Hi all,need help,i'am about to upgrade my graphics card card and i'am willing to spend up to £380 on it,before we i got any further,i'am like to says that,1)i'am not some rich spoilt child who mothers getting this graphics card for him,or anything like that,(I say this because i tryed asking this question on a different site and all i got was people saying that i'am a spoilt b$£&&*D that doesn't deserve this amount of money to spend on a card)i'am a soldier and i work very hard for my money,anyway..,i have been looking at the ati x800 pro and x800XT PE,and the geforce 6800 gt and ultras,i have also heard that the ati x800pro can be modded some how ot the x800 xt,by some how enabling the extra pipelines,if the is possible can does this mean that its as fast as the x800 xt?,A huge thanks to all those that help me on my quest for power. ~david ps:any else the in the british etc army?

Normally modding an ATI card involves flashing the BIOS in it. Think VERY carefully if it's worth the risk before you do it. If it fails, there's a decent chance it will destroy your video card, and if that happens, the manufacturer can surely tell it was a BIOS flash. If that's ok with you, go for it, but on a card that expensive, I'd say it's not worth the risk. Also, any card you are considering will make your Barton CPU a bottleneck, so until you upgrade your motherboard, cpu, fan, you're not going to see much difference by flashing it anyway. As of benchmarks now, it appears the 6800 line is faster, but I'd like to see more benchmarks with more advanced DX9 games (Half Life 2) before I'd say it's the best card, but if you need to make a decision now, the best evidence suggests the 6800 line is better. Hope this helps... MCSE, MCSA Messaging, baby!

I concur, go with the 6800 series. Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb AMD Barton 2800 Asus A7N8X E-Deluxe 512 DDRAM PC2700

6600 series to be released "soon" http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040812/index.html Here's a review of DOOM3 cards: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040809/index.html

how will my cpu be a bottle neck??,its not that old,and its not crap.

Nope.. It'snot that old.. Nor is not not crap.. But the GPU are amazingly fast... They are so extremely powerful that it's hardly worth buying a top of the line one unless the rest of your system is top of the line. I would personally wait for the 6600 ultra. It should be 200-250 dollars * cheap huh? * and should be quite good. From what i've read quite a bit better than 5950. But if you do, MAKE SURE you get the 6600 ultra over the 6600. There's a HUGE clock difference.

Oh yeah, I would wanna make sure ( or as sure as possible ) I'm not gonna be sent anywhere before I buy it.. :-P That'd be bad.