65nm BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB @ [H]

Yea, I'd have a hard time going gold with this one too. Ultra got no nod from the [H] which was good, but I'd have to award based on comparisons of 512 GTS cards not just one card with the new features. Rack up several of these with costs and performance comparisons and give the gold to the best card with the most value.
 
What it all boils down to is that WE WANT A NEW CARD!!!

Quit with the refresh crapola and send us some magic Nvidia.
 
Let's see if they update/review the Ultra or GTX.
Take better shader performance, and better memory bandwidth.
Put them together, give me some hot chocolate, will make for a more exciting read.
 
Well this is what happens when there is only one top dog in the game, what an boring card release! Sure the price might be bit better (which remains to be seen) but the performance has hitted brick wall. Nvidia deserves a gold award on milking the cash cow, not for this "new" 8800GTS 512MB :rolleyes:

ps. I like very much [H] reviews since they give a nice alternative to your regular reviews, but still I cannot help but to think that they are very confusing at times. It seems there are way too many different settings (depends on game) applied which makes comparing the results really cumbersome. I hope there is a way to improve the result presentation in the future. Maybe add color codes on the setting boxes, thats all I can come up with at this moment. Like if 8800GTX has the highest in game settings applied, its settings would be in green or something. :confused:
 
XamediX said:
I think Nvidia isn't shuffling around specs. The new process these cards are made on give them better yields and more profit. Yes, they coulda kept the specs the same and just released the cards at their original speeds but they didn't. They upped the specs. yet, you still have people whining over releasing these new cards.

Brent, you were right, I got caught up on the rumored spec being 112 SP's and must have completely glazed over the fact it is actually 128. Good stuffs. Good review too. I like the changes you made concerning resolution and in-game settings. It might be just be but I see there a direct tweak to your review process that was borne from reader feedback. In other words, You listened to us and changed some things! The different sets of resolutions are nice and much easier to pull data from.

I 4th the opinion that the 8800GT is by far the better bang for the buck.
Click to expand...

Glad it had what you needed, this was in fact born out of user feedback :)
 
sam0t said:
Well this is what happens when there is only one top dog in the game, what an boring card release! Sure the price might be bit better (which remains to be seen) but the performance has hitted brick wall. Nvidia deserves a gold award on milking the cash cow, not for this "new" 8800GTS 512MB :rolleyes:

ps. I like very much [H] reviews since they give a nice alternative to your regular reviews, but still I cannot help but to think that they are very confusing at times. It seems there are way too many different settings (depends on game) applied which makes comparing the results really cumbersome. I hope there is a way to improve the result presentation in the future. Maybe add color codes on the setting boxes, thats all I can come up with at this moment. Like if 8800GTX has the highest in game settings applied, its settings would be in green or something. :confused:
Click to expand...

We have in fact pondered, and play with perhaps color coding things somehow, it is constantly a work in progress to improve the visual format. If you have any ideas or examples of how to make something look better send it to me via email.
 
I want to see how the updated GTX on the 65mm process would perform.
 
Y'all should do an 8800 recap...comparing the performance of all the 8800 cards (old and new)...just way too confusing right now. How many 8800's are there?

8800gts 320mb
8800gts 640mb 96sp
8800gts 640mb 112sp
8800gt
8800gts 512mb 128sp
8800gtx
8800ultra ...

so we have what...seven 8800 cards, 4 of which are 8800gts's....i'm really interested in seeing the 8800gts's in a direct, apples to apples battle!
 
XamediX said:
I 4th the opinion that the 8800GT is by far the better bang for the buck.
Click to expand...


It all comes down to your monitor and what resolutions you run. If you have a 20" or smaller, the GT represents a solid bargain, but at 24" and 30" the 65nm GTS is worth every extra cent IMO.
 
JackAshley said:
Y'all should do an 8800 recap...comparing the performance of all the 8800 cards (old and new)...just way too confusing right now. How many 8800's are there?

