nVidia 8800 GT vs ATI 2600 XT for running EQ2.... your thoughts?

[Brutus2]

Hey all.  I'm looking into getting a new computer and I have seen many people on the official forums posting all sorts of problems running eq2 under Vista with the nVidia 8000 series video cards.I'm nervous about going with Vista since it seems buggy and a RAM hog but if this computer is to last me for awhile I figure I will need DirectX 10 at some point.  I looked at two Dell systems one with the 8800 GT and one with ATI HD 2600 XT.Anyway, I was just looking for some feedback from people using these cards as to how they handle EQ2.  Or any other advice / suggestions.

[Jal]

The 8000 series bug is hit and miss, i have it on my 8800GTX but its fine on my 8700M.  Its very hard to say which will work the best because it really is a combination of system specs and drivers that determine your performance, your best bet is to check technology sites like guru3d and such for people using similar rigs and possibly reviews of the cards.  Just remember though dont lisen to people boasting about 3dmark scores because in the real world they mean very little.As for Vista i now run it on both systems, id strongly suggest you go for more than 2GB ram no matter what vista you use.  32bit version will only use just over 3gb whereas the 64 bit versions can utilise all of it.  Dont listen to the general stories about vista its actually a nice OS once you learn how it works and driver support is much better now.

[Zakane]

As the said person above its a hit and miss.And sadly for me I am a hit - my 8800 GT works perfectly fine in - Crysis, Cod4 all Steam games, Halflife2, Portal, TF2 ect ectYet in everquest 2 from 30-an hour - I will get weird Artifacts then my system locks up. Even thought my card isn't over heating.But the nvidia 800 series are some powerful cards.