© 2004-2007, Lyberty.com

		2004			2005	2006			2007
2000		Generation 03-04 (2003)	Generation 04		Note: PCI Express replaces AGP 8x ..... May 2005: You own: .... 128MB DDR .... ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Desired upgrade: .... 256MB .... GeForce 6800 GT	Low	MidLevel	High
two important features were added to the GeForce2 MX ( that made up for performance losses from the previous nVidia card release). 1. TwinView, which allowed for dual monitor setups. 2. the GeForce2 MX added firmware support for the Apple Macintosh. Apple later named the GeForce2 MX the high end graphics card for the new Apple Power Macintosh G4 - a big win for NVIDIA	ATI Radeon 9700	Geforce 5950 or 6600GT Vs. Radeon 9800 Pro ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (4x AGP) vs. Nvidia GeForce 6600GT or GeForce FX 5950 Ultra GeForce FX 5900 Ultra GeForce FX 5900 GeForce FX 5900 XT       9800 "Pro" is better than "Platinum": After doing a little digging, we quickly discovered that the 9800 Platinum Edition is nothing more than a Radeon 9800 Pro GPU cut-down a little to help reduce the retail price for consumers. The 9800 Platinum Edition only uses a 128-bit memory bus compared to the 256-bit on the “true” 9800 Pro and the memory speed is a little slower on the Platinum Edition by around 40MHz (80MHz DDR) which gives the “true” 9800 Pro the ability to push about 2GB more bandwidth per second.	TOPLEVEL: 6800 Ultra vs. X800 XT "The GeForce 6800 is a generation newer than the Radeon 9800 Pro, and will acordingly give significantly better performance. The GeForce 6800 GT is faster still, and the 6800 Ultra Extreme is the top. Comperable ATI cards are the x800 series (Pro and platinum XT)." Ultra/Platinum/Super Special: GeForce 6800 Ultra / ATI Radeon X800 XT-PE NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out GPU: 400 MHz ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out GPU: 520 MHz "Radeon X800 XT or GeForce 6800 Ultra? Tough choice!" "ATi used to have a lower clockspeed than Nvidia, yet offering better performance. Things seem to have reversed now, ATi needs a 520MHz graphics processor to keep pace with Nvidia’s 450MHz processor, this means that Nvidia’s new architecture is faster and more efficient."   see below for MID LEVEL	December 2004. Alienware Offers As "Mid-Level": NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT PCI Express 256MB DDR3 or ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB DDR3 Levels: 1. ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out [+155] 2. ATI RADEON X800 XT 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out [+100.] 3. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out [+80.] 4. ATI RADEON X800 PRO 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out 5 .NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out [-45] 6. ATI RADEON 9600 XT 128MB DDR w/Digital and S-Video Out [$-310] 7. ATI RADEON 9550SE 128MB w/Digital and S-Video Out [-415]	Fall (Sept) 2004. Alienware Offers As "Mid-Level": Dual NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 [Dual GPU, meaning two graphics cards running in parallel ("SLI" or "CrossFire"l] (note: they seem to have stopped offering ATI cards...) Levels: 1. Dual NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX KO ACS PCI-E 256MB DDR3 with SLI [+$505] [Dual GPU, meaning two graphics cards running in parallel] [KO ACS: not sure what that means, but it looks like a double card that requires only a single card slot, as opposed to other 'Dual GPU' models...] 2. Dual NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX PCI-E 256MB DDR3 with SLI [+$430] [Dual GPU, meaning two graphics cards running in parallel] 3. Dual NVIDIAGeForce 7800 GT PCI-E 256MB DDR3 with SLI 4. Dual NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 Ultra PCI-E 256MB DDR3 with SLI - Before $300 Instant Rebate! [+$685] 5. Dual NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 GT PCI-E 256MB DDR3 with SLI [+$295] 6. Dual NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6600 GT PCI-E 128MB DDR3 with SLI NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 GTX KO ACS PCI-E 256MB DDR3 - May delay your order [+$225.] 7. NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 GT PCI-E 256MB DDR3 [+$70] 8. NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7800 GTX PCI-E 256MB DDR3 [+$185] 9. NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 Ultra PCI-E 256MB DDR3 -Before $150 Instant Rebate ! [+$140 or $5/mo.] 10. NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 GT PCI-E 256MB DDR3 [-$56] 11. NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6600 GT PCI-E 128MB DDR3 [-$180]	Low End: GeForce MX 4000 GeForce FX 5500 GeForce FX 5200 GeForce 6200 LE Radeon 9550 Radeon 9250 Radeon 9200 Radeon X300 Radeon X300 SE Radeon Xpress200 Low/Mid Range: GeForce FX 5800 Ultra GeForce FX 5800 GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GeForce FX 5700 LE GeForce FX 5600 GeForce 6600 GeForce 6200 GeForce 6200PCI "Currently Best NVIDIA PCI Card" GeForce 6200 TC GeForce 7100 GeForce 7300 GS GeForce 7300 LE GeForce 7300 Go Radeon 9800 XT Radeon 9800 Pro Radeon 9800 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9600 XT Radeon 9600 Pro Radeon X600XT Radeon X600 Pro Radeon X550 Radeon X1300 Pro Radeon X1300 Radeon X1300PCI        "Currently Best ATI PCI Card"	Mid Range: GeForce FX 5950 Ultra GeForce FX 5950 GeForce FX 5900 Ultra GeForce FX 5900 GeForce FX 5900 XT GeForce 7300 GT GeForce 7400 Go GeForce 7600 Go GeForce 7600 GS GeForce 7700 Go GeForce 6600 GT GeForce 6800 GeForce 6800 LE Radeon X700XT Radeon X700 Pro Radeon X600XT Radeon X600 Pro Radeon X550 Radeon X1400 Radeon X1450 Radeon X1550 Radeon X1600 Pro Radeon X1600XT	Mid/High End: GeForce 6600 GT OC GeForce 7600 GT GeForce 6800 GT GeForce 6800 GS GeForce 6800 Ultra GeForce 6800 GT OC Radeon X800XT Radeon X800XT AIW Radeon X800 Pro Radeon X800XL Radeon X800GTO Radeon X850XT PE Radeon X850XT Radeon X1650 XT Radeon X1650PRO "Currently Best ATI AGP Card" High End: GeForce 8800 GTS - DirectX 10 GeForce 8800 GTX - DirectX 10 "Currently Best NVIDIA PCI-e Card" GeForce 7950 GX 2 GeForce 7950 GTX 2 GeForce 7950 GT GeForce 7900 GS GeForce 7900 Go GeForce 7900 GTX GeForce 7900 GT GeForce 7800 GTX GeForce 7800 GT GeForce 7800 Go GeForce 7800 GS < "Currently Best NVIDIA AGP Card" Radeon X1950XTX <  "Currently Best ATI PCI-e Card" Radeon X1900 GT Radeon X1900XTX Radeon X1900XT Radeon X1900 Crossfire Radeon X1900 AIW Radeon X1800XT Radeon X1800XL AIW Radeon X1800XL Radeon X1800GTO Radeon X1800 Crossfire Radeon X850 Crossfire	2007 SAMPLE: Alienware "below $2000" PC options as of MAY 2007 NOTE: Graphic card options are exactly the same for all models. Dell (who now owns Alienware) must have a contract deal with NVIDIA... See 2004 and 2005 at left for cross-reference. Area-51 7500 "Quad Core and SLI" Aurora 7500   Intel Core 2 Duo AMD Athlon 64 X2 Single Graphics Processor  256 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8600 GTS  320 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 GTS - (Superclocked)        [+$180 .]  768 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 GTX       [+$400 .]  768 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 Ultra       [+$800 .]  Dual Graphics Processors [+$360 .]  Single Graphics Processor  256 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8600 GTS  320 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 GTS - (Superclocked)       [+$180 .]  768 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 GTX        [+$400 .]  768 MB NVIDIA® GeForce 8800 Ultra ddddd [+$800 .]  Dual Graphics Processors [+$480 .]  ALX ($4,200 !!!!) units offer: Dual 768 MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX - SLI Enabled  Dual 768 MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 Ultra - SLI Enabled [+$500 .]   GeForce 8600 GTS and 8600 GT use "NVIDIA's 1st quarter 2007 G84/G86 graphics boards / G80 GPUs" Recommended for Cysis: NVIDIA 7800 Series or better Recommended for Unreal Tournament 3:
		Notes: [Aug 2004] "For those thinking of the 9600 series cards . . .I have been saying for months that people would be better off finding a used 9700Pro than buying a new 9600Pro or 9600XT. Finally I have something to back that up with, thanks to neoseeker. [Aug 2004] "There are some real steals for hardware right now and this includes the Athlon 2500+ Mobile, 9600XTs, and 9800Pros. The Mobile is all of 80$, 9800Pros are easily under 200$ and the 9600XTs run in the 120$ range." Take a look at this review: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/H...rton/index.html	MIDLEVEL: (comparable 256 MB) 6800 GT vs. X800 Pro NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB PCI Express x16 ATI Radeon X800 XT 256MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) LOWER LEVEL: (comparable 128 MB) ATI Radeon X300 SE 128MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X800 SE 128MB PCI Express x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT and 6600 PCI Express The cheapest GeForce 6800 256 MB in Oct 2004 is the "eVGA e-GeForce 6800 Limited Edition AGP 8X 256MB DDR3 Video Card w/TV-Out & Dual DVI Retail " --$350 The cheapest GeForce 6800 256 MB in May 2005 is the "eVGA e-GeForce 6800 PCI Express 256MB DDR Video Card w/HDTV-Out & DVI Retail" --$290	News/ Intros/Notes: August 2004: "There has been a flood of DOOM 3 benchmarks on the web, almost all of which are focusing on the