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

Nvidia is still retarded for naming it the 8800's again

The 8900's would've made so much more sense, but instead I guess they didn't want to see sales of the GTX/Ultra get cannibalized more by knowledgeable buyers so they're relying on the uninformed
 
I guess it is worth piping up about pixels here and screen resolutions.

For the most part you can do some simple math....

1600x1200=1,920,000 pixels.

1680x1050=1,764,000 pixels.

The card has to push the pixels, and leaving out field of view impact, 1680x1050 is less stressful. So if you are running a custom resolution, don't think that we forgot about you or are leaving resolutions "out." We are covering enough resolutions to hopefully give you something that is easily comparative to. Every res we add on our side greatly increases our workload impacting getting it done and out to you guys.
 
Nvidia is still retarded for naming it the 8800's again

The 8900's would've made so much more sense, but instead I guess they didn't want to see sales of the GTX/Ultra get cannibalized more by knowledgeable buyers so they're relying on the uninformed


This is exactly my guess as Brent and I discussed it this morning on the way to a super-clandestine room tucked away at the airport to see some new technology (check back on Thursday). Those in-the-know will of course know what to look for but those that don't will buy up the "lesser" inventories that are still out in the market. A pretty smart move from the NV side of things.
 
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.

I agree with the whole "a big company does stuff for their benefit, not ours" bit, but I wouldn't call our happiness to buy performance at that price a mere side effect. On the contrary, they're banking on that (literally). For once we can actually thank AMD/ATi again. If NVIDIA hadn't released the 8800 GT as being better than the old 8800 GTS, they would have ceded the lucrative upper-middle price/performance segment to the far superior 3870 (which is selling out as-is), compared to the lackluster 8800 GTS 320, its closest competitor. They wanted to steal AMD's thunder, and they did, quite effectively. But to do that, they had to release a product people actually wanted.
 
For the love of god please let that new technology be a 9800 ultra due for release in early January! My pathetic 6800GT just cant handle modern games anymore

Sorry, we did not meet with the Green Team.
 
"Basically you couldn't be more bass ackwards if you tried."

Oh hey look at me, I can call people names and chastise them for not reading something, while blatantly ignoring half the content of their post. :rolleyes:

Okay, I missed that most the numbers have widescreen. I'm glad it's there.

That still doesn't address point #2 - which is that it's hard pressed for a rational observer to see how the card deserves a seal of approval for approaching GTX-level performance when 3 cards from the same company released in the last year also approach GTX-level performance.

My basic metric is this - does this card warrant an upgrade from an "old" GTS? The answer with the GT and GTS 92nm 112SP was obviously "not really." This new GTS falls into the same category, offering marginal performance increase and zero new features except for hardware decoding.

Unless you're going with the step-up program, dropping $400 for an old-gen part with a fresh round of make-up is going to look very silly come February.
 
Oh hey look at me, I can call people names and chastise them for not reading something, while blatantly ignoring half the content of their post. :rolleyes:

Sorry, but you still got pwned ;) back on topic:

That still doesn't address point #2 - which is that it's hard pressed for a rational observer to see how the card deserves a seal of approval for approaching GTX-level performance when 3 cards from the same company released in the last year also approach GTX-level performance.

My basic metric is this - does this card warrant an upgrade from an "old" GTS? The answer with the GT and GTS 92nm 112SP was obviously "not really." This new GTS falls into the same category, offering marginal performance increase and zero new features except for hardware decoding.

Unless you're going with the step-up program, dropping $400 for an old-gen part with a fresh round of make-up is going to look very silly come February.

It's still just a refresh, what exactly do you expect from that? They're not meant to be leaps and bounds better, they're replacements that have one or two more features and slighty better to better performance; that's exactly what this GTS is. I fully don't agree with the naming though, but oh well.

Anyways, cool review Brent. I'm hoping I can wait until the next round of video cards to replace this damn 7600GT, but this card I don't think will be on the top of my list. I partially agree with Matrices, not sure why it's a Gold ranking, but as Kyle said, it's your opinion, I personally would have given it a Silver. Very thorough review though, there's a definite reason why I come to the [H] every day.
 
I completely disagree with your conclusion that the G92 GTS is the best bang for the buck, even at your specified resolutions. The G92 GT is clearly the owner of that title.