8800gts 320mb
8800gts 640mb 96sp
8800gts 640mb 112sp
8800gt
8800gts 512mb 128sp
8800gtx
8800ultra ...

so we have what...seven 8800 cards, 4 of which are 8800gts's....i'm really interested in seeing the 8800gts's in a direct, apples to apples battle!
Click to expand...


yeah...throw in 8600's as well and you got a few days' worth of tedious testing and a nice, curved performance graph ;)
 
Battleneter2 said:
Are you actually looking at the FPS numbers in other reviews?, the G92 GTS does NOT buy you higher resolutions against a similarly clocked GT, it will buy you a few more FPS.. I don't know who started this G92 GTS for higher resolutions myth.

I like this review as it uses as it includes OC GT and GTS
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=2436&cid=3&pg=6

And again look at the FPS numbers not the pretty bars
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3175&p=4
Click to expand...

To answer your question NO I DON'T. (But I did go look at the AT link since you were kind enough to post it.)

If canned benchmarks are what you want, then go for it. If you want analysis based on realworld gameplay, then we are your guys. The gaming world is not about simple FPS any more, it is about the quality of the experience and the depth of immersion delivered by the hardware.

And to quote AT, "Turning on AA however erases the advantage as limited memory bandwidth becomes the great equalizer:" Too bad they don't actually show that and how it impacts your gaming experience...which is much of what we were focused on throughout the evaluation here as it shows our readers exactly how their gaming experience is going to change between the GT, and the GTS cards.
 
rennyf77 said:
my god, some one isn't inflating the price.

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130312
Click to expand...

Not yet anyway.....When the 3870 came out they had it for MSRP of 219.00 for the 512 meg. A day or 2 later it jumped to 270.00 at least. Which today the lowest price GT is still 260.00 which is still over MSRP. I still think that the GT is the best buy for me anyways. (upgrading from a 7950 gt). Though for the money the 3870 doesn't look too bad either.
 
Thanks for the thorough review. I think that this card segment should just die. The 8800gt is good enough for those who have < 24" monitors.

The only advantage that was related to me throughout the review was some slightly higher in-game settings and AA. Not worth the extra cost imo.

I have a question about the test setups: You guys are using the following resolutions:

2560X1600, 1920x1200, 1600x1200, 1280x1024.
30", 27" or 24", 19" (crt?), 19" (lcd?)

Can I therefore assume:

Dell 3007WFP-HC, Dell 2407WFP-HC or 2707WFP 27, ? , ?

Better yet why not just show us in the test set up what you are using.
I assume you are running all those resolutions at a native resolution? Or are you using the 3007 for all resolutions? :confused:
 
I'm in the market for a 24in LCD, but I have a 19in now. So yep I'm stuck at 1280x1024 resolution. Thing is, I actually have 2 19in's and sometimes game at 2560x1024 resolution spanned across both on the few games that support it out of the box. (Crysis for one...) It seems Crysis is the only game that the GT cannot run at 1920 resolutions while trying to max out the in-game settings.

I would be confortable gaming at 1650 resolution on my 24in for the 1 or 2 games that force me to and at 1920 for all other games. All of this is based on [H]'s data. I'm a bit confused as to why [H] would give such praise to the new GTS. What is the price delta from an 8800GT? For EVGA step-up it seems the delta is ~$87 bucks. [H] didn't mention a specific Nvidia reference MSRP so I don't have one to compare really.
 
I hope by march this card is well below $300 or Nvidia releases a new card at that price range for me to upgrade to. Looking at the MSRP and the performance is very dissapointing though especially for the price delta between it and the 8800gt
 
JackAshley said:
Y'all should do an 8800 recap...comparing the performance of all the 8800 cards (old and new)...just way too confusing right now. How many 8800's are there?

8800gts 320mb
8800gts 640mb 96sp
8800gts 640mb 112sp
8800gt
8800gts 512mb 128sp
8800gtx
8800ultra ...

so we have what...seven 8800 cards, 4 of which are 8800gts's....i'm really interested in seeing the 8800gts's in a direct, apples to apples battle!
Click to expand...
you left out the 8800gt 256mb and 8800gt 1024mb.
 
