Graphics Card options w/ shader?

I'm looking to buy a graphics card so I can play my pre-ordered account on The Matrix Online. My current system doesn't have a programmable shader, which is a system requirement for the game. The manufacturer website I got my system from has these three options for graphics cards. Do either of them have a programmable shader, and which one?
I tried looking through everything the website had to offer about the information on the cards and performed a search, though the keyword combinations ["ATI Radeon" "Shader"] ["Geforce" "Shader"] and ["nVidia" "Shader"] came up with information, but not the info I was looking for.
The aforementioned options are listed blow:

128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X300 SE
256MB PCI Express™ x16 Nvidia® GeForce 6800 GTO Graphics Card
256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800

For gaming, I always use nVidia GeForce {VGA}.... But make sure that your motherboard will match the capabilities of your GeForce....

Woot! After spending another thirty minutes and reading artcile after article. I think
256MB PCI Express™ x16 Nvidia® GeForce 6800 GTO Graphics Card
256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Have programmable shaders.

What you listed is a very specific set of cards. Lets look at what you have here.

128/256MB (this is the amount of RAM on the board. 128 is a good amount. If you want a card that will last a while 256 is better. I would go with the 256 cards if money wasn't holding me back.

PCI Express: This is the slot that the card has to plug into. The three available at this time are PCI, AGP, and PCI Express. PCI Express is brand new so make sure your motherboard has a PCI-E slot before buying a card that has it.

(DVI/VGA/TV-Out): This portion just tells you what type of additional connectors are on the card. DVI is for LCD screens, and TV-out for.. TV's. VGA is standard on all cards.

Next you have the actual chipset that the card runs on:
ATI Radeon™ X300 SE - ATI's newest chipset and will have a pixel shader
GeForce 6800 - this is nVidia's newest chipset and has three variations, regular, GT, and Ultra. all three have pixel shaders.

The moral of this mostly is to make sure your MB has a PCI-E slot before buying one of these cards, or look for one that is AGP with the rest of the specs the same. These cards can be made by various manufacturers of which quality varies, so a cheaper card isn't necessarily better.

Wow!

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ATI Radeon™ X300 SE - ATI's newest chipset and will have a pixel shader
GeForce 6800 - this is nVidia's newest chipset and has three variations, regular, GT, and Ultra. all three have pixel shaders.

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NOT True! X300 is a damm old chipset! It the low end for ATI. It worth less that 100 CDN$ The 6800 is the newest chipset from Nvidia! But it cost around 500$ CDN! To have US Dollar, multiple by 0.80

vampelle : Please give me your computer specification and your budget. I'll suggest something that will
1) Run the game you want
2) Stay in your budjet.

I just hope for your sake that you don't have a PCIE mobo, because that would mean you wasted a ton of money...

I know this because most games are still made to run on 4x and 8x, not 16x! Not to mention, tomshardware.com did a test and the results were not much better then AGP, AGP cards even beat out PCIE cards in some tests... bah, I can't find the link to the test...

Basically I just don't think the world is ready for 16x yet, certainly not the game developers...

PCIE doesn't cost more that AGP.

Hmmm...

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=...&ie=UTF-8&sa=N

Looking at that link, where do you see a PCIE mobo that's under 100 bucks?? And then you combine the 2 PCIE graphics cards... it's alot more $$$

The system that I will soon be building will have a 70 dollar mobo with a AGP nvidia 6800 gt which is under 200 bucks, that will play doom 3 just fine...

Yeah, you're right duck, but if he gets a agp card and mobo now, and 2 years from now he wants to upgrade, what is he? He is ****ed. Why? No new cards will be offered as AGP. Why? Because Asus and Abit and nVidia and Ati are very poor, and want everyone to upgarde so they can have money.

Well that was fun. Basically in non sarcastic terms I'm saying you're better off to buy a halfway decent PCIx mobo and card now if you are in the market for a pretty much new setup. If you are just looking for a vid card with shaders, go with something dirt cheap and save for that whole new setup. You can grab a Ati 9800 pro or Xt for under 200 on newegg/tiger direct/etc, you just have to look. And I guarantee they all have shaders because I have both.

It was talking about the Graphic Card itself. The Mobo cost more the PCIE is not the only reason why a PCIE mobo cost more. There is more new technology in there like SATA 2, better Audio, etc that raise the cost of new Mobo versus old one!

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Originally posted here by SDK
It was talking about the Graphic Card itself. The Mobo cost more the PCIE is not the only reason why a PCIE mobo cost more. There is more new technology in there like SATA 2, better Audio, etc that raise the cost of new Mobo versus old one!