high end of the market with benchmarks from Athlon FXs, P4EEs, 6800 Ultras, X800 XT PEs and all of this high end equipment that most people do not own. . ." "The GeForce 6800 (designed to fill the rather large performance and price gap between the GeForce 5950 Ultra and the GeForce 6800 GT) is based on the same NV40 core architecture as the more expensive 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra cards. The major difference is that nVidia disables four of the pixel pipelines in the core, meaning there are only twelve rendering pipelines open instead of sixteen on the more expensive models. This fact alone means that at the same clock speed, the 6800 model will be 25% less effective in terms of pixel/texture fill rate compared to the 6800 GT and Ultra parts. Still, even with twelve pipelines, the architecture is a major step forward compared to nVidia's previous generation NV35. " more December 2004: ATI introduces their new flagship graphic card, the Radeon X850 XT PE (Platinum Edition) Tthe X850XT PE is ATI's new, PCI-E only, top-end graphic card that replaces the X800 XT PE, which never really saw much availability in the retail market anyway. Basically the X850XT PE is ATI’s fall refresh part and besides a minor increase in graphic processor and memory clockspeed it doesn’t offer much in terms of new features." "Besides the X850 series ATI also launched a whole range of PCI-E graphic cards based on the new R423 graphics processor, which makes ATI’s top-end line-up rather confusing. As of today we have the option of choosing between a X800, X800 SE, X800XT, X800XT PE, X800 XL, X850 Pro, X850 XT and X850XT PE -- to complicate matters further some of these cards are also available in AGP."	News/ Notes: 2005, May: NVIDIA PureVideo technology is available in the following NVIDIA graphics solutions: GeForce 6800 GPUs GeForce 6600 GPUs GeForce 6200 GPUs GeForce Go 6800 GPUs GeForce Go 6600 GPUs GeForce Go 6400 GPUs GeForce Go 6200 GPUs 2005, May: BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3/8x-AGP/TV-Out/DVI (Retail Box) [$400 as of May 2005] 2005, May 31: ATI Announces CrossFire Multi-Graphics Processor Platform ( CrossFire motherboards and video cards introduced ) ATI has announced their answer to NVIDIA's SLI with their CrossFire platform which includes both video and motherboard solutions that many companies are unveiling now at Computex in Taipei COMPUTEX – TAIPEI, TAIWAN – May 30, 2005 – ATI Technologies Inc., (TSX:ATY, NASDAQ:ATYT), a leader in graphics and media processors, isrevolutionizing gaming with the introduction of CrossFire™, the ultimategaming platform. The CrossFire platform has been designed to give gamersthe best performance and more flexibility and game compatibility than anyother multiple graphics processor platform. It combines the power of ATI’sRadeon® Xpress chipsets for Intel and AMD processors, a standard Radeon®graphics processor and a Radeon® CrossFire Edition graphics card to bringmassive performance and image quality to gamers. When gamers add a CrossFire Edition graphics card, which includes theCrossFire compositing engine, to their Radeon Xpress powered system theyare doubling their graphics rendering potential.				"Notebook GPUs for MS Windows Vista": (list from the NVIDIA Site as of October 2007) GeForce 8600M GPUs GeForce 8400M GPUs GeForce Go 7900 GPUs GeForce Go 7800 GPUs GeForce Go 7600 GPUs GeForce Go 7400 GPUs GeForce Go 7300 GPUs GeForce Go 7200 GPUs GeForce Go 6800 GPUs GeForce Go 6600 GPUs GeForce Go 6400 GPUs GeForce Go 6200 GPUs GeForce 7000M/7150M GPUs GeForce Go 6100/6150 GPUs = "Motherboard GPU Solution" NVIDIA Quadro NVS 320M GPUs NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M GPUs NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135M GPUs NVIDIA Quadro NVS 130M GPUs NVIDIA Quadro NVS 300M GPUs NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120M GPUs NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M GPUs   (2007 Oct) Increases in prices are outpacing actual improvements in technology by a wide margin. The GeForce 256 DDR launched at about $300, GeForce 2 Ultra and GeForce 3 launched at around $350, GeForce 4 Ti4600 was close to $400, GeForce FX 5800 Ultra and 5950 Ultra were close to $500 at launch, and the 6800 Ultra has launched at over $500. SLI and cross fire appear to be more for increasing sales than improving user experience: for 40% maximum performance gains, users now spend twice as much to get two video cards instead of one.
									Nvidia's 8600 series, a bit underwhelming? Wednesday, April 18, 2007 07:30am EDT Nvidia's new DirectX 10 8600 series was introduced yesterday, but from what we have seen thus far we are a bit underwhelmed. Ultra Hydra 1GB