I think it's a good REFRESH that is almost GTX speeds but, for $100+ less.
 
jebo_4jc said:
I'd have to agree. While I understand the 512MB GTS fits nicely between the GT and GTX in terms of price, performance, power, etc, I found myself INCREDIBLY BORED with this review. This "new" $400 card provides slightly lower performance than what we've been seeing for the past year+. Big F'n deal.

Please, nvidia. I would like to see some innovation in terms of added performance. You could make the argument that the GTX is grossly overpriced due to the fact that its price hasn't fallen much in the past year. If this new GTS was faster than the GTX, then I could understand a gold award. But seriously, this card came out 6 months too late to be an exciting advancement.
One year ago we were paying $300 for a 2.4ghz E6600. Now the quad core CPUs cost less than that. I'm glad the CPU market isn't as stagnant as the video card market is.
Click to expand...
I think both you and the person with whom you agree have a skewed perspective of what the "gold award" actually means. If the GTS has been refreshed and made faster (it has), why shouldn't it get a gold award? Just because it's not the fastest card? I think this is just folks being pissy because they want their next-gen part now, darnit! :) But people wanting a new 8800gtx successor shouldn't count against another card on its merits. And the new GTS has a lot of merit.

Just because it's still in 2nd place (3rd if you count the Ultra) doesn't mean that it isn't an improvement over the original GTS series. And, as an improvement, and the 2nd-best performing video card available (at a reduced price from the "top tier"), why exactly do you hold its "gold award" against it? It's a great-performing card. Why shouldn't it get the award as such? Because it's a refresh? Because it's not the fastest?

Or, to put it another way: I don't think the Gold Award is only given to the top-performing cards. But, rather, to cards with great performance for their place in the market.
 
What a waste of a time of a card, Nvidia is only doing this because they don't have any competition and they want to get their cards back into the hierarchy order?

They must have something new locked away that plays Crysis perfectly, but they are going to wait until they actually need to release it.
 
GT still looks like the better buy. Glad I didn't wait for the revamped GTS.
 
Hurin said:
If the GTS has been refreshed and made faster (it has), why shouldn't it get a gold award?
Click to expand...

Because it was refreshed and made faster a year later. It's still second (or third, counting the ultra) best only by default. If they'd have come out with this card in early-mid Q3 '07 and called it an 8900gts then I could see it getting a gold award, but I completely disagree with rewarding Nvidia for coming up with so little so late. I suppose we have AMD/ATI to blame for this, but still :(

Bring on the 9800's please.
 
prtzlboy said:
Because it was refreshed and made faster a year later. It's still second (or third, counting the ultra) best only by default. If they'd have come out with this card in early-mid Q3 '07 and called it an 8900gts then I could see it getting a gold award, but I completely disagree with rewarding Nvidia for coming up with so little so late. I suppose we have AMD/ATI to blame for this, but still :(

Bring on the 9800's please.
Click to expand...
Interesting that you only quote one sentence of my (much longer) post, and then go on to demonstrate the point I made in the rest of my post with nearly ever sentence of your own.

Whether we want something faster right now is irrelevant when we're discussing what the GTS 512MB can do right now, today, in the current market. The fact of the matter is that it's better than its predecessor and offers improvements on what was already a great-performing card. If the prior card deserved awards and kudos, its refresh should as well regardless of how butt-hurt people want to be over the fact that they can't have their next-gen parts now.

By the logic of those stating that an award isn't warranted because its pre-refresh incarnation is a year old, you might as well argue that the GTX should have its awards and good reviews stripped from it because it too is a year old. Indeed, no GTX reviewed today should get a gold award?

In other words, you folks are hell-bent on "punishing" or "not rewarding" nvidia merely because they won't service your timetable for upgrades as you see fit. And for some reason, you seem to think that bashing current, good cards, or withholding an award from a top-tier card is the way to go about it.

