in some cases the X700 XT scored worse than the 9700 pro... i think ati needs to work on their drivers.

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Please pay careful attention to the test page -- the 9700 Pro was tested on a (more suited to gaming) Athlon 64 system which makes the results not absolutely comparable.

The Athlon 64 system is our video test rig, and rerunning all our cards on a p4ee system when the A64 gives results we can use as a reference just didn't make sense.

As stated on the test page, the directly comparable cards are the GeForce 6600 GT, the Radeon X700 XT, and the Radeon X600 XT.

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Again we see ATI=DX, nVidia=OpenGL. It's interesteing that the gap in DirectX games is narrowing. ATI needs to get better OpenGL support somehow and do it quick. These cards are pretty evenly matched (diff of only 2-4 FPS avg.) - until you get to OpenGL. NVidia comes out on top by 15-20 FPS in those benches.

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The specs on paper look good, but for some reason the x700 doesnt perform.
With aa/af enabled you'd expect the x700 to beat the 6600gt in dx games thanks to ati's optimizations/cheats, but it doesnt. Go figure.

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So now long before these mid-range solutions are available in AGP? Seems incredibly silly to me that they weren't first released in AGP form! I can't use either nVidia's or ATI's midrange solutions in my midrange system (A64 3000+). Strangly though, if I wanted to blow $400 on a video card I could always get an x800!

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#3: I think it would be fairer to say that under DX ATI/nV are in a situation of win some, lose some. I wouldn't say the ATI cards are superior - read the Conclusion again.

However, like Derek said it remains to be seen how the cards perform with a mid-range system.

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#5: HardOCP's conclusion states that the AGP version of the X700 will be not be available soon, but before Christmas.

I read somnewhere(?) that the AGP version of the 6600 would be available sometime in October...

Make of that what you will.

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That makes more sense since ATI's has to make a seperate core for the AGP version while Nvidia doesn't and can use thier HSI.

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The real issue is this, nVidia, has dedicate die space to shadowing functions specificaly requested by John Carmak for use with the Doom 3 engine. Nvidia obliged, yes ATI's openGL drivers are POS's but even if they were up to snuff Doom 3 will still favor nVidia. That said it all boils down to where do you thing the better mods/engine licenses will go Doom 3, or Half-Life 2, and is the small discrepency between the 6600 GT, and 700 XT realy worth those few extra frames in HL2, as compared to the significant frame rate difference in Doom 3, and the subsiquent games based on that engine. Not to mention PS 3.0 support. I'll gladly spend $10 extra for a better card.

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if you have a PCIe system, why would you waste your $$ on an entry level card???? these cards should be released on AGP if they want any to sell.

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