure the rest of your system is high spec too, eg. RAM, HDISK, CPU, MBOARD, AUDIO, or it won't be able to 'feed' the Radeon fast enough.

-DV

All i can say is if you are planning on playing doom3 etc you will be needing a card released around then, so NV40 or R420 which are both completely different cards from NV35 and R9800pro.

I would suggest buying a 9700 pro for now and then selling it and getting a card when doom3 is released. It should be noted doom3 has always been shown at E3 with an ATI card, the NV benchmarks where conducted on NV property using their engineers and are completely biased. Cormack himself says his benchmarks are identical for both cards! :D

Has to be the ATI9800, it's the way to go...

If getting a 9800 pro get a Hercules one, the blue orb fan is just way too cool! :D :D

Good sites to buy from include;
overclockers.co.uk
scan.co.uk
komplett.co.uk