QFT, the GTS is definately not $100-$150 more card than the GT.... although I wouldn't refuse either one of them.....
 
Is it still rumor, confirmed, or disproved that there will be a 1GB version? If it is in fact slated for release, Wouldn't the extra ram bring it over the GTX and possibly the Ultra as well?
 
Is it still rumor, confirmed, or disproved that there will be a 1GB version? If it is in fact slated for release, Wouldn't the extra ram bring it over the GTX and possibly the Ultra as well?

Might still be held back by 256-bit though
 
Might still be held back by 256-bit though

not if they put some decent memory in the thing!

why is every OC version only overclocking the core?
i haven't seen even one OC version with memory over 2.0GHz!
 
yes but enough with the refresh crap. we need the new generation of much more powerful cards.

for what though? crysis? whoop di freaking whoop. How many of you guys actually play multi-player crysis where image quality and smooth frames actually matter? I beat single player crysis with crap settings on my 7 series card and now im done with it. No real games to that make me wanna upgrade. BF2 made me wanna do it, so did CoH. TF2 and COD4 are currently doing fine on my 20in and 7950gt. I'll think ill worry about games that i want to play long term (I.E. Multiplayer) first, then ill back it up with whatever hardware i need.
 
for what though? crysis? whoop di freaking whoop. How many of you guys actually play multi-player crysis where image quality and smooth frames actually matter? I beat single player crysis with crap settings on my 7 series card and now im done with it. No real games to that make me wanna upgrade. BF2 made me wanna do it, so did CoH. TF2 and COD4 are currently doing fine on my 20in and 7950gt. I'll think ill worry about games that i want to play long term (I.E. Multiplayer) first, then ill back it up with whatever hardware i need.

Good for you, there are some people who are still stuck on shittier cards than the 7900 generation and would like to upgrade to the latest and greatest, but not to a card which:

(a) is unlikely to perform well with future DX10 releases;
(b) is likely to be obsolete in a matter of months;
(c) is the same damn product from a year ago which barely qualifies as a refresh and is being sold for about the same price!

Glad to know you like playing games on crap settings but quite frankly I am sick of it and am prepared to pay top dollar for the new generation of video cards.
 
"Basically you couldn't be more bass ackwards if you tried."

Oh hey look at me, I can call people names and chastise them for not reading something, while blatantly ignoring half the content of their post. :rolleyes:

Okay, I missed that most the numbers have widescreen. I'm glad it's there.

That still doesn't address point #2 - which is that it's hard pressed for a rational observer to see how the card deserves a seal of approval for approaching GTX-level.

First, when you start off on a rant that shows you didn't even read what you are ranting about, it destroys your credibility and paints you as someone just looking for an excuse to whine.

Second your point #2 was unoriginal and brought up several times already, but here is my answer. There are two reasons hardware gets rewarded with good reviews. 1: Biggest Bang, and 2: Bang for the buck.

These cards were never going to be about The biggest Bang. These cards represent decent bang/buck. Of course it depends on where the prices settle when the dust clears, but I would pay $50 more for the GTS with its additional performance and bigger quieter cooler. YMMV.

I refuse to pay inflated pricing so I will wait until post holiday season to see where they settle. If the GTS ends at $100 more than a GT, then it doesn't deserve an award. Kind of like awarding the 3870 for being cheaper than the 8800GT which faced shortages and overpricing when the 3870 predictably ended up in the same situation. It is much harder to do the calculus of bang/buck because prices are not stable. But still little reason to rant about the rating. These are good cards for a not obscene price.
 
Good for you, there are some people who are still stuck on shittier cards than the 7900 generation and would like to upgrade to the latest and greatest, but not to a card which:

(a) is unlikely to perform well with future DX10 releases;
(b) is likely to be obsolete in a matter of months;
(c) is the same damn product from a year ago which barely qualifies as a refresh and is being sold for about the same price!

Glad to know you like playing games on crap settings but quite frankly I am sick of it and am prepared to pay top dollar for the new generation of video cards.

I think you just described me. I'm on a 6800 still, and it's eol hit just about when the Wii came out so it didn't hurt as bad.

But now with all these new games out...it's time to upgrade; but that credit card isn't coming out until I see a card running Crysis/UT3/CoD4 @1920x1200 w/ settings cranked.

