NVidea 6800 or 7800?

I am buying a PCI Express card for my system soon and am wondering the
difference between these cards. I have been trying to decide between
NVidea and ATI. From what I've read it seems the x800 is faster than
the Nvidea 6800 but yet the 7800 is faster than the X850.
What makes my buying decision hard is I use my computer for almost
everything. I play games on it but as well use it for playing DVD's,
rendering video, graphic design, as well as general office use.
I want a card that has HDTV outputs (DVI and component) as well as
possibly digital inputs since I plan to hook it up to a HDTV with
time.
Any ideas of which cards I should look at? There are so many
different companies making these cards such as ATI, ASUS,
Sapphire,Leadtek, EVGA, MSI, BFG, and PNY, etc.

"MarkW" wrote:

I am buying a PCI Express card for my system soon and am wondering the
difference between these cards.snip

Any ideas of which cards I should look at? There are so many
different companies making these cards such as ATI, ASUS,
Sapphire,Leadtek, EVGA, MSI, BFG, and PNY, etc.

My vote is with the http://www.bfgtech.com

Fabulous cards: 24/7 support, lifetime warranty. And they mean it, too.

I love my BFG nVidia GeForce 6800GT OC (factory overclocked to 370 MHz,
with16-pipe superscalar GPU with 256MB off GDDR3 memory)

But it's (ohmygosh!) AGP, but it also comes in PCI-e flavor. Yeah - AGP
Cro-Magnon here, and *likes* it! Until later, anyway...

Mark (also a "MarkW", by the way)

MarkW wrote:

I am buying a PCI Express card for my system soon and am wondering the
difference between these cards. I have been trying to decide between
NVidea and ATI. From what I've read it seems the x800 is faster than
the Nvidea 6800 but yet the 7800 is faster than the X850.
What makes my buying decision hard is I use my computer for almost
everything. I play games on it but as well use it for playing DVD's,
rendering video, graphic design, as well as general office use.

Any current production video board should do all that quite nicely--just
make sure you get a decent brand--some of the bottom feeders use
substandard secondary components that do unpleasant things to the image
quality.

I want a card that has HDTV outputs (DVI and component) as well as
possibly digital inputs since I plan to hook it up to a HDTV with
time.

The only kinds of digital video input you can get on a PC for a reasonable
price are modulated ATSC (or one of the equivalents used in countries other
than the US that have different video standards) or Firewire. For HDMI,
DVI, or component you're talking pro equipment.

Any ideas of which cards I should look at? There are so many
different companies making these cards such as ATI, ASUS,
Sapphire,Leadtek, EVGA, MSI, BFG, and PNY, etc.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Yeah I have that same card (BFG 6800 GT OC) and love it.
--
Scotter


"MP" wrote in message
nk.net...
"MarkW" wrote:

I am buying a PCI Express card for my system soon and am wondering the
difference between these cards.snip

Any ideas of which cards I should look at? There are so many
different companies making these cards such as ATI, ASUS,
Sapphire,Leadtek, EVGA, MSI, BFG, and PNY, etc.

My vote is with the http://www.bfgtech.com

Fabulous cards: 24/7 support, lifetime warranty. And they mean it, too.

I love my BFG nVidia GeForce 6800GT OC (factory overclocked to 370 MHz,
with16-pipe superscalar GPU with 256MB off GDDR3 memory)

But it's (ohmygosh!) AGP, but it also comes in PCI-e flavor. Yeah - AGP
Cro-Magnon here, and *likes* it! Until later, anyway...

Mark (also a "MarkW", by the way)

I'd get top of the line minus one level but wait a few days because Nvidia
is just about (on the 11th - tomorrow) to introduce a couple new cards to
the 7800 line!
So if they introduce GT & Ultra, I'd get the 7800 GT if I were you. The
Ultras are typically priced quite a bit higher but the performance diff
between GT and Ultra is negligable compared to that price diff.
So then you'll have a card that is (a) FAST AS HELL; and (b) will last you a
good long time. Yeah, it will probably cost around $400 to $450, depending
on what deal you find. I recommend name brands like BFG & MSI. But I've had
lousy experience with MSI's tech support and I hear good things about BFG.
I've heard good and bad about PNY. ASUS is a motherboard MFGR in my mind but
maybe they are good with video cards? Nowadays I like BFG because I got my
6800 GT OC for $350 at www.Outpost.com which was a great price over a year
ago when you could find plain GTs for more! The OC, in case you don't know,
stands for "OverClocked out of the box," which means your card runs faster
than plain GTs without you having to tinker with it and it is under
warranty. Some people like to get a GT and overclock it themselves. That can
be dangerous and just plain time consuming. What I hear is the GT OC's tend
to be higher quality GTs that can handle the overclocking well. Just be sure
you have a good overall setup for heat dissipation because they will run
slightly hotter than a plain GT.
Many recommend Zalman's after-market video card cooling.
I personally like the NVsilencer, which is what I put on my card. One thing
I really like about it is that it ejects the hot air out the back of the
case, rather than keeping it inside the case where it can raise ambient
temps. http://www.systemcooling.com/nv_silencer5-01.html It was also very
easy to install.
Dunno about "digital inputs" on these cards but dual DVI out is typical.
--
Scotter

"MarkW" wrote in message
...
I am buying a PCI Express card for my system soon and am wondering the
difference between these cards. I have been trying to decide between
NVidea and ATI. From what I've read it seems the x800 is faster than
the Nvidea 6800 but yet the 7800 is faster than the X850.
What makes my buying decision hard is I use my computer for almost
everything. I play games on it but as well use it for playing DVD's,
rendering video, graphic design, as well as general office use.
I want a card that has HDTV outputs (DVI and component) as well as
possibly digital inputs since I plan to hook it up to a HDTV with
time.
Any ideas of which cards I should look at? There are so many
different companies making these cards such as ATI, ASUS,
Sapphire,Leadtek, EVGA, MSI, BFG, and PNY, etc.