Nvidia's affordable DirectX 10 cards benchmarked

no seriously is this worth the buy? I mean my birthday is coming up in May and I want to get myself a present and its this card or the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX(512MB) do they do the same performance wise? or does the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS beat every affordable card in the market right now?

Get yourself a 8800GTS instead. You get much more bang for the buck.

ExtremeTech is late in benchmarking these cards (as usual, come on Ziff Davis) and from the benchmarks already done, these cards underperform in DX9 games compared to similarly priced ATI cards (which aren't Direct X 10) So in other words, if you want to future proof yourself, these cards probably aren't your best option (Since if they don't handle DX9 that well...what hope is there that they will handle DX10 any better?) The 8800GTS is definitely a better deal, but I'm really waiting on Crysis. If Crysis is so incredible, then I might upgrade, but so far it doesn't seem like it's all that amazing (atleast not compared to other games in the genre like FEAR etc).

Everyone should wait to buy DX10 compatible video cards. Why?

No great DirectX 10 games are coming out that soon. If you're waiting for Crysis, then I'm talking to you. Waiting is your best bet. The card you want right now will be cheaper by then, not only that, but Vista (which is -needed- to even -use- DX10) will be more updated, and the video card drivers will be more updated by then. Just wait.

Well, im glad my 7950GX2 will still have some life in it. Added bonus of getting it for only $300. Ba-zing! Just debating on Halo 2 and need Vista for it. :D

"Unfortunately, we don't know if these new mid-range graphics wonders are going to be "enough" for true DX10 content. Simply put, there are no real DX10 games for us to try out."

This is all that needs to be said. If anyone is buying these cards for DX10 support, they are fools. Simply put, they are the kind of people that buy the latest and greatest video card just for the sake of having one for the bragging rights. Sure, the 8800 cards offer excellent performance in DX9 games, but still, a 7950GT can run anything out right now at the max settings in most situations for half the price.

So why buy these 8800 cards? I just don't get it. The only DX9 game that I can see taking advantage of the 8800 cards is UT3. It won't be out until September. By then ATI's R600 cards with the unified shader will be out. I'm willing to put money on the fact that the R600 will shred the 8800 cards to shreds. nVidia is simply cashing in on the fact that they are the only DX10 cards on the market right now. Plain and simple.

Do yourself a favor. Wait for the R600 and it's variants or at least nVidia's next lineup of DX10 cards.

Sad to see these new cards get owned by the often sub $150 X1950 Pro.

I would suggest the same. ATI has yet to release the R600's, which should be ready by the time we see some excellent DX10 titles and booster packs, ie...Company of Heroes DX free add-on, World in Conflict, Crysis, and UT3. Right now, I have an ATI 1950pro, which runs all games out there very nice, and I myself am waiting for ATI, but if they prove not to hold up to the nVidia cards, nVidia will be cheaper by then, thus making them a better purchase, and more bang for your buck.

AMD/ATI has such AWFUL open source drivers. Nvidia is not much better but at least Nvidia supports linux much better. As much as I hate to kick AMD/ATI while they are down - Nvidia gets my dollars and will continue to do so until AMD/ATI is able to put out decent linux drivers.

ATI does not even have 3d stereo drivers - in fact I am not even sure they have any at all. Nvidias is not much better but still - it far exceeds what ATI has.

"Simply put, there are no real DX10 games for us to try out."

Huh? Flight Simulator X was designed for DirectX 10, and is also probably the most visually demanding game on the market (seriously - it has to render *thousands* of objects at any given time, with hundreds of miles of draw distance in all directions).

It may not be everyone's cup of tea from a gameplay standpoint, but it's pretty ridiculous for ET to suggest there are "no DirectX 10 games" for them to test. It's almost like they didn't even look.

I'm waiting until Nvidia puts out the 8900's

I just ordered the XFX 8600GT. Some of us don't HAVE $75 more dollars to spend on a 8800GTS. $75 is a lot of money. And don't give me crap like it's half a day's pay for you, because you still have to pay taxes and use that money to keep you alive.

I'm still trying to figure out why I want to buy a DX10 card when there are no DX10 games out.

Personally, I'm not all that interested in DX10 support. I'll probably buy a new computer before I upgrade to Vista anyway. What I'm interested in is the price-to-performance versus older video cards. For example, how does the 8600s compare against the 7600s in price and performance on existing DX9 games. That's what I really want to know, and it seems like companies could be running those tests. (Also, ExtremeTech does tests on the 8600 GT Superclocked and says it's overpriced for its performance. Great, but what about the regular 8600 GTs which cost as little as $150? And how about some actual charts like tomshardware.com?)

@ 9 UO Guy you said that AMD/ATI dont have 3d stereo drivers, well get this information on your brain now because you will be surprised that ATI R600 has a secret weapon revealed,by the way ATI R600 was yesterday april 23rd and today april 24th in Tunissia

last news about ATI R600;

R600 HAS A secret weapon, an internal sound card. This is the one thing that Nvidia's G8x can't match, other than HDCP on dual-link HDMI.
The ATI sound implementation is not GPGPU code. It is dedicated silicon, probably brought on by the Vista DRM infection and MS twisting arms to force it on people.

In any case, R600 will be compliant with the Vista requirements and can send sound directly over a HDCP/HDMI link. We are told this is a full HD sound setup, not a cheesy 2.1 channel thing.

In contrast, NV G8x parts can't do this. They have to run an external cable from the sound chip to the GPU. This may not sound like much but it blows out several kinds of auto configuration and worse yet violates Vista logo requirements. One has to wonder if this is why NV can't seem to make a functional Vista driver six months in.

The problem with Vista is that the DRM infection mandates that you do not share S/PDIF output over unencrypted links. R600 does this by combining audio and video streams, then pumping them out over HDCP infected links. This is user antagonistic DRM, but it complies with MS logo requirements, and they don't care about user experiences any more than the content mafiaa.

Add in that the R600 can do dual-link HDCP and you are going to be swimming in bandwidth, more than enough to pipe sound down.

Nvidia's G8x on the other hand can't do dual link HDCP at all, so if you have a 30-inch monitor, you will get a black screen. At that point, sound is the least of your problems.

Basically it looks like the sound card in R600 is going to be the killer app for home theatre type apps. G8x simply can not do what is needed here, buggy drivers or not. While the DRM infection stinks, at least R600 will be able to comply.

i meant ATI R600 launch begun yesterday and today april 24rd......