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Old October 18th 04, 01:02 AM
Bob Knowlden
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TW,

I don't know if a system with an nVidia chipset would be happier with an
nVidia graphics card. I'd hope not. (I'm using an nVidia card with an Asus
A8V mainboard, with a Via K8T800Pro chipset.)

That said, the Geforce 6800 cards are quite nice. However, the ATI Radeon
X800 cards are competitive with them. All are expensive.

There are several 6800 models. The vanilla 6800 has 12 graphic pipelines.
The card that you mention has 128 MB of DDR3 memory on board. The 6800 GT
has 16 pipelines. All of the GT cards I've read of have 256 MB of DDR3
memory on the card. Different manufacturers use different clock settings on
their cards: the PNY GT is clocked at the standard rate, 350 MHz for the
graphics core, 1000 MHz for the memory. There's also the "ultra" model,
which is similar to the GT model, except it's clocked higher: I believe that
the normal settings are 400 MHz for the core, 1100 MHz for the memory. (The
Ultra also has two Molex connectors for additional 12V power, unlike the one
on the GT. I believe that Ultras usually come with 2 DVI connectors, while
most GTs have one HD15 connector and one DVI.) I vaguely recall that there
may be an Ultra Extreme model, which may be scarce and expensive. There are
rumors of a 6800LE with 8 pipelines, but they are supposed to be aimed at
the OEM market. (If you can find one, it might be the best bargain.)

I hope that I'm not boring or confusing you too much, so far.

The 6800 GT is expensive enough: approx. $400 US, although you may do better
(www.newegg.com).

I have a PNY 6800 GT. The bundle was a bit lacking: it including nothing but
the card, a DVI-to-VGA adapter, a Y power adapter (for the auxiliary power
to the card), and a thin installation manual. It didn't even include
*drivers*, just a note giving a download location for them. (I guess I was
an early adopter.) I've heard complaints about PNY support, but I haven't
needed that so far. One complaint is that the guarantee on a card ends when
it goes out of production.

The Geforce 6X demos that should have been included with the card are
available for download from nVidia. I'm on a cable modem, so the download
times were tolerable. The demos weren't all that exciting to someone who
isn't a graphics maven, though (IMHO).

If a $400 graphics card is a bit rich, you might consider the 6600 or the
6600 GT. I believe that these are still available only as PCI Express cards,
and I imagine that your mainboard needs AGP. The AGP versions are supposed
to be coming, but no dates have been announced that I've read. Soon, I'd
guess.

HTH.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

"GolfNut" wrote in message
...
suggestions?? i use my system for all different things from general
use to gaming to digital photo editing.

i use a giga-byte motherboard based on the Nvidia chipset...should i
consider switching to an Nvidia based video card for better
compatibility or does it really matter?? i currently use an ATI card.

if i switch to Nvidia based...what brand? i have used PNY in the
past...i liked the card a lot.

considering:

PNY Verto 6800 GT 256MB (what does the GT stand for??)

or

PNY Verto 6800 128MB??

suggestions??

thanks in advance!
tw