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Yup. That's why there's even more reason to buy a new setup now. 64 bit, pcix, sata 2, SLi, BTX, etc. This is a great time to buy a whole new setup, which is EXACTLY what I plan to do in August after working all summer :D

I'm waiting until longhorn comes out to buy a completly new system. Why? because until longhorn comes out, there is no 64 bit OS to take advantage of the 64bit technology, same goes with the PCIE, no games to take advantage of the new technology...

IMHO, half of the computer industry is marketing... They're selling the new technology before it can really be used, much like they did with the 64bit processors and mobos...

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Originally posted here by The Duck
I'm waiting until longhorn comes out to buy a completly new system. Why? because until longhorn comes out, there is no 64 bit OS to take advantage of the 64bit technology, same goes with the PCIE, no games to take advantage of the new technology...

IMHO, half of the computer industry is marketing... They're selling the new technology before it can really be used, much like they did with the 64bit processors and mobos...

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BS! Half Life 2 FULLY takes advantage of PCIe, and XP 64 bit comes out within a few months. And getting the technology now is better if you are spending money to upgrade anyway.

Half life 2 fully takes advantage of PCIE... Any other game? ...that's what I thought.

And don't forget 64 bit hardware was available years before XP 64 bit comes out... and people were buying them...

You have your opinion, I have mine, no one is really right here...

Though I guess your somewhat right about upgrading...

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Originally posted here by The Duck
Half life 2 fully takes advantage of PCIE... Any other game? ...that's what I thought.

And don't forget 64 bit hardware was available years before XP 64 bit comes out... and people were buying them...

You have your opinion, I have mine, no one is really right here...

Though I guess your somewhat right about upgrading...

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On the game situation let me put it this way... What good, popular, innovative game from here on out WON'T use PCIe? Considering half of the new games coming out in the next year or two will be based on Doom 3 or HL2 engines, there's half of the market filled with game you can use. The unreal 3 engine is going to be released for Licenesing at E3 this year. It will DEFINILTY take advantage of PCIe...

AGP 8X bandwidths was not even use at 100% yet. If you buy an AGP Mobo now, you'll be stuck with this video card for the rest of your computer life because ATI and Nvidia don't release a lot more new AGP video card in the next year. The 6*** from Nvidia and X*** from ATI weren't supposed to be release in AGP format but they were release because users asks for it. The current generation of video card barely use the bandwidths provide by AGP but the next generation will probably be able to use the extra bandwidths provide by PCIE and will not be transfers into AGP format.

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The current generation of video card barely use the bandwidths provide by AGP

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Which is exactly why we don't need PCIE yet...

The PCIE technology was developed to change the old PCI technology that run at 33 MHz!! Do you know how much stuff runs on the South Bridge Chipset of your computer at 33 MHz? It has a throughput of 133 MB/s! PCIE throughput is 2.5 GB/s per line and there are 20 lines in new motherboard!

FYI, South Bridge run the connection to the North Bridge, Audio, Modem, Hard Drive, USB 2.0, Network Card (Some Network work on North Bridge now).

Source:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/PCI.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/PCI_Express.html

If the PCIE slots were designed to replace the PCI slots, how come they havn't yet? The only thing made to use the PCIE (at least I think anyway, I could be wrong) are video cards. Ok, I'm not quite sure where I'm trying to get at... I never said PCIE sucks and is never going to be good and it's worthless, I'm just simply saying that as of now it's not needed, but I do beleive that in the future it will replace AGP for good. Newer isn't always better, look at rambus, they tried taking over DIMMS but it failed, even though rambus was supposed to be better...

And I know what the south bridge is ;)

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Originally posted here by The Duck
If the PCIE slots were designed to replace the PCI slots, how come they havn't yet? The only thing made to use the PCIE (at least I think anyway, I could be wrong) are video cards. Ok, I'm not quite sure where I'm trying to get at... I never said PCIE sucks and is never going to be good and it's worthless, I'm just simply saying that as of now it's not needed, but I do beleive that in the future it will replace AGP for good. Newer isn't always better, look at rambus, they tried taking over DIMMS but it failed, even though rambus was supposed to be better...

And I know what the south bridge is ;)

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Yeah but Rambus was horribly overpriced and didn't give hardly any of a performance gain. Got like 30% or so. PCIx gets like 500% in some cases. PCIx is set to take over PCI slots, but PCI will be around for a while, just like the ISA to PCI transfer.

They will come! I saw a modem running on PCIE on a Cebit 2005 picture.

But I agree that most PCI card aren't migrate to PCIE yet because, well, there not a lot of PCI card left on the market. Network, Network are usually merge in motherboard now. Sound with AC97 or new Intel High Definition Audio. There is not more left on PCI but don't forget that even with no PCI card, the southbridge is limit to 33 MHZ. That mean max 133 MB for hard drive, USB 2.0 and everything else connect to the SouthBridge. With PCIE, the SouthBridge can finally be fast!