The Ultra is the best card on the page.  The GT probably best value/performance as you can overclock it to ultra speeds ok.

My XFX is still clocked higher than the BFG standard.  The BFG is 425/1100 the XFX is 425/1200.  I currently have my XFX running at 450/1200 with no problems.

Only thing I will say is an overclocked GT wont run as good as an Ultra.  Even when overclocked to Ultra speeds they never bench as well so maybe somthing is slightly different in their construction.

My latest 3dMark03 score with my card was 13457 or summin stupid like that 

Yup, both the Ultra and GT are 256. Both the ones I said are 256.  Not sure that all of todays games need it yet though! 

Rats.

• That's over the internet buying.  My dad pretty much doesn't do that.
• That's about $100 over-budget.  I'm trying to keep it under $300.

Get the best you can afford. I'd wait until the introduction of the 6600 AGPs which should be sometime next month.

I did have a list of the top graphics cards around here somewhere. The 6800 Ultra Extream Edition is the best one out there followed by the 6800 Ultra, 6800GT, and the Radeon X800XT.

The price/preformance ratio is pretty linear. The 6800 Ultra retails for about $600, the GT about 400$, the 6800 about $300, the 6600GT at $200, and the 6600 at $150.  US dollars of course to my best estimates.

As for brand. Each brand likes to add it's own special features. Faster memory, overclocked chips. The GPU at the heart of the thing is still the same wether it's an XFX, a PNY, or whatever.

Edit: There's also a Geforce 6200 comming out next month. It's expected to be pure PCI-Express. My FX5200 out clocks in in GPU speed but it does have fast memory. Will sell for $120

I'm awaiting the launch of the 6600GT (AGP) which I'm reliably informed by somebody who really knows his stuff, will be here before December.

It'll outperform the basic 6800 but at a considerable saving.

Ultimately 605, ANY of the 6800's even the base model 6800LE will trounce anything you've seen before, any of them will put a big smile on your face, the differance between the Geforce 5's & Geforce 6's is really that big.

Quote:


You can get the Geforce 6600 PCI-Express for about £150 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/6600_Series.html I'm informed the AGP will be a similar price, if not lower by the time it launches.
Hope this helps.

Well I can speak for the EVGA 6800 Ultra since I just installed it in a friends computer and did a fresh install of everything XP, FS 2004 and of course got all of the latest drivers prior to doing the wipe and reinstall.

In comparison to the ATI 9800XT that he had in the system before the 6800Ultra it does SMOKE (meaning FS9 runs extremely smooth by comparison) and the real oddity about it is that FS9 runs on this card better with sharper details of the scenery and textures in (get this) default setting in FS9 than it does with everything pushed up high all of the Scenery and textures seemed washed out with it set on the high settings but in the default settings the scenery and textures are clear and sharp.....

I keep thinking there has to be a setting I'm doing that isn't right or something that makes FS9 do that on the high settings.

I would love to see a good profile made for the 6800 cards for FS9  (with the new drivers you have the options of selecting pre-configured profiles for a game and some are included with the drivers for the more common games and you can tweak those profiles as well).

There are significant differences in the 6800GT and the Ultra and the biggest difference is in the Memory Speed.

Of course we were trying to get the Asus 9999Ultra but have benn unable to get itsince Asus informed us that they had no dates set for the release of the Ultra and the first available card was the EVGA so that is what we ended up with.

Marco

Oh and if you really are struggling to get good performance go here:

www.fs-gs.com

I guarantee once your system is setup by these guys it will be cleaner and run a hell of a lot better, faster and smoother.  Well worth the money