Radeon 9800Pro vs Nvidia FX5900 - Opinions?

[ZeroAce]

I just bought a Radeon 9800Pro. It works great in all the games I have except one: World War 2 Online.
Considering that I bought the new video card for that game in the first place, I'm contemplating returning my Radeon for an Nvidia. But there are a variety of factors here so I'd like to get some opinions of others to aid me in this decision.


First off, the main issue: There is some kind of wierd conflict my Radeon has with my mobo or soundcard that only crops up in WW2OL, thus rendering the game unplayable during combat. Other players do suffer from this problem, but then others do not because they have newer mobo's and soundcards.

Secondary issue: Radeon's drivers don't support the 4000x4000 textures that WW2OL uses for it's speedtree system, so I have to use the crap 2000x2000 low res versions.

Third: WW2OL is openGL, and my impression is that people are getting better FPS with the nvidia cards because of it.



Now the bad part of getting the NvidiaFX5900:

- According to tomshardware benchmarks, the Radeon 9800Pro out performs Nvidia in most games and applications. There are only a handful of games where the Nvidia pulls ahead (such as Doom3), although I'm not sure exactly why that is.

- Half-Life 2. Performance in this game is going to be a big deal for me, and Nvidia gets almost half of the performance as a Radeon9800Pro!
Supposedly the upcoming drivers should help...



Conclusion:
I can live with the lower res tree textures and the relatively less FPS in WW2OL if it means having better performance in all other applications, but the Radeon hardware conflict in WW2OL is what prompted me to consider changing my card.

Now, this hardware conflict can also be solved by me buying a new mobo and soundcard (and by default, buying a new CPU), but that route is very expensive, so it will be a while before I save up enough to buy a good enough CPU and mobo to justify the change.

Basically, I'm here hoping you guys can convince me that the NvidiaFX5900's performance is practically just as good as the Radeon, so I won't really lose out if I switch now instead of waiting for a mobo/CPU upgrade.



Thanks.

[nwo75200]

well u ARE definitely gonna lose out, but! one thing u can do is buy nvidia's geforce 6800GT

i mean u r gonna lose but its not that much, only a few frames, so if u must, then do it, my advice would be get somethin else like 6800GT

and the last but... if u must get 5900series get the 5900xt, the difference between the xt and the 5900 is around 5%, but the price is maybe $20-30, so go for the 5900xt or 6800GT

[gambler2611]

Try updating your sound/mobo drivers. The graphics card you have in there should last a good while so I wouldn't worry about it.

Andy

[ZeroAce]

If I could afford a 6800GT then I'd just upgrade my mobo and CPU to solve the problem.
The idea here was that I was going to return my Radeon 9800Pro back to the store and use it's credit to buy an Nvidia FX5900.

I've been up and down the configuration and drivers of my system already - It's no use. The game is simply fubared with my current hardware configuration.

[washe]

You pretty leveld up thing, you want support for the upcoming games then IMO the radeon was well spent money, also what are your specs? maybe its time for an upgrade as you said too.

[ZeroAce]

AMD 1900+
1024 RAM (A 2100 and a 3200 chip)
Windows XP
Soundblaster 5.1

Yes, my CPU and soundcard are a bottleneck, but there are some people with 3ghz CPU's and Radeon9800Pro's are getting the same problem as me with WW2OL.

[bombledmonk]

And how much did you pay for the 9800pro? Here is another question to pose... are you sure the 5900 will fix the problem?

[ZeroAce]

I payed $200 for the Radeon 9800Pro.

And I'm 99% certain that switching to the Nvidia would solve my problem with WW2OL.

[The Real Bingo]

If you want to compare, or ask for opinions, just do a search for "9800 vs 5900", or something. You will be astonished at the plethora of threads created for this matter.