I'm not making the mistake of buying a vanilla version card again. (BFG 6800 OC 128mb)
 
Well, the $100 delta seems to hold true for NV's reference MSRP's. So, yea.... Also why do people like to spread the misinformation that the GTS part [H] reviewed now is the same part as the 96SP GTS [H] Reviewed a year ago? It's not! It's obviously faster. Why do people like to blatantly tell lies to prove a point?
 
I think you just described me. I'm on a 6800 still, and it's eol hit just about when the Wii came out so it didn't hurt as bad.

But now with all these new games out...it's time to upgrade; but that credit card isn't coming out until I see a card running Crysis/UT3/CoD4 @1920x1200 w/ settings cranked.

I'm not making the mistake of buying a vanilla version card again. (BFG 6800 OC 128mb)

i'm in the same boat.
I still have a 6600GT and really hurting lately so i've been looking to get a 8800GT but the crap cooler scared me. then new cooler but it's pretty random so far an i hate that.

so the the new 8800GTS comes out which solves the cooler issue ( i don't care about OCing anyway) and i game at 1600*1080 on a 20" so i don't need top dog.


Now i'm tempted to wait for the 9 series in February but for what price? and i'm not even sure my system will be compatible (nforce 4 and athlon 64 3500+) so that would mean a whole complete new rig....

that's why the 8800GTS tempts me. because i wouldn't have to modify it and it would probably run games very well for at least a year or 2 and then i could upgrade again.


I think most people's issues are that they already have a 8800GT or GTS or even GTX and have had them for a while so they want really new cards and that's fair....it's just not my case.
 
i'm in the same boat.
I still have a 6600GT and really hurting lately so i've been looking to get a 8800GT but the crap cooler scared me. then new cooler but it's pretty random so far an i hate that.

so the the new 8800GTS comes out which solves the cooler issue ( i don't care about OCing anyway) and i game at 1600*1080 on a 20" so i don't need top dog.


Now i'm tempted to wait for the 9 series in February but for what price? and i'm not even sure my system will be compatible (nforce 4 and athlon 64 3500+) so that would mean a whole complete new rig....

that's why the 8800GTS tempts me. because i wouldn't have to modify it and it would probably run games very well for at least a year or 2 and then i could upgrade again.


I think most people's issues are that they already have a 8800GT or GTS or even GTX and have had them for a while so they want really new cards and that's fair....it's just not my case.

If you're still running a single-core 3500+, you definitely ought to upgrade that... it would be a tremendous bottleneck for even an 8800, much less a hypothetical 9 series. Then again I guess it depends on what you're playing, but if you can get by with that CPU, then you don't really need an 8800 either :p
 
for what though? crysis? whoop di freaking whoop. How many of you guys actually play multi-player crysis where image quality and smooth frames actually matter? I beat single player crysis with crap settings on my 7 series card and now im done with it. No real games to that make me wanna upgrade. BF2 made me wanna do it, so did CoH. TF2 and COD4 are currently doing fine on my 20in and 7950gt. I'll think ill worry about games that i want to play long term (I.E. Multiplayer) first, then ill back it up with whatever hardware i need.

If that's your opinion, then [H] is not for you :)
 
This market is really milking us. I'm probably one of the few who plays older games in all their glory. Once my 8800GT comes in I'll unwrap HL2 and FEAR. Got the games a while ago but my pc sucked (x800xt) and I wanted to play both at 1680 with everything on max. I barely got farcry to play so I didn't bother. I won't play on medium to low settings. I buy the game to play at max settings to play it like it was meant to be played. And I won't spend $400+ to play just that game. Next year a new game will come out that will warrant a new $400+ card to play it at max. settings. I'd rather buy a game console for that money and play for 5 years.

If maybe Nvidia stuck GDDR4 on the GTS it would be a good buy. Just not enough improvement. Still have to play Crysis on medium settings. I'll wait till the spring/summer to see what the new midrange card can do. If it plays Crysis on high then I'll sell my 8800GT and get it.
 
How is the market milking people if that same $500 8800GTX you bought a year ago is still whipping butt and taking names even today? How is that milking? The only difference is that many more people can get close to your performance and by spending less money.

