Gainward 8800gts 1gb review

No one interested in this card?

Personally i find it the only semi interesting card on the market for those who haven´t got a 8800gtx/ultra. But maybe a cheap 8800gtx is a better choice...?
 
it certainly gets a boost but only in high resolutions (1920x1080+ i believe) and games that uses the unreal 3 engine seems to like the extra mem alot..
but im getting the 8800GT 1gb version
caus i find it more bang for buck in my opinion.
 
No intrest.. it seems that 8800 GTS doesn't get boost from that larger vram

You won't get a boost until you need that memory. I don't know why people expect a FPS boost from extra memory at all. What you can do is have more detailed textures, or more textures on screen at the same time without swapping them in and out and without compressing them. All it needs in order to be used is for someone to use it.

Everyone runs around saying that 1GB is useless because it isn't faster. As soon as a game producer comes out with a new game, a new patch or someone writes a modkit that needs it then everyone will wish they had it. It wouldn't surprise me, for instance, if a future Crysis patch had a super-ultra mode that required >512M especially with DX10. Ditto for the Half-Life 2 Cinematic Mod series that already requires >2.5G of system RAM, a 64-bit OS and 512M video card to run at all. Think of the CoH settings panel where you are shown how much "texture memory" you're using while you're tweaking settings. That has nothing whatsoever to do with FPS. With 1G you have more headroom now, and in the near future it may be required for some titles. Soon the top modes will start requiring 640M, 768M or 1G. There's always progress.

I'll concede that today's games won't show FPS increase, and may never. If that memory is entirely unused, why would anyone expect a FPS jump? One day, soon, it will be an option to use that extra RAM to increase detail. If a 1G option had existed when I bought my G92 GTS I would have seriously considered it, since I will have this thing for years. If you upgrade every 6 months and buying hardware is your hobby, then you probably won't care.
 
1gb is overkill for a card that has 256 bit bus better buy 2 cheap 8800gt 512mb and sli them instead, better performance.
 
You won't get a boost until you need that memory. I don't know why people expect a FPS boost from extra memory at all. What you can do is have more detailed textures, or more textures on screen at the same time without swapping them in and out and without compressing them. All it needs in order to be used is for someone to use it.

Everyone runs around saying that 1GB is useless because it isn't faster. As soon as a game producer comes out with a new game, a new patch or someone writes a modkit that needs it then everyone will wish they had it. It wouldn't surprise me, for instance, if a future Crysis patch had a super-ultra mode that required >512M especially with DX10. Ditto for the Half-Life 2 Cinematic Mod series that already requires >2.5G of system RAM, a 64-bit OS and 512M video card to run at all. Think of the CoH settings panel where you are shown how much "texture memory" you're using while you're tweaking settings. That has nothing whatsoever to do with FPS. With 1G you have more headroom now, and in the near future it may be required for some titles. Soon the top modes will start requiring 640M, 768M or 1G. There's always progress.

I'll concede that today's games won't show FPS increase, and may never. If that memory is entirely unused, why would anyone expect a FPS jump? One day, soon, it will be an option to use that extra RAM to increase detail. If a 1G option had existed when I bought my G92 GTS I would have seriously considered it, since I will have this thing for years. If you upgrade every 6 months and buying hardware is your hobby, then you probably won't care.
Great post, I definitely agree.

Just look at the difference between the 8800GT 256 and 512. If more VRAM is worthless, why did people pay $300+ last year for the 8800GT 512 when the 256mb version only cost $215?
 
You won't get a boost until you need that memory. I don't know why people expect a FPS boost from extra memory at all. What you can do is have more detailed textures, or more textures on screen at the same time without swapping them in and out and without compressing them. All it needs in order to be used is for someone to use it.

Everyone runs around saying that 1GB is useless because it isn't faster. As soon as a game producer comes out with a new game, a new patch or someone writes a modkit that needs it then everyone will wish they had it. It wouldn't surprise me, for instance, if a future Crysis patch had a super-ultra mode that required >512M especially with DX10. Ditto for the Half-Life 2 Cinematic Mod series that already requires >2.5G of system RAM, a 64-bit OS and 512M video card to run at all. Think of the CoH settings panel where you are shown how much "texture memory" you're using while you're tweaking settings. That has nothing whatsoever to do with FPS. With 1G you have more headroom now, and in the near future it may be required for some titles. Soon the top modes will start requiring 640M, 768M or 1G. There's always progress.

