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Nvidia 8800GT
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Quote from Bladerunner :Just been checking the specs on the 8800GT compared to the 8800GTS which I have...and it seems to have exactly the same chipset, albeit running at about 15-20% faster clockspeeds for the core and ram...
So...could I assume that it might be worth trying to 'squeeeze' a bit more out of my 8800GTS?

It's not the same chipset at all Bladerunner, its the G92 whereas the GTS is the G80. The G92 is a 65nm chipset hence it running cooler and using less power, thus being able to run faster I guess.
#27 - Jakg
The 8800GT is newer and cheaper to make (thanks to the smaller die) - the rumours now are that they brought this in before the new GTS (nVidia ALWAYS release fast cards fast...) because they want to pre-emptively tackle the 2900GT/2950XT/2950Pro.

Either way it's worth waiting a week and a bit for the prices to drop to more reasonable levels.
Very strange that the "new" 8800 GTS will retain the 256-bit interface of the G92, and come with (probably) 512 or 1024MB of ram, giving it a slower bus than the 320-bit G80 GTS.

Regardless, the GTS is supposed to trump the performance of even the 8800GTX, so we can presume that a new (or at least refreshed) flagship GPU is somewhere near in the pipeline.
#29 - J.B.
Price seems a bit too high to be called a real bargain (250€) but finally we have a current generation card that isn't completely ridiculous in terms price, power, heat, noise.

And it can decode AVC! (all the other 8800 can't). Looks like still no VC-1 decode though so I guess waiting for ATI Radeon HD 38xx might be good idea for people who want a card for gaming and HD decoding.
Just curious if anyone here has one of these things yet. I'm looking into getting one, but I'm concerned about heat. I know a lot of people are having issues with the cards running extremely hot. I live in a college dorm, so my desktop can get a bit hot. Just wondering how yours runs if anyone has one.
#31 - Jakg
They run cooler than an 8800GTS from everything i've seen...
I just recently got one of these to go into my new machine:

ASUS P5K-E
Intel Q6600
Zotac 8800GT (660mhz)

Haven't got the machine working 100% yet, I can't get my DDR2-6400 to run in dual channel mode. but more than pleased with the current setup seems to run everything full res (1680x1050), full detail.
Quote from Jakg :They run cooler than an 8800GTS from everything i've seen...

Really? I've heard that the single-slot cooler makes it run hotter... but I'm not sure anymore.
hm i wonder how these would fare on an x2 4400+ comapred to a 78gtx
Quote from Stang70Fastback :Just curious if anyone here has one of these things yet. I'm looking into getting one, but I'm concerned about heat. I know a lot of people are having issues with the cards running extremely hot. I live in a college dorm, so my desktop can get a bit hot. Just wondering how yours runs if anyone has one.

80C + on newer games at 50% fan speed. If you have a good 7900 series cooler, it's tranferable to the 88GT. Zalman makes some wicked fans.
Like my old 7900GS, LFS in considerably lower. Could be due to my fps cap and/or LFSs light graphics.
Quote from Shotglass :hm i wonder how these would fare on an x2 4400+ comapred to a 78gtx

You shouldn't have much, if any bottlenecking with the cpu. 2 to 2.5 times the muscle as the 7800GTX *jaw drops*
#37 - J.B.
ATI 3850 and 3870 are out now too. Quick summary of 3870 (vs 8800 GT):

-bit cheaper
-bit slower
-almost identical load power consumption
-much less idle power consumption
-full VC-1 and AVC decoding (8800 GT only has AVC)
-Directx 10.1 (8800 GT has 10.0)
-no more XT, GT, GTS, LE, WTF, FU, HJGGF naming scheme, yay!

Good stuff, I always said the previous "high end" cards were rubbish, now they're obsolete.
Quote from J.B. :ATI 3850 and 3870 are out now too. Quick summary of 3870 (vs 8800 GT):

-bit cheaper
-bit slower
-almost identical load power consumption
-much less idle power consumption
-full VC-1 and AVC decoding (8800 GT only has AVC)
-Directx 10.1 (8800 GT has 10.0)
-no more XT, GT, GTS, LE, WTF, FU, HJGGF naming scheme, yay!

Good stuff, I always said the previous "high end" cards were rubbish, now they're obsolete.

Obsolete? A year after they were first availble they are now 2nd best. Wow. Suprising knowing the PC industry... Oh wait no it's the same thing that happens every time a new component is released.

Furthermore the 3870 is not marginally slower than the 8800GT, in fact its marginally worse than the GTS's.
#39 - J.B.
I didn't say the 3870 was better than the 8800 GT. I said it's a bit slower and has more features.

And cards that cost 600€, create 200 W of heat and can't decode HD videos were rubbish when they came out and are rubbish now. If you want to compare them to the CPU industry then the new cards are the ones that should have been out a year ago.
I messed up my post so I edited it shortly after with the correct quote.

