[geRV]

Counterstrike source no matter what way you slice it is NOT halflife 2. Same engine yes, completly different game. CS has a small handfull of the effects used in hl2, and as far as im aware in the VST ati is still far ahead of nvidia.

Cs is a game thats always been playable on a ton of systems, for source they wanted to keep it that way. It has upgraded graphics because lets face it, it fucking needed them. And has some physics and a handfull of dx9 effects tossed in. Now compare what you see in counterstrike source to the hl2 HDR bink exe file. The effects in hl2 going by that at least are a shitload more noticable and are used more frequently than in source.

At best basing judgements on how a card is gonna perform in hl2 by drawing numbers from cs:source is retarded. Hl2 has a lot more geometry, larger levels, loads more effects, a lot more to the physics system, ai enemies and npc's running around.

You could basically draw this comparrison, hl2 is call of duty:uo and cs:source is quake 3, bottom line is cod:uo has more effects going on, more detailed models etc, quake 3 is more simplistic, less effects, not as hi res models. Theyre both on the same engine yes, do you get quake 3 frame rates with cod:uo? No

Nothing can be compared untill the game is actually out. Halflife 2 was not built for the x800 series, it was meant to be out last year, and last year nvidia could not keep pace with the 9800 which was shitkicking them at every turn. The 6800 is a brand new core, the x800 series is a speed bumped 9800 more or less. If nvidia are now faster well good for them, with a new core comparing to a core thats now around 2 years old or more id expect them to be catching up or being faster to some extent, would be embarressing if ati "old tech" was beating up on nvidia's "latest and greatest".

Anyway, hl2, noone really knows as yet, the cs source benchmarks dont count for much imo and are not indicitive of how hl2 is gonna perform for the reasons stated above.