The 6800Ultra is arguably better than any of ATI's current offerings. Its pretty much a tossup right now. If you are a doom 3 player Nvidia's 6800ultra beats ATI's x800xt platinum. If you are talking about half-life 2... well the x800xt platinum hands the 6800ultra its ass in a paper sack. I myself own a 6800gt, a great card. From all my researching, it was the best way for me to go (and trust me i researched...). If i was to buy a high end card right now, I would go with the 6800ultra for sure though. Sure half-life 2 wouldnt be the best possible, but still great. Right now the 6800ultra is where its at.

Oh yes, the ultra is most certainly PCI-E. Hence the new nvidia SLI system that uses PCI-E!
-Jonathan aka JonnyBlaze

I'm not so sure yet that the NVidia top-end cards are necessarily 'better' than the ATi top-end cards. In the long run the reversae may prove to be correct, and we can only really assess them based on today's games rather than tomorrow's games. Remember, the more time went on the more the 9xxx cards drew ahead of the FX5xxx cards in terms of performance. But I suspect that with their PS 3.0 capability, this time around NVidia might have the edge.

But I tend to discount the very 'top-end' cards from consideration because they're not realistic market place alternatives. Everybody talks about them, but hardly anybody really ends up having them! In the latest analysis done by Steam, for example, there are more people logged in using an ancient TNT2 card or onboard i810 graphics than there are people using a 'top of the range' card from either ATi or NVidia, for example!


In their respective price brackets, I'd consider the 6600GT and the 6800GT to be currently the best 'bangs per bucks' display cards available. In the lower price brackets, the 9800 Pro and the FX5900XT still hold the crown in their price brackets, and I'd not consider anything lesser to be still a worthy purchase for a gaming rig.

well hlp me out here, i am really considering a high end card in the near future, if pci-e is really worth it, then I will get a new motherboard with nforce 4 with pci-e for socket 754 , if not Ill just buy the 6800Ultra.

If I was considering that sort of monetary outlay I'd be opting for Socket 939 AMD, rather than Socket 754 AMD, as future processor upgrades (or the initial processor purchase) can be more powerful than Socket 754 will ever go.

PCI-E has potential benefit over and above AGP. But don't expect to see results from that potential initially, because those will come from software rather than from hardware. When games make use of the additional bandwidth available, PCIE cards will perform well in excess of their AGP brethren. Current PC games, despite their complexity, simply don't use enough bandwidth to make a dent on the performance difference

my 3400+ is perfect for me, Im able to run many games on full settings with no problem, i just want to get a better video card because my old 9600XT is outdated and in some damanding games it isnt cutting it.

no to sound rude, I asked for which video card would be better not what cpu to get. :-|

I personally wouldn't change a moytherboard for use with the same processor. An AThlon64 3400+ coupled with a 6900 Ultra AGP display card would give bucketloads of performance, now and into the future. There's been no definite avnnouncements of an BForce4 Socket 754 motherboard as yet, although there have been strong murmurings that such a thing will be made available.

But I think the extra money a new motherboard would cost would be better used going into savings towards the NEXT major system upgrade.

thats all I wanted to hear, my amd 64 3400+ is exactly perfect for me, but I know my 9600Xt isnt gonna continue to cut it in future games,

Now I have an other question, I am a person who does not need the best possible things for pc,

I was thinking will a 6800Gt be good enough. because it is $100 cheaper and when I upgrade in another 3-5 years I will diffentaly go pci-e and having a 6800Ultra which I spent $500 on will seem like a waste when i need to upgrade to pci-e.

So will a 6800GT with 256MB be decent and provide me with excellent gaming for another 2-3 years? or around that, is it possible?

remember the 9600XT already plays my games just like I want them too, expect for doom 3 on ultra.

I've personally got an FX5900XT, and not planning to upgrade it for another 12 months at least. I'd be incredibly happy with a 6800GT, and as I said before, I think it's the best value high performance card available at present. It's pretty hard to predict 3 years into the future, but I'd be sure such a card would give good value for a long time to come!

yeah if I get the 6800GT ill just overclock it to the speed of a 6800Ultra, there isnt much difference