I wouldn't say in terms of gaming performance the first generation GeForce 8s were rubbish at all. They gave massive performance gains over the previous generation of cards which is what they were built to do.

I'm not quite sure what everyone's annoyance is about concerning graphics cards that don't decode HD. I'm sure if you buy a new high-end graphics card then you are going to have a high-end enough CPU that will quite happily decode HD content. I know mine does.

In terms of heat generated, yes they are poor. The 90nm architecture is not good for thermal performance I guess. And in that respect they are bad. Do I notice the amount of heat generated by my card? No. Does it affect my system performance in any way? No.
#41 - J.B.
Generated heat is noticed by noise made trying to get rid of it and by the need for a PSU that is way overpowered compared to what all the other components of the PC need.

If you have a fast dual core CPU then you are right about being able to decode HD on the CPU. However there are much cheaper cards that can decode HD on single core machines so I do think this feature should be on the fasest cards as well.

I can't deny the performance increase of course but maybe Intel would be able to make a 6 Ghz octa-core if they were allowed to use 500W for it. It's the whole package that counts.
How do you reckon 2 of these cards (3870) in crossfire would do against a single 8800 gtx? In terms of raw power seems as though they'd thrash it- and it's still a cheaper solution (from where I looked) with more added features.
Quote from Electrik Kar :How do you reckon 2 of these cards (3870) in crossfire would do against a single 8800 gtx? In terms of raw power seems as though they'd thrash it- and it's still a cheaper solution (from where I looked) with more added features.

If you had an SLi motherboard i'd go for the GTX, probably would anyway since i'm not too fond of ATI. Why not an 8800GT? Better performance than a single 3870, if overclocked could probably beat Crossfired ones.
The 3870s are a little cheaper than the 8800 GTs. The 8800 GT seems a little faster in some benchmarks but isn't uniformly faster, plus the 3870 is extremely new and considering months of driver optimisations it might turn into a very nice card indeed.

There's no way I'd consider putting 2 gtx's into SLI- my budget doesn't stretch that far and I think (from a future perspective) that might be wasting money somewhat on a techonlogically older card -no DX10.1 /SM4.1.

Anyway- I'll probably be building a new system in Jan sometime, so I'll sort it all out then
I boned myself over and didn't listen to Jack when I got my rig. Ordered an 8800GTS along with my new rig yesterday, I plan on returning it as soon as it arrives and getting a GT. Hopefully they will allow me to replace the GTS with the GT on the 1-year payment plan I have.
#46 - Jakg
EK - Why do you think that drivers will help the 3870 that much? From what i've read it's based on the R600, which was crap with rubbish driver support, and then got a bit better, however surely the drivers are already quite good as it's based on an existign card?

IIRC your one of those with an x850, and get stuck on the whole SM2.1 thing - nice feature of the 3870 is DX10.1/SM4.1 vs DX10/SM4 on the 8xxx series.
It (RV670) does sound like an incremental improvement over the R600. But it is smaller (by half), more streamlined, less power hungry, and runs much cooler. It supports PCIE 2.0 with much higher bandwidth than before and seems very future proof in that regard.

Also, as you say- I don't really want to have the same problems as I did with my existing card with no SM3 support.. When it comes time to upgrade, I won't really consider any of the previous DX10 cards- the 8800GT seems great, but things have already moved on with enhanced and customisable AA for titles with deferred lighting/HDR etc.

Talking drivers, I've had no experience with the 2900 so I can't really comment. I think Crossfire support until now has been universally pretty bad, but as it's becoming more of a mainstream option these days (especially now with the 38xx series) I think things will improve (atleast, I hope they will ). People say ATI drivers are crap, but they also say Nvidia drivers are crap... atleast, I can testify that my aging x800 pro still receives the occasional performance boost from installing new drivers, even though most/all efforts are concentrated on the higher end, so I'm actually pretty happy with ATI/AMD there.
To be honest, I see issues with drivers from both parties... so no point in really deciding which brand of drivers suck Been a long time ATI and Nvidia user, and there are always similar problems that arise when using new drivers. Most of the time the only solution would be to roll-back to an older driver, since some drivers would have issues with a certain option in their 'control panel' or just have poor performance overall.

If I were to choose though, I think Nvidia have the most reliable and nicest drivers. ATI just seem to be still stuck in the year 2000 to me.... if you know what I mean.
Hi, im thinking of getting one of these, its the Zotac 8800GT 512mb 660/1600 (i think) and maybe a AMD 4600+ X2 and a mobo, and 2gb ram, how well do u think it will do on the latest games?? thanks :P
Saturday im gonna order a 8800GT from eVGA
hope it will run good with the following specs
AMD X2 4600+
2* 1024mb @ 667Mhz
Asus Crosshair mobo
EnerMax 600Watt PSU

Nvidia 8800GT
(65 posts, started )
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