Thankfully, the reviewers decided to judge the card fairly on its own merits rather than on the disappointed, emotional reactions of video card enthusiasts who want their upgrade fix now. . . now. . . NOW!
 
I agree that it's a good card, Hurin, but IMHO it's a bit short-sighted to look at the card in a vacuum, with no reference to the timing or to the market as a whole. If you look at the 8800 GTX reviews in context to the time they were written, they'd be correct. You'd have to be a fool to buy or recommend a 8800 GTX today (unless you got it for much less than what retailers are selling it for), with the top-end next generation coming out in two months if the rumors are correct (which they've seemed to be lately).

It's a bit less clear for the 8800 GTS 512MB, as it does give near-GTX power at sub-1080p for much less a price, but then the 8800 GT gives within spitting distance to that much power for even less money. The 8800 GTS 512MB is stuck in an uncomfortable position where somebody wanting best bang/buck in the >$200 range would be better served with a 8800 GT, but somebody wanting more performance would be better served just waiting a couple months for the next generation already. The only (educated) market I really see for the 8800 GTS 512MB is for somebody that wants more performance than an 8800 GT, is smart enough not to buy the 8800 GTX at this point in time, and absolutely must have it by Christmas. That seems like a pretty small market to me, and thus not really gold-worthy, again IMHO only. Now if the prices were to go down to $300 for a 8800 GTS (but 8800 GT prices hold steady), then it would be a much better deal, as it wouldn't be that much better than an 8800 GT, but wouldn't cost that much more either.
 
Brent_Justice said:
We have in fact pondered, and play with perhaps color coding things somehow, it is constantly a work in progress to improve the visual format. If you have any ideas or examples of how to make something look better send it to me via email.
Click to expand...

I got your email sam0t, thanks, i'll look at that format.

Battleneter2 said:
Are you actually looking at the FPS numbers in other reviews?, the G92 GTS does NOT buy you higher resolutions against a similarly clocked GT, it will buy you a few more FPS.. I don't know who started this G92 GTS for higher resolutions myth.

I like this review as it uses as it includes OC GT and GTS
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=2436&cid=3&pg=6

And again look at the FPS numbers not the pretty bars
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3175&p=4
Click to expand...

At 2560 there were advantages to performance and gameplay by using the GTS over the GT. The GTS is near GTX performance, and the GTX is certainly faster than the GT.

JOESKURTU said:
Thanks for the thorough review. I think that this card segment should just die. The 8800gt is good enough for those who have < 24" monitors.

The only advantage that was related to me throughout the review was some slightly higher in-game settings and AA. Not worth the extra cost imo.

I have a question about the test setups: You guys are using the following resolutions:

2560X1600, 1920x1200, 1600x1200, 1280x1024.
30", 27" or 24", 19" (crt?), 19" (lcd?)

Can I therefore assume:

Dell 3007WFP-HC, Dell 2407WFP-HC or 2707WFP 27, ? , ?

Better yet why not just show us in the test set up what you are using.
I assume you are running all those resolutions at a native resolution? Or are you using the 3007 for all resolutions? :confused:
Click to expand...

3007WFP and 19" CRT, though I use the 30" mainly, use LCD scaling in the drivers to keep the resolution native and the games fullscreen.

XamediX said:
I'm in the market for a 24in LCD, but I have a 19in now. So yep I'm stuck at 1280x1024 resolution. Thing is, I actually have 2 19in's and sometimes game at 2560x1024 resolution spanned across both on the few games that support it out of the box. (Crysis for one...) It seems Crysis is the only game that the GT cannot run at 1920 resolutions while trying to max out the in-game settings.

I would be confortable gaming at 1650 resolution on my 24in for the 1 or 2 games that force me to and at 1920 for all other games. All of this is based on [H]'s data. I'm a bit confused as to why [H] would give such praise to the new GTS. What is the price delta from an 8800GT? For EVGA step-up it seems the delta is ~$87 bucks. [H] didn't mention a specific Nvidia reference MSRP so I don't have one to compare really.
Click to expand...

