9800 GTX or 4050 Radeon?

[Revanna]

<p>Hello,</p><p>I might be looking at buying a computer tomorrow, either with a 3.2 E8400 Intel doublecore and an Ati 4050, or a </p><p>Intel Quadcore with a Nvidea 9800 GTX, but I think Nvidea has problems with running Everquest, right? </p><p>The latter card would be cheaper though, and perhaps I could almost go with that better processor (6600 @ 3.2GHz4x). Have the Nvidea problems gotten better with the new card 9800 GTX, or even gone?</p><p>Any advice?</p><p>Thank you in advance if so</p><p>Tiath</p>

[Nail]

Not everyone has problems with the nvidia cards , and some people have problems with ati cards. My self I have an ait2900xt with no problems and my wife has a 8800gts with no problems.As far as the processor goes , I use the e8400 myself and for gaming its a better processor than quad core. There really arent many games out there that use even dual cores and EQ isnt one of them , so 2 cores or 4 cores wont make a difference as it only uses 1.

[Smirk]

i'd get a e8400 and oc it to around 4ghz (if lucky!) and a 4850, will run eq2 better than the other setup

[Araxes]

The Radeon 4870 is in direct competition with the new GTX 260 series from Nvidia. Price points and performance are about the same. Buying a GF9800 would actually be a step down from buying a R4870. The R4870 series is a better vehicle than the GF9800 series, which is now one generation old. (Yes, I know, it just came out, but Nvidia got spooked by the Radeon 4850 and rushed out their newest GTX 260 and 280 lines as well as cut pricing on the 9800's by a huge amount).Currently, from the reviews I've read, the 4870 is the better card than the GTX 260 --but requires an after-market cooler due to high temperatues. This is all technical -- the GTX 260 performs equally well and runs cooler, but most reviewers and tech heads are reporting that the Radeon 4870 is a shade better the hardware. I don't suppose having 800 independent transistors has ANYthing to do with that ... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />However, if you can afford the GTX 280 -- that is the best card money can buy as of August 2008. Crushes all benchmarks and all other cards.But as we know ... EQ2 does what it wants. System specs and this game don't always mean what they mean in other games.Oh, and you better have a mobo that supports PCI 2.0 or this is all pointless. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Cassea]

<a href="http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=559&card2=566" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards...9&card2=566</a>The 9800GTX is the much better card by far... not even in the same class - for EQ2You see ATI has very powerful shaders but EQ2 does not currently use shaders. EQ2 uses the old "brute force" approach to rendering graphics and in this regard the Nvidia is much faster.Look at the link aboveShaders/special effects is listed under GFLOPS, the old way (that EQ2 was programed for) is listed under Texture fill rate. In newer games the ATI will hold it's own pretty darn well, in EQ2 the 9800GTX rules.In fact the much cheaper Nvidia 9600GT holds it's own against the ATI 4850... Look here:<a href="http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=557&card2=566" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards...7&card2=566</a>The 9600GT should be packaged with every copy of EQ2 <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I love ATI and I think there new line of 4xxx cards are really nice but for older games that are not shader heavy... well you have to go Nvidia right now. In games that use tons of shaders and then I pick ATI but in reality both companies make great product.What people need to realize that in EQ2 there is very little diference between a $130 video card and a $400+ video card. If you are playing other games then enjoy that expensive video card but if you think dropping a few hundred on a video card will get you 60fps in EQ2... well think again.

[Smirk]

<p>erm, if anything i would say 4850 and 9800gtx are at least very similar in performance.. which again wont matter much in eq2 if you sit on a slow cpu :p</p><p><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.anandtech.com/video/show...aspx?i=3341&p=1</a></p>