9800 Pro or 6800LE?

[schmunk]

I am in the market for a new carte graphique (see my sig).

I have £140 to spend and want a brand new card (after my bad experience with Retek).

So, it's either 9800 Pro from various sources or 6800LE from order247. Both come to roughly £140 delivered.

From the limited info available 6800LE > 9800 Pro at stock and the 6800 may be unlocked / can be OC'd.

Does anybody have any good reason for me not to buy the 6800LE?

(No, I don't want to buy a 6800 / X800. Too expensive)

[skuzgib]

I was in the same boat as you, and decided to go for the 6800le, as the softmod success rate seems to be promising. see here:

http://forums.guru3d.com/poll.php?s=...lts&pollid=485

That poll covers 6800les and vanillas
There is also at least one success story with and order247 one (leadtek apparently)
linky

Hopefully gettin mine tonight so i'll let you know the results!

[schmunk]

Ignore this message

[schmunk]

Yeah, I phoned order247, shilly-shallying about whether to buy or not, they confirmed that their latest stock are Leadtek cards.

Have you bought one of these skuzgib, or from another source?

[skuzgib]

I'm picking one up from there tonight.
- edit - Ummm.... no i'm not any more... should be in the next few days...

[CrapshoT]

Yeah I'd get the 6800le as well m8.I know the 9800pro is a quality card,(I've just upgraded from one)but this new generation of gfx cards are excellent as well.The leap forward is massive and not just in benchmark scores either.Your whole gaming experiance will improve.If you dont like it you can always RMA/sell it for a 9800pro.but i bet you won't need too!!!

[schmunk]

Well, I cracked...

A 6800LE is ordered and on its way

Fingers crossed for successful unlocking!

[Rave]

I would have seconded the 6800LE had I got round to it in time. Even at stock it should beat a 9800 Pro, and you've a very good chance of unlocking at least some extra performance. Sorry if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs here, but the NV40 core has 16 pixel pipes in 4 blocks of 4 and then 6 vertex shader units. The 6800 LE has 8 pipes and 4 vertex shaders enabled. You therefore have 2 more blocks of pipes, and 2 vertex shaders to potentially enable. Even if you can't unlock them all without artifacts, you stand a very good chance of some of them working. Get one more block of pipes and one more shader working and you've got a 6800, they have 12x5 enabled as standard.

Rich :¬)

[schmunk]

I'm hoping to at least get 5/6 Vertex Shaders working.

I understand that the Pixel Pipes are somewhat less likely to softmod, but here's hoping

Will report back with glorious success / crashing defeat.

[skuzgib]

if I can get 12x1 and 5vp (a 6800nu) I'll be more than happy. TBH, anything extra is a bonus - if it can't be unlocked you get what you pay for - which is still a very capable card.