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Other tech sites will bore you with in-depth "technical details" and performance specs in their product analysis. At BBspot we pull back from the boring benchmarks to compare the superficialities, and we do it all on a single page. Really, if you are going to spend $400 on a video card, what you really care about is how cool it is going to make you, right? This time we take a look at the two latest offerings from the video chip titans: the ATI Radeon X800 and the Nvidia GeFORCE 6800.
Names
The actual card companies will create more fanciful names like Madcapitator X800 or Zombie XTReMe 6800, but the chip names are fairly subdued.
 GeFORCE 6800 - G forces are cool, and something you'll subject your video card to when the drivers are buggy. Nothing too inspiring about 6800, but it is one digit away from 6900.
Radeon X800 - Radeon sounds like something you shouldn't stand too close to if you want to have children. X800 is on the edge of cool, because it invokes the X-factor, but the X-factor is losing its luster. Advantage - GeFORCE 6800
Domain Names
 GeFORCE 6800 - GeForce6800.com could not be found.
Radeon X800 - RadeonX800.com is a blank page.
Advantage - Radeon X800
Mascots
 GeFORCE 6800 - Nalu, the scantily clad mermaid for Nvidia is a nice choice for a mascot, if you're marketing your product to eight-year-old girls that is. I know a mermaid was chosen, so they can highlight all the cool underwater effects the card can do, but can she blow anything up? I don't think so.
 Radeon X800 - While Ruby might not be able to show the advantages of the card as well as a mermaid, she could kick Nalu's ass any day. She might not be the kind of girl that you take home to mother, but that's what we really want from our video card mascot, right?
Advantage - Radeon X800
Google Fights"Why does my Radeon X800 have buggy drivers?" - 104 results
Vs.
"Why does my GeFORCE 6800 have buggy drivers?" - 157 results
Next... "GeFORCE 6800" - 872,000 results
Vs.
"Radeon X800" - 143,000 results
Tiebreaker...
"I'll get more ladies/men with a geforce 6800" - 0 results
Vs.
"I'll get more ladies/men with a Radeon X800" - 0 results
Tiebreaker 2...
"I lost a finger installing my geforce 6800" - 71 results
Vs.
"I lost a finger installing my radeon x800" - 24 results
Advantage: Radeon X800 (unless you like losing fingers)
Coin Flip - Best of 7
GeFORCE 6800 - Heads
Radeon X800 - Tails
Advantage - GeFORCE 4-3
Coolest Sounding Technology
GeFORCE 6800 - Ultrashadow II sounds like it could be the sequel to a summer blockbuster starring Vin Diesel. "Fighting crime in the darkened alleys of Center City it's Ultrashadow!"
Radeon X800 - Smartshader HD sounds like Ultrashadow's goofy sidekick when the franchise is ruined by the campy TV series.
Advantage - GeFORCE 6800
Press Release Marketspeak Benchmark
BBspot analyzed both Nvidia's and ATI's press releases and calculated the percentage of each release that was marketspeak, legalspeak, superlatives, non-quantitative flourishes or other bullshit language.
GeFORCE 6800 - Included such gems as: "the worldwide leader in visual processing solutions", "Unprecedented on-chip video processing engine", "staggering amount of graphics horsepower", and this doozy "bringing next-generation DirectX 9 rendering performance to new heights while continuing forward with the high-definition floating-point rendering"
Radeon X800 - Featured bologna such as: "deliver the industry’s most awesome gaming experience possible", "the most sought-after high-end visual processors in the world", "RADEON X800 is awesome!", "will ship later this month", and "the design team has accomplished something that no one thought was possible."
Advantage - Radeon X800
Conclusions
It was a close battle, but the Radeon X800 edges out a victory against the GeFORCE 6800 and wins our Technical Award of Excellence.
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