8600GTS SLI or 8800GT?

Now is a time where Kyle's questions prove to be essential:

What are you going to be using these/this card for?

At what resolutions?

What is your price range?
 
Wow thanks for the quick reply guys.

What are you going to be using these/this card for?
Gaming mostly (i play everything from WoW to crysis)

At what resolutions?
I am planning to get a 24in 1920x1200
But this also brings up a good question, what would be better for Dual Monitor? lets say, watching a movie on a montior and playing a game at same time. (pretend i got a good CPU/Memory)

What is your price range?
200-400
 
8800GT. SLI/Crossfire is really only good when you want the best possible graphics today, which means getting two of the best cards on the market.

Two cheap cards will almost never beat one single card, plus there are less problems to worry about, and SLI doesn't support dual monitors, so you don't have to disable it when you exit a game.
 
Crysis... 1920x1200... Up to $400 worth spending...

I'd hold out for the 9800GX2 or especially the 9800GTX. (Maybe the 9800GT too)

If you got that money to spend, and at that resolution, I'd say get a 8800GTX if you need a card now... maybe a 3870X2 if the drivers get better.

Isn't the 9800GX2 coming in the 2nd week or something of March? the GTX is supposed to come 2 weeks after that. GT is all the way in april though.
 
Hate to say it, but you should wait. Lke the previous poster said...you should get the 9800 series card when it comes out. It might be really expensive though.

Well, actually, if your price range is $200-$400, you can find an 8800GTX for less than $400 now. Otherwise, the 8800GT or the 8800GTS 512 is the price/performance card to have right now
 
I have a SLI 8800GT set up and it can barely play crysis on a 24 screen. It also studders because it uses more than the 512 memory I have on the cards. Thats with all settings on very high no aa. Lowering to high is ok gameplay. I think one card will handle WoW fine. My opinion on waiting is that there is always something new coming out, and I'm to impatient lol. I'll probably sell the GTs in a few months if the 98's are godlike.
 
I wouldn't buy anything right now, even if I really needed to buy a good card.

9800GX2 is going to be interesting too see how it turns out (temps, performance, power requirements, price), but I'm guessing the start price is going to be ~$600. I have the feeling it's going to be too power demanding and too expensive.

The 9800GTX really has my eye right now though. I'm guessing starting at ~$400-450. This is what I am really excited for. Price might be a bit high but I have a feeling that the price/performance/power req's are gonna be pretty sweet/pretty good bump in performance. A perfect thing to step up too from my 8800GTS 512 too :D

9800GT I'm gonna assume to be the same core, running a little slower and in the $250-350 range.

I haven't heard anything new from ATI, probably some drivers, 3870x2 in crossfire (probably not going to bee too much faster... just too expensive and too hot). I've heard of some pretty bogus sounding rumors of the 4000 series stuff.
 
Why is it everytime the average budget customer asks for advice, it is suggested he wait for the next high end, elite card? He's recently RMA'ed his 7900gt! Does this strike you as someone who should wait for the next premium priced (aka "not good value for money") card?

Recommendation: Don't wait. Don't SLI the 8600 as performance will still be fairly poor. Buy the 8800GT as it is an excellent "value for money" card.
 
8800GT or, if you can afford it, an 8800GTS 512 - much faster than the 8600GTS in SLI
 
the 9 series cards so far have absolutely no performance gains over the 8800's. i would pick up a GTX from tigerdirect or newegg for 360. to answer you question specifically, 2x 8600's would perform worse than a 8800gt and probably cost the same
 
Wow thanks a lot for the feedback, this really does help me on deciding what to get. And of cause playing crysis i would adjust resolution ;)

i am probably gonna get a 8800
 
I cant believe that evga thinks the 8600 gt is an appropriate replacement for an 7900gt!
 
an 8800 gs or 8800gt 256mb would be closer to that card when he bought it. Heck even give him 2 x 8600 gt's for an sli setup! their cost is probably $40 each
 
echn111 said:
Recommendation: Buy the 8800GT as it is an excellent "value for money" card.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm trying to acquire, a "value for money" card. I'm building my first rig from scratch and decided not to get the very best and fastest stuff but rather shoot for "value for money" performance. I know the GPU is important but I don't really see the need, especially at this point - being my first build, to get the elite card. My only concern is that I plan to connect my rig to our 40" 1080p HDTV. Would Y'all agree that a 8800GT or 8800 GTS will feed the 40" HDTV adequately for most games with the exception being Crysis?
 
the 8800GT, 8800GTS (edit: GTS 512MB) and 9600GT have the same basic core with varying numbers of stream processors. between the 3, they're probably the best price/performance cards around.

9600GT is retailing online for $180. advantage: very affordable, no mail-in rebates tagged to these yet.

8800GT has a few more stream processors than the 9600, but not as many as the 8800GTS 512. they start in the $200 but usually seem to require a mail-in rebate.

the 8800GTS 512 has more stream processors than the other two. the lowest one i found was $250 after MIR.

these are newegg prices; you might be able to find cheaper online retailers, but the egg is a pretty good price reference. asus also has a GTS with 1GB of VRAM, but IMO the mem bus is too small to use a whole gig for 1 core.
 
What's the chances we'll see significant price drops after this weekend on the 8800 series? With the way prices have been coming down they might have even further to go but the question is by how much. OTOH prices could be pretty close to bottoming now with the release of the 9600.

One other question, I know a lot of Y'all play games on a wide-screen 22 or 24 inch monitor. But how well would a 8800GT or GTS do on a 40" 1080p HDTV? My guess is about the same since the resolution on a 24" monitor (1920 x 1200) is comparable to a 1080p HDTV (1920 x 1080). Sound about right?
 
The 9600GT is the 3850 killer. Same price, better performance overall. 3850 might edge it out in some spots.

The 8800GT 512 is the 3870 killer, currently same price, better performance. The price is supposed to down to $180, that will be interesting.
 
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