NVIDIA suggested is around $349, but so far every retail OC card we've seen has been higher, XFX does have their base model at the $349 MSRP as indicated in the conclusion.

mashie said:
I see only one SLI connector on these new cards, guess they won't do Tri-SLI then. :(

have you done any testing with normal SLI using these cards?
Click to expand...

Haven't done SLI with these yet.
 
farfromhome said:
I agree that it's a good card, Hurin, but IMHO it's a bit short-sighted to look at the card in a vacuum, with no reference to the timing or to the market as a whole. If you look at the 8800 GTX reviews in context to the time they were written, they'd be correct. You'd have to be a fool to buy or recommend a 8800 GTX today (unless you got it for much less than what retailers are selling it for), with the top-end next generation coming out in two months if the rumors are correct (which they've seemed to be lately).
Click to expand...
That's all fair. I think we just fundamentally disagree over whether an objective review should "ding" a card based on what's expected in three months (or six, or eight).

Indeed, prior to this last year, we expected our top-tier cards to be soundly beaten within six-to-eight months. Yet I don't think it was common practice to withhold awards based on the certainty that the card was due to be obsolete so soon.

I think the point still remains that a lot of the criticizm towards the award is not based on the card's merits, but is instead based on this theory that nvidia could have released their "monster" card now if they wanted to do so, but are instead just jerking everyone around and making everyone wait (boo hoo!).

For the record, I'll be upgrading to the 8800gtx successor as well. I'm excited about it too. I just don't get so worked up about it that I consider it some kind of personal affront that nvidia has had the temerity to release something other than what I wanted. :)
 
"A very interesting addendum to this. I just got off the phone with BFG Tech and NVIDIA has been doing some strange things lately. As of this morning, the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB (unsure on the 320MB) will have its stream processors officially increased to 112, the same as the GT. This should put the GTS back ahead of the GT as per the paper specs"

Uhh how? is there going to be some soft-upgrade through newer nvidia drivers for us older GTS owners?
 
Deviationer said:
"A very interesting addendum to this. I just got off the phone with BFG Tech and NVIDIA has been doing some strange things lately. As of this morning, the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB (unsure on the 320MB) will have its stream processors officially increased to 112, the same as the GT. This should put the GTS back ahead of the GT as per the paper specs"

Uhh how? is there going to be some soft-upgrade through newer nvidia drivers for us older GTS owners?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the 96+ Shaders are old GTX cores since they are A2 revision not A3 which all of the newer (old) 8800GTS 320/640mb cards were.

Brent: How did upping the memory bandwidth affect games? You say that you pushed it up to 71gb/sec but how does that effect AA levels and FPS when gaming at 1600x1200 or above?

Thanks! :)
 
Deviationer said:
"A very interesting addendum to this. I just got off the phone with BFG Tech and NVIDIA has been doing some strange things lately. As of this morning, the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB (unsure on the 320MB) will have its stream processors officially increased to 112, the same as the GT. This should put the GTS back ahead of the GT as per the paper specs"

Uhh how? is there going to be some soft-upgrade through newer nvidia drivers for us older GTS owners?
Click to expand...
there have been G80 8800gts 640mb with 112 sp ever since the 8800gt came out. also the 8800gts 320mb has already been discontinued and the 8800gts 640mb only has a few more days before eol.
 
Also, people think NVidia does this stuff for them. OMG 8800GT at $250 with near-GTX performance! They did that for them, not for us. That's called dominating a market that was open for domination. They did that for them, out happiness to buy performance at that price is just a side effect.

These new 8800GTS's are not for us. They are not working to give us that performance we've been craving. They are all on a new process. This new process is similar across the board for all their new 8800's. ITS CHEAPER TO MAKE THESE REV. CARDS. That's why we are seeing a re-release of the GTS. One of the more basic reasons is smaller process = bigger yields = more profits. Period.