I for one am glad that the expensive video cards people buy can actually get a years worth of use of them before something faster comes out. That's value!!!! I can't believe I am hearing people with GTX's complaining that they can't spend more money on a faster card yet. Amaziing, you consumers amaze me sometimes.
 
How is the market milking people if that same $500 8800GTX you bought a year ago is still whipping butt and taking names even today? How is that milking? The only difference is that many more people can get close to your performance and by spending less money.

I for one am glad that the expensive video cards people buy can actually get a years worth of use of them before something faster comes out. That's value!!!! I can't believe I am hearing people with GTX's complaining that they can't spend more money on a faster card yet. Amaziing, you consumers amaze me sometimes.

You said it yourself. "$500".

Does your definition of "whipping butt" mean medium settings and no AA? I'll probably have to play on low settings if I ever get a bigger LCD.

11972763797Kp8njPNqn_3_5.gif


So to summarize your post. You're happy to pay $500 only to play with no AA on medium settings a year later?
 
this video card stuff and timing with crysis sucks. I mean why release a game that you cant use the full capability of? I guess my 360 is getting played a little while longer. LOL
 
You said it yourself. "$500".

Does your definition of "whipping butt" mean medium settings and no AA? I'll probably have to play on low settings if I ever get a bigger LCD.

So to summarize your post. You're happy to pay $500 only to play with no AA on medium settings a year later?

One game, big effing deal. I swear people make out Crysis to be some test of your manhood. It's not even that good of a game. Other people may think it's awesome and that's fine, I'M NOT HERE TO ARGUE ABOUT CRYSIS, but I think it's funny to say the GTX sucks just because of that one game. I play UT3 and Supreme Commander with 4xAA and max settings just fine, as well as just about every other current game. What's to complain about?
 
You said it yourself. "$500".

Does your definition of "whipping butt" mean medium settings and no AA? I'll probably have to play on low settings if I ever get a bigger LCD. So to summarize your post. You're happy to pay $500 only to play with no AA on medium settings a year later?

No. Reading comprehension is key. My previous post that you most likely haven't read among many others in here already went over people's infatuation with Crysis.

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?

But to more CORRECTLY summarize my post, You should be happy the 500$ GTX you bought last year isnt trumped by a faster card AND it stills plays every (99%) game fine all maxxed out. One game is the exception, Crysis. We all know that.. We knew that when the 8800GT's were released. So using that as your sole argument against a video card that plays many other games besides Crysis just makes you look st... out of date.
 
So performance is within a hair of the 8800 GTX -- not bad at all. Lets hope they have an 8800 GTX (65 nm) in store for us or something even better!

I and everyone else has heard about the 'GX2' type card coming... :rolleyes: Yuck !


Looking at the results, it's making me ask if we're going to see a G92 based GTX prior to the launch of the next gen cards...

Looks like taking the G92 based GTS and simply widening the memory bus (and of course providing the matching amount of memory) would easily be enough to outdo the G80 GTX/Ultra.

So... any insight into if we'll see such a thing? :D

Oh, and if EVGA puts one out at the $299 price point, I think a step-up will be in order :)


I really hope we dont,I want Nvidia to go straight for the throat again,and give us another GTX level 'OMFGWTF' type launch :cool: And lets hope its not another bastardized GX2,that needs hand tuned drivers,and SLI profiles to work its best.

I pray Digitmes is right,in that we see a D9E card with a brand new chip on 65nm,in the late Winter,or very early Spring of 2008.As I said before I dont care if its pricy,just bring it on already !! No mention of what may be coming in the high end in the review ? Not even well informed speculation ? :eek:

And as usual,great review Brent ! :cool:
 
I would have liked to see the first release GTS 640mb included in the review.

But it looks like a nice card.
 
When Nvidia had competition, a year out of the gate, they would have had a new version, not this refresh stuff.

Maybe they are waiting for ATI to get it together and annouce something good and then say oh yea, well, look here and then they release the next model (whatever comes after 8800. They can't use 9800).

I wish ATI would get it together again, it would mean Nvidia would move things along faster.
 
