FX5900 Ultra question...

[Geeky1]

I'm looking @ a FX5900 Ultra because the R128 really, really doesn't like the KX7, it won't run in the A7N8X (AGP 2x card) and it's not of any use to me in my K7D-L... what's the use of 2.5GHz & 640GB w/o decent graphics? Normally I'd go for an ATi card, but since I have the 8500 (which is still reasonably fast btw) and since nVidia has this whole "The Way It's Meant To Be Played" deal w/ EA, I think I'll end up with a 5900 Ultra instead of a 9800 Pro 256... The question is whether any of the 5900 Ultras around now are better than any of the others? MSI, Gainward, and eVGA all have cards out now, and I don't really see much of a difference between them, except that the MSI only takes up 1 slot, which is potentially very useful since I'm not able to leave more than 1 slot below the AGP open (i need 1 66MHz PCI slot) so...

[SimGuy]

If you like to run your games as FAST as possible (highest FPS) and do not care about high levels of Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering technologies, choose the NVidia GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (performing 5-10% faster than the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro in raw benchmarks).

However, if you like to run your games @ high resolutions & enjoy cranking up the Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering on these games to damn near their highest levels and still expect to get a decent frame-rate, take the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. With AA & AF enabled, the Radeon 9800 Pro outperforms the FX5900 Ultra by a substantial margin.

If you have your mind made up on purchasing an FX5900 Ultra card, go with the MSI. The retail software package is comparable to the rest of the pack, but the card only requires 1 expansion slot in your system, where the other 5900's require 2.

[Geeky1]

simguy, yea I just looked @ some image quality comparisons between the 9800 and 5900, and, quite frankly, the 5900 looks like sh!t. So I'll probably get a 9800 Pro 256MB because that extra ram is gonna come in handy in the future... I like to run @ 1600x1200+ in 32-bit& aniso, so when games get more complex, that ram is gonna help...

[WuGgaRoO]

id go with the ATI...but the 9800 is soooo friggin expensive.... just wait until doom 3 comes out...and buy the most current card of that time...

[Geeky1]

I may, but I'm not sure I can handle a 3DMark 2001SE score of 968 until then...

[WuGgaRoO]

boo hoo frigiin hoo :) JK!!!
i can see ur concern...but u need to chill for a while and wait..everything is so expensive now its almostt ridicolous to buy a top of the line card...