My personal opinion is that we haven't seen a real speed increase with these new processes because there is no need. The 8800 Ultra can handle every game but Crysis/S.C. at 1600+ resolutions w/ maxxed out game settings. Why crave for better hardware cause a few game designers can't write efficient enough code*? Also, AMD/ATi gave them no pressure to release something either.

*half joke here, but in all seriousness does crysis deserve to run that slow... I mean really?

People need to remember, these companies exist to make money. Pleasing customers is just one of the ways to do it. NV coulda just gave the cards the same speed settings and walked away with the extra cash while they wait for ATI to wake up and give them a reason to work hard again.

cannondale06 said:
there have been G80 8800gts 640mb with 112 sp ever since the 8800gt came out. also the 8800gts 320mb has already been discontinued and the 8800gts 640mb only has a few more days before eol.
Click to expand...
If this is true, that make make much more sense. 256mb GT, 512mb GT, 640mb GTS, 768mb GTX. Easy enough now. But only if the older GTS's actually get phased out. That's a healthy stretch of the market. Anything lower than that and people can buy a 8600 or any 7xxx series card for their gaming needs.
 
Hrm, I wish you did more testing at 1680x1050 sometimes... Even though I guess you can assume performance at that res. falls somewhere in between 1600x1200 and 1280x1024.

There's probably more people gaming at 1680x1050 than anything else these days given the prices of widescreen 20" and 22" LCDs no? Followed by 1600x (folks with older CRTs or non-widescreen LCDs) and 1920x (folks w/larger LCDs).

At 'least in so-far as people interested in buying these cards goes anyway, I'm sure the real avg. is 1280x at best. Maybe I'm off-base here and you've already run a poll to figure this out. :p
 
Impulse said:
Hrm, I wish you did more testing at 1680x1050 sometimes... Even though I guess you can assume performance at that res. falls somewhere in between 1600x1200 and 1280x1024.

There's probably more people gaming at 1680x1050 than anything else these days given the prices of widescreen 20" and 22" LCDs no? Followed by 1600x (folks with older CRTs or non-widescreen LCDs) and 1920x (folks w/larger LCDs).

At 'least in so-far as people interested in buying these cards goes anyway, I'm sure the real avg. is 1280x at best. Maybe I'm off-base here and you've already run a poll to figure this out. :p
Click to expand...

1680x1050 is less pixels than 1600x1200, if it runs well at 16x12 it will run even better at 16x10
 
1. Since gamers are playing on LCDs using widescreen 19x12 and 25x16 resolutions, why aren't those being tested instead of resolutions for antiquated CRTs?

2. The GTS 96 SP gave the GTX a run for its money. The GT gave the GTX a run for its money. The GTS 112 SP gave the GTX a run for its money.

So how do you justify a gold rating for the *third* release of a video card because it gives the GTX a run for its money? That is not an accomplishment one year after the GTX release.

Further, how do you justify the rating when it actually has less memory and a smaller bus than the GTS released a year ago? That certainly does not bode well for next year's titles.

With the next round from Nvidia coming out in two months, and especially with improved cooling on the GT recently introduced, this card's existence is by all appearances utterly redundant.
 
Matrices said:
With the next round from Nvidia coming out in two months, and especially with improved cooling on the GT recently introduced, this card's existence is by all appearances utterly redundant.
Click to expand...
Or it could be cheaper to make these new 8800GTS's...
 
Matrices said:
1. Since gamers are playing on LCDs using widescreen 19x12 and 25x16 resolutions, why aren't those being tested instead of resolutions for antiquated CRTs?
.
Click to expand...

Did you even read the review before complaining, because if sure doesn't seems like it. I believe every single page of tests started with 1920x1200 resolution first. Everything except crysis included 2560x1600. Crysis isn't playable at 25x16. Every single resolution tested is available as native resolutions of LCD's today.

Basically you couldn't be more bass ackwards if you tried.
 
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