x300 series and 6200 series: The new 9200SE and FX5200, respectively. If you want remotely decent gaming performance, avoid these.
x300 SE: 4 pipes, 64-bit DDR1 memory. 325mhz core, 400mhz memory.
x300: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 325mhz core, 400mhz memory.
6200: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 300mhz core, 550mhz memory.
x600 series: The x600 series has 4 pipes and 128-bit memory, making it simply a higher clocked 9600 series card. Don't expect it to be anywhere near as fast as a 9800 Pro, let alone the 6600s, 6800s, x700s, or x800s.
x600 Pro: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 400mhz core, 600mhz memory.
x600 XT: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 500mhz core, 740mhz memory.
6600: 8 pipe card with much slower memory than the 6600GT. Slow enough that its just not worth it, especially in comparison to similarly priced cards.
6600: 8 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 300mhz core, 550mhz memory.
x800 SE: 8 pipe card. Currently I have no idea whether this can mod or not, as it hasn't been out for long at all. What we do know is that it is about the speed of a 9800 Pro, although it does have much faster vertex shaders (about 50% faster). Compared to the other cards in its price range (6800 LE, x700XT), this card simply isn't worth it.
x800 SE: 8 pipes, 256-bit DDR1 memory. 425mhz core, 700mhz memory.
6600GT: 8 pipe card with 128-bit memory. Is about 20-25% faster than the similarly priced 9800 Pro, but its 128-bit memory cripples its antialiasing performance, knocking it back down near 9800 speeds when high levels of antialiasing are on. Still a great card though for the price, but nowhere near the 6800 or x800 series.
6600 GT: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 500mhz core, 1000mhz memory.
x700 series: These are very new, so little is known about them. But what I do know is that they are ATI's answer to the 6600GT, and are similar in speed--however, they seem to fall short of equaling the 6600GT's performance in most tests.
x700: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 400mhz core, 700mhz memory.
x700 Pro: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 420mhz core, 864mhz memory.
x700 XT: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 475mhz core, 1050mhz memory.
6800 LE: 8 pipe card which can often mod to a full 12-pipe 6800 non-ultra, and sometimes even 16 pipes (making it a great deal for the price). Barely faster than the 9800 Pro/XT, but can pack quite a punch when modded.
6800 LE: 8 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 320mhz core, 700mhz memory.
6800 Non-Ultra (NU): 12 pipe card which can often mod to a 16-pipe card, but won't be nearly as powerful as the GT as it still has only DDR1 memory. Considerably faster than the 6800LE (20-25%), but nowhere near the x800 Pro/XT or 6800 GT/Ultra.
6800 NU: 12 pipes, 256-bit DDR1 memory. 325mhz core, 700mhz memory.
x800 Pro: 12 pipe card which almost always cannot mod to 16 pipes (although there are a few lucky exceptions). Far faster than the 6800 LE and NU, but generally tends to lose against the 6800 GT. It is generally accepted that there is no point in getting an x800 Pro unless you're getting the VIVO.
x800 Pro: 12 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 475mhz core, 900mhz memory.
6800 GT: Underclocked 6800 Ultra. Minimally slower, hardly even noticable, but does only have one DVI connector, and has a single slot cooling solution and only one molex, although non-standard versions may have dual DVI and/or two molexes.
6800 GT: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 350mhz core, 1000mhz memory.
6800 Ultra: 16 pipe card. Far faster than the NU, and has full speed GDDR3 memory, unlike the LE and NU. Easily defeats the x800 Pro, but faces very stiff competition from the x800 XT and XTPE (and modded Pro VIVO).
6800 Ultra: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 400mhz core, 1100mhz memory.
x800 Pro VIVO: 12 pipe card which can ALWAYS mod to 16 pipes, unless its a Built By ATI. Most can hit x800 XT speeds, making this a low-cost substitute for an x800 XT. Easily matches the 6800 GT and Ultra in most tests.
x800 Pro VIVO: 12 pipes (mods to 16), 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 475mhz core, 900mhz memory.
x800 XT / XTPE: 16 pipe cards. Both of them are about tied with the 6800 GT/Ultra, winning by very slim margins in most tests.
x800 XT: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 500mhz core, 1000mhz memory.
x800 XTPE: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 520mhz core, 1120mhz memory.
Among the top cards (x800 Pro VIVO, x800 XT/XTPE, 6800 GT, 6800 Ultra), none in particular holds a very large lead in most cases. Of course ATI leads by up to 20% in Half-Life 2, and nVidia leads by up to and over 20% in Doom 3. But you shouldn't base a $400-$500 dollar purchase on the performance of a single $50 game. And also, these differences never affect playability--its more the difference between 80 FPS and 100 FPS, rather than 30 FPS and 45 FPS. So the main factor in your decision should be feature set--and both sides offer some very nice ones.
