hey guys - been a while since i posted (i havent even shown my ghetto watercooling yet and its been done for at least 2 months!

basically i havent upgraded my graphics card in an age - i'm using a geforce3 the good old!! now my geforce3 has never really been heavily messed with, i changed the cooler and oc'd it.. its coped great i bought it when it was brand spanking new and its given me its £315 worth and i love it to bits..

but times have changed and i feel with hl 2, doom 3, quake 4, and serious sam 2 on the horizon its time my little red baby became recycled to an older pc.

so lets upgrade! now like i did with the gf3 i will get the top card and make it last as long as possible to get its worth, but the computer industry is tbh becoming a right pain in the ass as we are at the dawn of a big architecture change -64 bit cpus pci-e ddr2 mobos -jeez you can already read about the next graphics cards and they cannot even supply the current ones demand.

so the question really is which card do i get which kicks butt and will at least be great for a long time (games do take some time to catch up with technology)

will it be the ati x800 xt which is a good card - but may fail to keep going with only pixel shader 2 and atis drivers..which myself i didnt think was an issue anymore??
or will it be the 6800 ultra which is a power hungry beast based on older chip design but does support ps 3 and nvidias optimizing drivers do keep there card going well

overclocking and modding can be an issue so if i can save cash without compromising performance or if i can get the more expensive and push it further then i will!!

cheers guys for reading my essay Tim

Look into the 6800GT, It's overclockable to 6800ultra speeds, so says the reviews I've read...

get the 6800gt, its cheaper then the ultra almost as good, less power demands, and overclocable to ultra speeds. Best card out in my opinion

well i was on the eye for the ati cards, but both of you are saying nvidia!
is there any reason for this? the benchmarks of them both are very close but i was of the oppinion that the radeons were just that little better..not to mention it is possible to softmod the pro and with a pencil overvolt the core and overclock pretty well considering

the 6800 has shader 3 support, its cheaper, and i just like it better

hehe good answer but as a question/statement to throw back

'there is nothing ps 3 can do that ps 2 cannot with coding'

this is what i have read anyway if anyone can enlighten me to its validity it would be much appreciated

shader 3 is NOT jsut optimization. And when shader 2 uses extra code to do what shader 3 can do it is slower. The 6800 is the best of choices right now if you ask me. Its cheaper, overl****ing ability is amazing, and shader 3 is jsut icing.