Nvidia Brings the Midrange Heat with the 8800GT
11.05.07 - 08:56pm
We have all known the midrange graphics cards of this generation have positively sucked. There was no 7600GT of this series that positively kicked loads of butt in the midrange segment and landed at a price point that appealed to the midrange/budget wallet. The 8600GTS and HD2600XT both offered slide-show performance in DX10 and offered equal or slightly faster(read weak) performance in DX9 compared to the past generations midrange cards. This sort of changed with the launch of the 2900Pro a few weeks back, great card but the performance/power consumption was miserable and it was really a stopgap card to plug a bleeding gap in AMD’s lineup. Even better though is this second wave of graphics cards, the 55/65nm refresh that smells terribly of the 7800GTX - 7900GT/X refresh of 2006. So how well does this “refresh” stack up?
The 8800GTX launched about a year ago, a positive lifetime and a half in the graphics department but with the lack of competition from AMD, Nvidia has had little requirements to launch another highend card. However now that Nvidia is receiving a bit of heat in the midrange from the HD2900 and soon to be launched HD3850 Pro, now is good as ever to launch the 65nm refresh of the G80 core that the entire 8800 line is based upon. The new G92 core lands happily in between the 8800GTS and the 8800GTX on paper with 112 stream processors vs 96 stream processors in the GTS, more than double the texture address units(54 for GT, 24 for GTS), 56 filtering units vs 48, and 16 vs 20 ROPs. So besides the ROPs the 8800GT comes out on top but the killer is the 600MHz core clock vs 500MHz on the GTS along with 1800MHz vs 1600MHz memory clocks albeit on a 256-bit bus vs 320-bit on the GTS. At the end of the day though this factors into 57.6GB/s of bandwidth on the GT vs 64GB/s on the GTS, a tiny difference all things considered.
On paper the GT and GTS are about even but the crucial piece to think about is the price. The 8800GT lands around $240 price point with the price expected to sink down to $200 by Christmas while the 8800GTS fetches a hefty $300. On the flipside is the 8600GTS which sells for $120 and offers less than half the performance of the 8800GT. So where does this leave us? Honestly, the release of the 8800GT completely obliterates all past recommendations. Currently only the 512MB GT is available but a 256MB version will be available rather soon which should settle down by $170 or so, edging into 8600GTS ranges. From what I have seen the 8800GT offers performance that edges into the domain of the 8800GTX but with a price that is nearly half of the performance bracket it falls into. I’ve seen overclocks on the stock cooler to 740MHz core 2000MHz memory and I imagine under phase/LN2 and a slight bump in vcore we’ll see 900MHz fall and hopefully 1000MHz core. Performance is incredible with the card at stock clocks sitting around the 8800GTX and overclocking ~700MHz core 2000MHz memory easily crushing the GTX and getting comfortable with the 8800 Ultra. Scary, huh?
So at the end of the day, what are we looking at? I’d safely say unless the HD3850 offers performance that trumps the HD2900XT as the 8800GT is currently slapping the HD2900XT in the face. I would not suggest purchasing an 8800GTS or 8800GTX as the 8800GT beats them hands down in the same performance bracket and I would suggest 880Ultras only if your favorite game is 3DMark01/03/05/06 or you must have the best of the best and are willing to pay out the nose for it. If you are looking for something around the 8600GTS’ level of performance I’d have to urge you to step up to an 8800GT, for $60 more you can have a much better gaming experience. Right now I couldn’t even consider suggesting someone purchase an AMD card due to their terrible performance/price ratios and relatively high power consumption compared to the 65nm Nvidia offerings. Look out for the 256MB version of this card to hit stores by December, it could be a positive killer if it scales like the 320MB GTS did compared to the 640MB GTS.
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