ATI (x800):
Temporal Antialiasing: This is nice. Very, very nice. Because it makes 2x AA look as good as 4x, and 4x look absolutely incredible (8x), with no performance loss. I personally love it. Can look a little weird at low FPS though, so watch out. However, at high resolutions, even at low FPS, the effects aren't really noticable.
3Dc texture compression: Would be really nice if games actually used it. AFAIK it gives quite a speed boost if implemented properly. I've also heard that there may be some games coming out with 3Dc--nothing official, but stay tuned. Hopefully this feature will be used more than just in the Ruby demo.
(Supposedly) better Windows D3D drivers: There seems to be some agreement that ATI has better Windows D3D drivers. And its probably justified--nVidia these days seems to have slightly more problems and bugs. But its not like either side has bad drivers, like ATI used to 2-3 years ago, so this shouldn't be a major deciding point.
6x Antialiasing: Nice to be able to brag about, but the difference between this and 4x isn't really noticable. Not important IMO.
A bit faster in a lot of games: Yup, thats ATI. All the 16-pipe x800s have small but noticable leads in a lot of major games, and ATI's driver squad seems to be holding them quite well. No matter how hard nVidia tries, they can't seem to catch up that last 5-10% (or up to 20% in Half Life 2!)
nVidia (6800):
SM 3.0: In the Far Cry 1.3 patch, SM 3.0 definitely sped things up, up to 15%, and much more in pixel shader bottlenecked areas. But until lots of games use it, this is pretty much dead weight--plus ATI x800s have PS 2.0b, which in some cases can offer similar gains.
8xS Antialiasing: Looks picture perfect, great for old games... but uses both supersampling and multisampling, making it phenomenally slow. Not very useful.
Digital Vibrance: Increases color saturation and vibrance. While it can make XP's jolly rancher-like colors even more straining on the eyes, it can improve the visual appeal of graphics in many games (especially those that use very dull colors) and helps a great deal on low quality monitors that don't have as much color saturation. However, this seems to be more of a personal thing--some love it, some hate.
Good Stereo Drivers: If you're one of those people who wants to try out stereo (3D) glasses with your computer and your games, then nVidia is for you--because ATI doesn't even support them in the first place.
OpenGL speed: nVidia has always had a pretty large lead in OpenGL. While ATI has closed the lead to 15-20% in Doom 3 through optimizations, nVidia will always hold a very large lead in OpenGL applications. But don't count out ATI--if a popular game like Doom 3 comes out and uses OpenGL, you can trust that ATI will have optimized drivers available within a few weeks to narrow the gap.
Linux drivers: This has always been ATI's weak point, and nVidia's strong point. The gap is so large that the Linux gurus I know would take an FX5200 over an x800 XTPE, simply because the FX5200 works. While ATI drivers will work in a number of games, they can be a hassle, and are astounding slow. Even at their strongest, in games like Doom 3 and UT2004, an FX5700 easily pummels the x800 series. In other words, Linux and ATI don't mix. Of course, this isn't important if you don't use Linux.
SLI: If you go for the PCI-Express version of the 6800, you can hook up two 6800s and get up to double speed in most games (much less if the game is CPU-bound, obviously). Of course, this is quite expensive, and requires an nForce4 board. In other words, if you have all the cash in the world, there's no doubt which graphics card you should choose. But if you can't afford to spend $1000 (two 6800GTs + nForce 4), this won't matter much. Plus, ATI apparently will be releasing "AMR" (ATI Multi Rendering) as a counter to nVidia's SLI.
Video Processors: Both the x800 and 6800 series (along with some of the others, but I'm not entirely sure yet) have built-in video processors that can speed up encoding and decoding by taking the load off the CPU, but they're not the same. Here's the lowdown.
x800 series
1. Supports hardware decoding of all major formats (WMV, DIVX, MPEG4/2/1, Real). However, only VIVO x800s support encoding acceleration also.
2. Supports image quality improving techniques (not just deinterlacing, but using shaders to improve the IQ of compressed movies).
6800 series
1. Supports hardware encoding and decoding of MPEG1/2/4, but not all formats. WMV is also supported, but apparently the 6800 series video processor doesn't support WMV, only the 6600.
2. De-interlacing techniques similar to those of ATI, along with the shaders.
3. Nvidia is trying to get companies to support the chip so that the encoding is also accelerated. Currently, ATI's chip only speeds up the encoding when you are capturing from a source like a TV card.
