OT: Deciding on a new graphics card

[PvK]

Yes, Vista sabotage features. If anyone's paranoid, it's the likes of media megacorps and M$. As in, requiring hardware to support shutting down or reduced fidelity of audio/visual media if systems think they detect DRM issues, as has been discussed and articles cited on this forum about the time Vista came out. The "word" has been out since then - how could you forget it?

And no, not all the 8xxx cards are faster than all 7xxx cards. When I researched that point a few months ago, the advantage was for the 8xxx series unless one coveted the DX10 (Vista only) support.

Hence my inquiry.

Fyron said:
PvK said:
"Eh, but the Geforce 8000+ series cards all have features which are for Vista only, not to mention the Vista sabotage features. So for those of us who have no intention of running Vista, the GeForce cards to consider are still the 7000-series. No?"

Vista sabotage features??? Rampant paranoia much? Nvidia and ATI (AMD) have absolutely no incentive to "sabotage" anything; no amount of money from MS would convince them otherwise, since they would lose so much more money from poor sales when word got out...

The 8xxx series cards are a lot faster than 7xxx, and 9xxx will be a lot faster still. 8xxx and 9xxx support DX10, yes, but they still do DX9 a lot faster than the 7xxx cards.

[Fyron]

Fast 8xxx cards (G92 GPU especially) are faster than the 7xxx line. Naturally, there are gimped cards for the low to mid ranges that won't be as fast as the highest end 7xxx cards, due to the insane amount of market segmentation GPU makers run.

==0==

HDCP is hardly a "Vista sabotage feature." It will come into play in any OS, including XP, Mac OS X, and Linux (unless you use DMCA-illegal cracking software). It's not Microsoft/Nvidia/ATI/Intel 's fault that the movie studios force encryption, and you can't hardly blame them for wanting their OS/hardware to not be gimped and unable to play the latest media. The movie studios wouldn't give a damn if MS/Nvidia tried to take a stand and refused to support HDCP; they would probably prefer no support at all for computer playback, since it only leads to piracy in their eyes. Either piss off the movie studios that don't care, or piss off your customer base... hell of a choice. Of course, HDCP support doesn't matter in the slightest if you are not playing Blu-ray or HD-DVD movies, making it not much of a reason to stop buying newer video cards. Vista's protected media path doesn't come into the picture without ridiculously DRMed content.

Luckily the music industry has seen the light about DRM; hopefully the movie industry will some day, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

[PvK]

Yes, I was talking about the low to mid range products. The articles I have read have pointed at Microsoft as the culprit with DRM sabotage hardware, and Vista (and recently, the next XP service pack) as the means to try to force it onto the market. Paying for hardware that supports this "feature" is paying extra for a sabotage feature, it seems to me, and supporting the idea that people don't have the right to own and fully control computer hardware, which is an idea that seems clearly wrong and counterproductive to me. The 7xxx series doesn't have it, and the 8xxx series does, as well as other features designed for DX10 which is Vista only, and I dislike Vista for many reasons and never intend to own it, so for at least the present and near future, higher-end 7xxx series looks better to me than the 8xxx series.

[Atrocities]

I have a GForce 8800GT and its ok. I run it on my new XP box. Say does any one have a problem with windows XP crashing after you reactivate it from sleep mode on a duo core system?

[Fyron]

PvK:
None of the articles you've linked to in the past on this issue have been worth much; they were filled with misguided alarmism and flawed analysis. HDCP was created by Intel, and only added to Windows after the movie industry forced it into Blu-ray and HD-DVD, and thus any high definition movie content (along with demands of DRM for any digital distribution of their content). It wouldn't do well for MS to not support the latest movie standards in their media center software..

Boycotting the content is what needs to be done, not video cards. If the content mafias didn't demand the encryption support et all, it wouldn't exist. Video card manufacturers have little choice in the matter, since they need to support industry standards for content playback. And besides, if you don't buy any HDCP-protected content, you won't be affected by the chip in the cards anyways. Probably lose a few machine instruction cycles for some conditional statements when you first open your media, but that's it.

Paying for hardware that supports this "feature" is paying extra for a sabotage feature, it seems to me...

Luckily there is not a single piece of hardware that is just a 7xxx card + HDCP chip, labeled as a 8xxx card.

Unless you can't afford an extra $50 or so, you are best off with a 8800GT 512MB even with XP and DX9. It's much better hardware than anything in the 7xxx line. If you can't afford the extra cost of the 8800GT, the next best option appears to now be the 9600GT.

[Kana]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_zones.html

Maybe in there somewhere, or under support.