I was only using Crysis for illustration purposes as to how the games demand so much more every year. I could use previous years examples or Doom 3, FarCry, FEAR. I could be wrong, but when those came out almost nothing could play them on high. One had to upgrade to some ridiculously expensive card or even SLI to max them out. Other games will follow Crysis that will require the same horsepower or more. Even if you don't care for Crysis I don't think you'll stop playing all the new games. We're forced to get these expensive cards in order to keep up. You can buy a $500 vc now and play every game out there for a year and then something comes out that will force you to turn down the settings. That's what bothers me.
 
I agree that the new 8800GTS is a great card. I have the 8800GT as well and I set both of them to the same speeds and the 8800GTS was much faster....:)
 
this video card stuff and timing with crysis sucks. I mean why release a game that you cant use the full capability of? I guess my 360 is getting played a little while longer. LOL

its been like that for awhile, look at oblivion,F.E.A.R, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and now crysis. when they came out that top dog card at the time couldnt max it out. So, my philosophy is to tailor my card based on what game i plan to play for a LONG time. ATM its COD4 and i can play native rez with some eye candy on and it plays great. Why someone would tailor their card purchase on a single player game like crysis i dont know. There is always going to be more demanding games and better gpus to support it. I want to enjoy in the NOW. If we look at games like BF2 & CS:S of yesteryear they still play great and lots of people are playing it still. OrangeBoX, COD4, CoH are the new standard and i think people will be playing those for at least 1 year.
 
If you're still running a single-core 3500+, you definitely ought to upgrade that... it would be a tremendous bottleneck for even an 8800, much less a hypothetical 9 series. Then again I guess it depends on what you're playing, but if you can get by with that CPU, then you don't really need an 8800 either :p

well if I wait until the 9 series i'm definitely changing the MB and the proc as well (but $$$$ :/ )

you really think my single core would bottleneck a 8800 (GT or GTS) that much? (with 2G of ram)
I play anything. right now on my list are FEAR, Hitman 2, GoW, Witcher, Far Cry...that kind of stuff

i get by really fine on single core really. i just played Bloodlines, Doom 3, Divine Divinity. And i wanted to upgrade monitor and GC to play the games mentioned above.
 
well if I wait until the 9 series i'm definitely changing the MB and the proc as well (but $$$$ :/ )

you really think my single core would bottleneck a 8800 (GT or GTS) that much? (with 2G of ram)
I play anything. right now on my list are FEAR, Hitman 2, GoW, Witcher, Far Cry...that kind of stuff

i get by really fine on single core really. i just played Bloodlines, Doom 3, Divine Divinity. And i wanted to upgrade monitor and GC to play the games mentioned above.

Hmm we play different games, I can't comment on most of those honestly. I'd think GoW would benefit pretty nicely from a dual core since it's using UE3 engine, not sure about those other games. Obviously older stuff like Far Cry is going to be fine with a single core. Upping to an 8800 will let you play anything you're currently playing with higher resolutions/filtering/gpu-related settings without slowing down, but you'd likely get even greater performance if you paired it with a dual core cpu.
 
The trend isn't really that games are getting more demanding. That's just Crysis and Halo pc ports. We all know UT3 is a diff game but it sure gives shitloads better performance than Crysis. According to H's review, UT3 will allow you to play @ maximum details using cards less than $200. Crysis IS NOT the standard to go by. It is just ONE piece of the puzzle.

Most of the people whining about performance this and performance that have old cards. If you actually owned a 8800GT or HD3870, you would see for yourself. With my 8800GT, I can play Crysis on high(maxxed out in DX9), and at my native resolution, AND keep my FPS a tad above 30. Only way I could be happier is if I got more FPS. EVERY OTHER GAME I CAN RUN MAXXED OUT WITH MY NATIVE RES(1280x1024).
 
The trend isn't really that games are getting more demanding. That's just Crysis and Halo pc ports. We all know UT3 is a diff game but it sure gives shitloads better performance than Crysis. According to H's review, UT3 will allow you to play @ maximum details using cards less than $200. Crysis IS NOT the standard to go by. It is just ONE piece of the puzzle.
.

Agreed Crysis is just one game, hower it is truely graphically superior to anything else out there at the moment. Having a play with the Sandbox myself, i can see the true power of the engine and easily see a number of future games based on its engine..

Next time you are in UT3, have a good look at the background scenery like trees etc, they are actually 2D and of course the area itself is vastly smaller than Crysis.

The reality is however new game like it are probably a year+ away and by then most enthusiasts have or are looking to move on.
 
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