I'll concede that today's games won't show FPS increase, and may never. If that memory is entirely unused, why would anyone expect a FPS jump? One day, soon, it will be an option to use that extra RAM to increase detail. If a 1G option had existed when I bought my G92 GTS I would have seriously considered it, since I will have this thing for years. If you upgrade every 6 months and buying hardware is your hobby, then you probably won't care.

Sure, but lets say you said that about the 7900GTX back in the day. There are cards with 256mb that can put it to shame today.

Lesson is to not pointlessly overbuy now.
 
Sure, but lets say you said that about the 7900GTX back in the day. There are cards with 256mb that can put it to shame today.

Lesson is to not pointlessly overbuy now.

Something will always come out "tomorrow" that obsoletes what you have "today". Not everyone needs to have the best card currently available. If my last card was a 7900GTX instead of a 7600GT, I'd probably still be using it. I generally buy things to last more than a year.

Personally, my G92 GTS is the highest up the performance curve I've ever gone. I don't generally play the latest games and usually spend a lot lower down the price/performance curve. I do the same for CPUs (I bought an E6400 in Oct/2006 - second from the bottom but still C2D. Before I upgrade the mobo, I'll probably buy another much faster CPU that's still in the middle of the price/performance curve at that time).

My point still stands - if you don't upgrade all the time or consider buying hardware to be your hobby, a 1G G92 GTS may not be the craziest idea even if all the rad-leet reviewers out there don't show an FPS increase on today's games. Further, it may never yield an FPS increase, but it might mean you can play cinematic mod v7 of HL2 or something at all. A hell of a lot more changed between the G92 GTS and the 7900GTX than the extra 256M of VRAM, I'm not sure I see the value of the comparison to this thread.

Once you have "enough" RAM, adding more will never make it faster, but it will enable more detail and eye candy if someone writes an app to use it. If you don't have "enough" RAM, other techniques like texture compression will reduce FPS trying to make the game fit in insufficient resources. Yes, it's possible that these future high-RAM modes may have other issues and the rest of the G92 GTS won't be able to "keep up" with all the data in RAM and produce good playability, but not necessarily. Not every highres texture is flying all over the place at every point in time in every game. To conclude today that it is a waste of time is foolish, IMO.
 
wow indeed good post surly73..
im still not 100% sure to get the 8800gt 1gb or the gts 1gb
and besides the " extra 512 is bogus or not" it still has a great cooling system
that is cool and pretty silent compared to many others..
 
I chose the GTS over the GT for a couple of reasons.

1. on boxing day I found GTSs within $25-$30 of GTs
2. [H] forums had lots of discussions about crappy cooling on GTs (fans stuck at 100%, insufficient fans, old vs. new fan design - no idea what you'll receive, aftermarket cooling that makes it a 3-4 slot card)
3. more shaders, 15% performance edge
4. better cooling and physical packaging
5. longevity, resale value without lots of stupid mods

I'm still happy I went with the GTS512. If a GTS1024 would have been an option I would have thought about it depending on how much more it cost. I don't intend to upgrade any time soon. (famous last words)

I make my points simply to rebut the "it's useless because last year's benchmarks say it isn't any faster" position that some have. It's not always about speed, and it's not always about yesterday's benchmarks.
 
yea the gts 512 is nowadays 20 euro more expensive as the gt 1024 but the gts 512 doest have the "new cooler" not saying to original one is bad but im running sff so heat is a big issue and i know the new cooler on (for example the gainward sum others have it nowadays aswell) is alot cooler and silent then the original ones but have to admit the gts still is the best bang for buck nowadays (but im worried about my heat :S).. as for as i know the new gts 1024 will cost around 350 (gt1024 is 250)which is to expensive for me but i could consider it..
 
I wouldn't buy a 1GB version until its actually needed. I doubt we will need 1GB for games from the manufacturer until at least 2009.
 
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