2006 List taken from: http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43899

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=2459505

2006: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&pgno=0

2007 notes (April 2007; this section last updated Oct-2007):
SLI reality check: SLI (and "CrossFire" for ATI cards) is supposed to enable you to buy two less expensive video cards and connect them together to get as much video processing power as one much more expensive card. But it hasn't worked out that way...

"Testing dual graphics cards in SLI configurations with the 8600-series of cards on Windows Vista 64-bit turned out to be a bit of a letdown. There were really only a couple of games that showed dramatic improvement: Prey and Oblivion. The other four titles didn't show enough of a performance gain to warrant the purchase of a second 8600 GTS or GT card; in fact even on games like Prey and Oblivion you'd be hard pressed to convince me that $450 for a pair of 8600 GTS cards is a better option than a single 8800 GTS 640MB card that you might be able to find for about $400. "

Results for Battlefield 2142 (DirectX 9) on Vista, Dual core system:
xfx nvidia 8600 GT "xxx" card: average Frames-Per-Second: 42.6 fps
xfx nvidia 8600 GT "xxx" card,x2 in SLI mode: average Frames-Per-Second: 49.1 fps
Percentage improvement: ~15 %
xfx nvidia 8600 GTS card: average Frames-Per-Second: 50.9
cost difference between two 8600 GT cards ($110 each) and one 8600 GTS card ($200): 10% more
So for SLI, you might get a 15% performance improvement if you spend another 10%; hardly results to
write home about. For a 100% cost difference, you might get up to %30 improvement if you SLI-chain two 8600 GT-S cards together instead of using just one GTS card...