出處
x300 SE: 4 pipes, 64-bit DDR1 memory. 325mhz core, 400mhz memory.
x300: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 325mhz core, 400mhz memory.
6200: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 300mhz core, 550mhz memory.
x600 series: The x600 series has 4 pipes and 128-bit memory, making it simply a higher clocked 9600 series card. Don't expect it to be anywhere near as fast as a 9800 Pro, let alone the 6600s, 6800s, x700s, or x800s.
x600 Pro: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 400mhz core, 600mhz memory.
x600 XT: 4 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 500mhz core, 740mhz memory.
6600: 8 pipe card with much slower memory than the 6600GT. Slow enough that its just not worth it, especially in comparison to similarly priced cards.
6600: 8 pipes, 128-bit DDR1 memory. 300mhz core, 550mhz memory.
x800 SE: 8 pipe card. Currently I have no idea whether this can mod or not, as it hasn't been out for long at all. What we do know is that it is about the speed of a 9800 Pro, although it does have much faster vertex shaders (about 50% faster). Compared to the other cards in its price range (6800 LE, x700XT), this card simply isn't worth it.
x800 SE: 8 pipes, 256-bit DDR1 memory. 425mhz core, 700mhz memory.
6600GT: 8 pipe card with 128-bit memory. Is about 20-25% faster than the similarly priced 9800 Pro, but its 128-bit memory cripples its antialiasing performance, knocking it back down near 9800 speeds when high levels of antialiasing are on. Still a great card though for the price, but nowhere near the 6800 or x800 series.
6600 GT: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 500mhz core, 1000mhz memory.
x700 series: These are very new, so little is known about them. But what I do know is that they are ATI's answer to the 6600GT, and are similar in speed--however, they seem to fall short of equaling the 6600GT's performance in most tests.
x700: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 400mhz core, 700mhz memory.
x700 Pro: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 420mhz core, 864mhz memory.
x700 XT: 8 pipes, 128-bit GDDR3 memory. 475mhz core, 1050mhz memory.
6800 LE: 8 pipe card which can often mod to a full 12-pipe 6800 non-ultra, and sometimes even 16 pipes (making it a great deal for the price). Barely faster than the 9800 Pro/XT, but can pack quite a punch when modded.
6800 LE: 8 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 320mhz core, 700mhz memory.
6800 Non-Ultra (NU): 12 pipe card which can often mod to a 16-pipe card, but won't be nearly as powerful as the GT as it still has only DDR1 memory. Considerably faster than the 6800LE (20-25%), but nowhere near the x800 Pro/XT or 6800 GT/Ultra.
6800 NU: 12 pipes, 256-bit DDR1 memory. 325mhz core, 700mhz memory.
x800 Pro: 12 pipe card which almost always cannot mod to 16 pipes (although there are a few lucky exceptions). Far faster than the 6800 LE and NU, but generally tends to lose against the 6800 GT. It is generally accepted that there is no point in getting an x800 Pro unless you're getting the VIVO.
x800 Pro: 12 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 475mhz core, 900mhz memory.
6800 GT: Underclocked 6800 Ultra. Minimally slower, hardly even noticable, but does only have one DVI connector, and has a single slot cooling solution and only one molex, although non-standard versions may have dual DVI and/or two molexes.
6800 GT: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 350mhz core, 1000mhz memory.
6800 Ultra: 16 pipe card. Far faster than the NU, and has full speed GDDR3 memory, unlike the LE and NU. Easily defeats the x800 Pro, but faces very stiff competition from the x800 XT and XTPE (and modded Pro VIVO).
6800 Ultra: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 400mhz core, 1100mhz memory.
x800 Pro VIVO: 12 pipe card which can ALWAYS mod to 16 pipes, unless its a Built By ATI. Most can hit x800 XT speeds, making this a low-cost substitute for an x800 XT. Easily matches the 6800 GT and Ultra in most tests.
x800 Pro VIVO: 12 pipes (mods to 16), 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 475mhz core, 900mhz memory.
x800 XT / XTPE: 16 pipe cards. Both of them are about tied with the 6800 GT/Ultra, winning by very slim margins in most tests.
x800 XT: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 500mhz core, 1000mhz memory.
x800 XTPE: 16 pipes, 256-bit GDDR3 memory. 520mhz core, 1120mhz memory.
Among the top cards (x800 Pro VIVO, x800 XT/XTPE, 6800 GT, 6800 Ultra), none in particular holds a very large lead in most cases. Of course ATI leads by up to 20% in Half-Life 2, and nVidia leads by up to and over 20% in Doom 3. But you shouldn't base a $400-$500 dollar purchase on the performance of a single $50 game. And also, these differences never affect playability--its more the difference between 80 FPS and 100 FPS, rather than 30 FPS and 45 FPS. So the main factor in your decision should be feature set--and both sides offer some very nice ones.
