I have the 800XL and had a 6800 agp. It really depends on the deal
you get , the price but I think nvidia has an edge. They also have
shader model 3 in their cards where ATI didnt at least they didnt
until the recent cards came out. They didnt in the older 800 and less
line.
At the time there was lots of talk of ATI blowing Nvidia away cause
their 6800s were ridiculously priced for a long long time. People
though they would start coming down right away but they seemed to stay
super high and even went higher after this year began a bit. I bought
my 6800 AGP for 200 last Thanksgiving and thought I would end up
selling it months later when I went PCI express for maybe 150 or so
but I sold it for $230 on EBAY !!!! The prices were ridiculous with
prices up to 300-400 for a while especially PCI express.
So ATI comes out its rumored with this 800XL which is roughly equal to
a 6800 but will sell for $260-300, thought it would clean up the mkt.
However ATI seems to have problems with production and nvidia seems
able to flood the mkts when it wants to with 6600gts and 6800s.
The main thing ATI has going for it besides price if you can get it at
a better price than the nvidia which I doubt is - at least the 800XLs
take lower power , smaller sized card and doesnt need an extra power
plug. The 6800 I had needed an extra power plug and was really long.
Bumped into my 3.5 cage in my older Antec case. It was huge. And there
were rumors it was a huge power hog at first which turned out not to
be THAT bad but its supposed to take a fair amount of juice.
They are relatively close though the 6800GT and 800XL depending on the
game and measuirement though. ATI has always done much worse with some
games like DOOM etc and better in games like HALF LIFE 2 though
drivers have been optimized since then so maybe Nvidia caught up in
that area.