Power consumption, and the associated HEAT and NOISE issues, should also be considered when you're
deciding whether or not to go with SLI-chained cards:
=Testing sample: Power consumption under load=
One xfx 8600 GTS card: 243 watts
Two xfx 8600 GT cards: 272 watts
Delta: ~12% more power consumed with two lower power cards over one GTS card.

Price check 24 Oct 2007:
> BFG Technologies GeForce 8600 GTS Video Card (PCIe, 256MB, PCI Express x16, Dual DVI) : $210 to $220
> XFX GeForce 8600 GT "XXX" Video Card (PCIe, 256MB DDR3, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, w/ free Company of Heroes PC Game) : $110
> XFX GeForce 8600 GTS "XXX" Video Card (PCIe, 256MB DDR3, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, w/ free Company of Heroes PC Game) : $200

Results for Company of Heros on Vista 64-bit Dual-core system:
"At the lower 1280 x 960 resolution, we see a 39% improvement for SLI-chained GT cards
(and a 40% FPS gain for SLI-chained GTS cards). At 1600 x 1200 we see a 27% improvement for both setups. Those numbers aren't exceptionally high, and we are used to seeing numbers over 50% in our Windows XP testing of SLI, but these gains are at least something..." {src}
xfx "xxx" frame rate for Rainbow Six Vegas at 1280x960, 0x anti aliasing, 16x AF: 25 FPS average
"All GeForce 8600 GTS cards feature HDCP support over two dual-link DVI outputs"

8600 GT (x2) 256MB vs 8800 GTS 320MB (x1): (86 vs 88):
1 8800 GTS will give you 227/133/48 at 1600x1200
1 8600 GT will give you 93/54/21 at 1600x1200

8600GT SLI : 3dmark06 1280x1024=7872 1600x1200=6652
1x 8800GTX vs 2x 8600GT SLI: 8800GTX is + 44% !

> Recommended for UT3: Nvidia 7800 GTX or better
> reviewers of the bioshock game claim that the 8800 GTS 640 MB is not good enough for the game
at 1920x1200 resolution [Note: the Dell 30" widescreen ($1,275) supports 2560 x 1600, while the Dell 24" runs at 1920x1200] with 4x Antistopic Filtering , and recommend the 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra instead. [Disclaimer: these fools were using only 2 GB while running Direct X 10 on Vista...] However, when run at 1600 x1200, the 8800 Ultra (768 MB) only outperforms the GTX (768 MB) and GTS 640MB slightly, and the GTS averages between 45 and 50 FPS. When run at 1280 x 1024 (directx 10 mode), the GTS 320 MB is more than sufficient, beating the performance of the 8800 Ultra (768 MB) in 1600x1200 test. For 1600x1200 in directx 9 mode, the 8800 768MB dominated the GTX and GTS, while the GTX and GTS were evenly matched. When AntiAliasing x4 was turned on at the 1600x1200 size (dx9) however,

Links:
(Q4 2007): the PC Perspective Hardware Leaderboard
(Q3 2007): xfx 8800 GTS "xxx" vs bfg 8800 GTS 320 MB (compared)
(Oct 2007): Price check: XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB Xreme DDR3 PCI-Express Video Card w/Dual DVI & HDTV-Out Retail (Free Shipping) [PVT80GGHE9]: ZipZoomFly: $260 after rebate (as part of system: $310)