GeForce 6800 Ultra vs Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition | Card Battles

This classic match of 2004 is revisited here in the first of a new sub-series called Card Battles!

Platform specs:
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ @ 2.8GHz
2GB PC5000 @ DDR510
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2
Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD
Windows XP Professional 32-bit
Drivers: Catalyst 10.2 / Forceware 163.71

[PixelPipes]

When I was gaming on the PC in 2004, I just had a GeForce 6800 (no suffix). What card did you have that year, and how well did it run the games you were playing?

[wakesake]

The days when ATi was king
I miss those days when games were epic and tech was evolving crazy fast, the last 5/6 years have been shit

[MaTtRoSiTy]

2004 was a great year for gaming for me. However the 6800 Ultra was only a dream and I had to settle for upgrading my FX5600 XT to a 6600GT, which was an awesome upgrade at the time...

[chrisv]

I remember getting a GeForce 6800 to replace my GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, it was a big upgrade. I was finally able to run HL2 in DX9 mode at high settings and it looked next-gen at the time. Doom 3 and Far Cry were also beautiful and blew me away.

Now all these years later I'm rocking a RTX 4070 and I'm very impressed by its performance. I read that the 6800 Ultra has raw compute performance of 53 gigaflops whereas the 4070 has 29 teraflops. If we do the math that means the 4070 has 547 times more raw compute performance than the 6800 Ultra. Now add in DLSS upscailing and frame generation and the performance of the 4070 just gets ludicrous. GPU tech has come a long way in 19 years.

[cyphaborg]

I just saw a EVGA Geforce 6800 Ultra on ebay for $499, that's crazy... I understand nostalgia but that will buy you a very decent modern GPU.

[BurkeSchneider]

Awesome video, I really enjoyed this one. I was an avid 9th Grade gamer in 2004. I cant help but agree and also relate closely to your closing thoughts. It was a great time to experience. We had Doom 3 and Half Life 2 and Far Cry. I was lucky enough to be using an ATI 9700 Pro in early 2003. One of my close friends later purchased a 6800 GT and we were just blown away at the performance.

[sgtjarhead]

I was one of the first to get my hands on a X800XT PE. Was the envy of the all the HW forums at the time. Still one of my favorite cards of all time. Came boxed with an ATI Ruby demo CD and an awesome X800XT PE t-shirt that featured the minotaur that was used on the retail box. Wore that t-shirt until it came apart over the years. I think I still have that card laying around in a box somewhere. Great memories.

[c-dub]

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR VIDEOS ARE SO WELL DONE!!! I was born in 1990 and remember being 14 and 15, my brother having an Asus EN6800GT PCIE (i still have that card) and an athlon64 3500+ all driving a 1600x1200 monitor at his house. My father's computer had a athlonXP 2400+ and and geforce2 mx400 driving 1280x1024 res (later i bought a geforce 6200 for HL2, from money earned by washing my dads car every week for two months). HALF-LIFE 2 came out and i eagerly looked forward going to his house for SUBSTANTIALLY better framerates. I've since acquired all his exact hardware, and playing through HL2 again, it couldn't consistantly hold 60FPS at max 1080P, and infact was quite rough at times. HL2 really wants a duel core and a 7900GTX or even a 8800GTX if you want hold 60FPS solid! I love having a small collection of cards and CPUs to relive my teenage years, and having to constantly battle between smooth franmerates and image quality, all while saving up, allowance after allowance, for my next GPU upgrade!

[francise.eichleriii]

Before I got a 6800 ultra, I had a radeon x800 gto with the disabled pixel pipes unlocked. Love both cards.

[emanemanresuresu]

Dude, i had a x800 pro or something and flashed it to XTPE. Great times!

[FusionC]

I just bought a X800XT 256MB PCI-E card a few weeks ago, I paid 10 dollars. Glad to see it kick ass.

[PinkFloydFreak]

I know this is an old vid, but thanks for the nostalgia- around 2004/5 I didnt have a PCIE system but my old Sempron based system DID have AGP8X and the 6800XL from XFX came in that interface - my god the performance boost that little 15 year old me got after working all summer for that card and a PSU to push it. Been gaming on PC predominantly since.

[totalrandomtechnolog]

Indeed 2004 was an amazing year! Yet i remember still struggling along with my aging Geforce 3Ti 200 that could run UT2k4 more or less ok...
As for Doom3, well it was destroyed by it :)

[KNnY_G]

Awww man, I remember my X800, pencil modding it, loading the XT BIOS up.

Those, man were those the days.

[NightSprinter]

Amazingly, my 2004 retro build was a Shuttle XPC I founf at a thrift store in Orlando. Had a 3.2GHz P4, 2GB DDR-400, and a 6800GT. Was surprised to pay $40 after tax for it all. Runs the games I want for that era rather nicely.

[Obie]

I also remember the time fondly when I purchased my 6800 GT. I was rocking then an ATI 9600XT on an Intel P4 3.0 ghz Northwood. (875 chipset) Steam came shortly after with Half life 2/Orange box. Great times ahead in gaming. Thanks for the video PixelPipes!

[dfxvoodoo]

Best Retro - Vintage Channel in youtube!

[DJpiya]

At that time X800XT was kind f a dream come true GPU, it ran out of stock v soon, went through many troubles to find one, golden time with Underground 2 😍😍❤

[LegacyIvyTerascale]

0:00
NFS Underground 2 one of my personal favorites
GTA San Andreas best video game ever
FIFA 2005
Halo 2
Gran Turismo 4 in Japan
Spider Man 2
Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes
Burnout 3 Takedown
Counter-Strike Condition Zero
Final Fantasy XI
Unreal Tournament 2004
World of Warcraft
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap
Counter Strike Source
Far Cry
RalliSport Challenge 2 not for PC 😥
The Sims 2

[foch]

This was an awesome generation and you did a great job with this.