ATI (x800):
Temporal Antialiasing: This is nice. Very, very nice. Because it makes 2x AA look as good as 4x, and 4x look absolutely incredible (8x), with no performance loss. I personally love it. Can look a little weird at low FPS though, so watch out. However, at high resolutions, even at low FPS, the effects aren't really noticable.
3Dc texture compression: Would be really nice if games actually used it. AFAIK it gives quite a speed boost if implemented properly. I've also heard that there may be some games coming out with 3Dc--nothing official, but stay tuned. Hopefully this feature will be used more than just in the Ruby demo.
(Supposedly) better Windows D3D drivers: There seems to be some agreement that ATI has better Windows D3D drivers. And its probably justified--nVidia these days seems to have slightly more problems and bugs. But its not like either side has bad drivers, like ATI used to 2-3 years ago, so this shouldn't be a major deciding point.
6x Antialiasing: Nice to be able to brag about, but the difference between this and 4x isn't really noticable. Not important IMO.
A bit faster in a lot of games: Yup, thats ATI. All the 16-pipe x800s have small but noticable leads in a lot of major games, and ATI's driver squad seems to be holding them quite well. No matter how hard nVidia tries, they can't seem to catch up that last 5-10% (or up to 20% in Half Life 2!)
nVidia (6800):
SM 3.0: In the Far Cry 1.3 patch, SM 3.0 definitely sped things up, up to 15%, and much more in pixel shader bottlenecked areas. But until lots of games use it, this is pretty much dead weight--plus ATI x800s have PS 2.0b, which in some cases can offer similar gains.
8xS Antialiasing: Looks picture perfect, great for old games... but uses both supersampling and multisampling, making it phenomenally slow. Not very useful.
Digital Vibrance: Increases color saturation and vibrance. While it can make XP's jolly rancher-like colors even more straining on the eyes, it can improve the visual appeal of graphics in many games (especially those that use very dull colors) and helps a great deal on low quality monitors that don't have as much color saturation. However, this seems to be more of a personal thing--some love it, some hate.
Good Stereo Drivers: If you're one of those people who wants to try out stereo (3D) glasses with your computer and your games, then nVidia is for you--because ATI doesn't even support them in the first place.
OpenGL speed: nVidia has always had a pretty large lead in OpenGL. While ATI has closed the lead to 15-20% in Doom 3 through optimizations, nVidia will always hold a very large lead in OpenGL applications. But don't count out ATI--if a popular game like Doom 3 comes out and uses OpenGL, you can trust that ATI will have optimized drivers available within a few weeks to narrow the gap.
Linux drivers: This has always been ATI's weak point, and nVidia's strong point. The gap is so large that the Linux gurus I know would take an FX5200 over an x800 XTPE, simply because the FX5200 works. While ATI drivers will work in a number of games, they can be a hassle, and are astounding slow. Even at their strongest, in games like Doom 3 and UT2004, an FX5700 easily pummels the x800 series. In other words, Linux and ATI don't mix. Of course, this isn't important if you don't use Linux.
SLI: If you go for the PCI-Express version of the 6800, you can hook up two 6800s and get up to double speed in most games (much less if the game is CPU-bound, obviously). Of course, this is quite expensive, and requires an nForce4 board. In other words, if you have all the cash in the world, there's no doubt which graphics card you should choose. But if you can't afford to spend $1000 (two 6800GTs + nForce 4), this won't matter much. Plus, ATI apparently will be releasing "AMR" (ATI Multi Rendering) as a counter to nVidia's SLI.
Video Processors: Both the x800 and 6800 series (along with some of the others, but I'm not entirely sure yet) have built-in video processors that can speed up encoding and decoding by taking the load off the CPU, but they're not the same. Here's the lowdown.
x800 series
1. Supports hardware decoding of all major formats (WMV, DIVX, MPEG4/2/1, Real). However, only VIVO x800s support encoding acceleration also.
2. Supports image quality improving techniques (not just deinterlacing, but using shaders to improve the IQ of compressed movies).
6800 series
1. Supports hardware encoding and decoding of MPEG1/2/4, but not all formats. WMV is also supported, but apparently the 6800 series video processor doesn't support WMV, only the 6600.
2. De-interlacing techniques similar to those of ATI, along with the shaders.
3. Nvidia is trying to get companies to support the chip so that the encoding is also accelerated. Currently, ATI's chip only speeds up the encoding when you are capturing from a source like a TV card.
出處
