The Official Nvidia 8800 Series Thread!

[Coors]

Are you noticing any poor performance with any of your games? A 8800gts should kick just about any games butt at that resolution. I think the 9800's are supposed to be out in Nov-Dec. And any info out on them now is probably not accurate unless it comes straight from nvidia themselves.

[jaz]

I haven't bought any of the new games yet. But I've been running benchies, and they're ok, not quite what i expected, but their ok. i beat some others with sililar set-ups and lose to others , but by very small margins.

 

And no, these new games will bring an ultra to it's knees as Travis said, they are VERY demanding. And I've seen comparisons with different evga cards, and the ultra's are the way to go. but maybe I'll call and ask when the new cards are comming out and how much they are.

[Coors]

At that resolution though I don't think you will see a huge increase in performance between a GTS and an Ultra. I wouldn't put much worth into benchmark scores. Just play your favorite games and I think you will be very pleased with the results.

[jaz]

I've seen a few comparison sites that pit about 10 evga cards together and the difference is definatly obvious. The ultra's are much better than the gts. The main difference in the comparisons I've seen are the difference in quality , not so mush as performance. As you go to better cards, you see way more detail than lesser cards. That's what I've been trying to say. They say the gtx's are closer to the ultra's in performance, but i just got off the phone with evga and they guy said he hasn't heard of anything definate about the new 9800 series.

 

I talked to a guy at newegg where i bought my card, and told him about the step up program and asked what's better....2 of my cards in sli or a single ultra. He said definatly trade up to an ultra. It beats the others by far. Better cooling solution too, less power consumption, even one ultra uses less power than 2 gts's. So I'm just gonna sit on my rock and wait and see what happens in the next 90 days. If they come out with the card, it will be for about the same price, lower power consumption, higher quality and performance.

 

We'll wait this one out.

[jaz]

Are you noticing any poor performance with any of your games? A 8800gts should kick just about any games butt at that resolution. I think the 9800's are supposed to be out in Nov-Dec. And any info out on them now is probably not accurate unless it comes straight from nvidia themselves.

 

I called evga and they said if they come out with the new 9800 cards within my 90 day trade-up period, i can get a 9800. I read somewhere they will be cheaper, less power consumption, and i don't remember seeing any specs on the new cards. I don't think any were posted. If anybody knows more than this, please let me know. I'm finding evga to be a really good company. Awesome tek support.

Thanks

 

Edit; from what I've been reading at anandtek and other sites, including nividia and evga, the new 900 series cards (or whatever they're going to call them, aren't going to be showing up in my time from for the step up program, so it looks like I'm going to have to wait until the last munite to "step up," hoping the prices will come down a bit. Kinda sucks...i have to wiat a couple weeks with no gfx card while the proccess finishes. Dam, why din't i just get a better card. I always seem to miss that freakin' tek bus...lol.

[Jachyra007]

Is there a consensus on what are currently the best drivers? Last I knew, they were in the 97.xx range, but now I see 163.71 as the top option. I know I haven't been out of the loop that long...why the sudden huge jump in numbers? Throwing the in sedona/coolbits of course - Is the Gainward Tool was still good for overclocking, or would Rivia tuner be a better option?

[Splave]

suprised there is no buzz about the 8800gt and rumours of upping the shaders on the 8800gts+ to 128

[wevsspot]

Well,

 

All I can tell you guys is that I've been running this eVGA 8800GTS 640mb card for several months now. I've got a Chimei 22" monitor that runs 1680X1050 native resolution. I play FEAR, COH and BF2 (all flavors) at the monitor's native resolution and mostly high settings.

 

This card doesn't even flinch. All of my frame rates are well above 60fps on every game I own.

 

This card easily accepted an overclock of 600 / 1750 without even sneezing. And most review sites put both the core and memory overclock ceilings well above what I'm currently running.

 

Unless you're into benchmarking and saying you've absolutely got the best 3DMark benchmark on the planet, I can promise you that a regular old 8800GTS of any flavor will play any game out there right now.

[radodrill]

I just got a pair of BFG 8800GTX OCs; installed the DD 8800GTX blocks and flashed them to the speeds of the BFG 8800GTX OC WCE (650/2000). Once I get all the H2O installed and fire up the rig I'll see how well they do.

[krazypoloc]

Well,

 

All I can tell you guys is that I've been running this eVGA 8800GTS 640mb card for several months now. I've got a Chimei 22" monitor that runs 1680X1050 native resolution. I play FEAR, COH and BF2 (all flavors) at the monitor's native resolution and mostly high settings.

 

This card doesn't even flinch. All of my frame rates are well above 60fps on every game I own.

 

This card easily accepted an overclock of 600 / 1750 without even sneezing. And most review sites put both the core and memory overclock ceilings well above what I'm currently running.

 

Unless you're into benchmarking and saying you've absolutely got the best 3DMark benchmark on the planet, I can promise you that a regular old 8800GTS of any flavor will play any game out there right now.

 

I totally agree with you Wev. There is absolutely no reason to get anything higher than an 8800GTS320 for resolutions lower that 1280x1024, unless all you care about is benchmarks. And if thats the case, then Jaz, you got yourself the wrong platform. You are not going to be the top dog on ORB running AMD gear, those days are long over (for now anyways).

 

I would also agree that these cards are spectacular overclockers. As you can see form the OC in my sig, and thats on stock volts with all stock cooling. I didn't even re-apply the stock thermal paste. And my cards temps are 63c/73c idle and load respectively.

[jaz]

I decided on stepping up to the 8800gtx 768 near the end of my 90 day period, hoping the price drops a little. I called the guys at evga a few times, inquiring about this and that upgrade. Most of the guys said don't waste your money on an ultra.

 

He said my best upgrade option would be to get the 8800gtx 768, and it isn't that much more. Less than 2 of my present cards. He said it's a great ocer and I've looked at comparisons over at anandtek and a couple other places, and it's the same core as ultra, it has a 386 memory bit and i can get ultra clocks.

I don't know if i dare to flash the bios like some did, but i will definatly be ocing it.

 

Some game demo benchies have shown that the extra mem really makes a difference, even at 12x10 res. And it gives you the extra memory path of 386 or something close to that. No sense in having so much memory if the card can't access it fast enough to use it. I even asked him if the extra 60 bits of memory bus helped to get at that much memory, and he said they wouldn't make the card that way if it wouldn't work.

 

I took that with a grain of salt, (after all, he does work for the company,) but at least he was honest enough to tell me not to bother with the ultra's that i would be wasting my money. So after researching all this and seeing that they are not coming out with a 9xxx series until probably next spring, the gtx 768 is my next card. It's just going to suck to have to go 1 1/2 weeks w/o a vcard (hence no pc). But it will be worth the wait.

 

I like my card, and it's great factory oc'ed and all, but it's going to be a bit of a slow performer when it comes to high settings in games. The extra memory will mostly be used for detail, not so much for speed, but that in effect will keep my card from slowing down in certain areas of demanding games as Travis has stated ultras even struggle a bit with.

 

And Krazypoloc, I've looked at a few sites that have done comparisons with the different flavers of this card, (i paid attention mostly to the difference in 320mb and 640 mb versions, and there is quite an advantage of having more memory on these cards. And stepping up to another gts just isn't worth the trouble. If I'm going to pay a little more and have to wait 1 1/2 weeks w/o a card, i might as well get the most practical that i can, hence the gtx.

 

By the way, anybody got a spare PCIe vcard they can lend me while i wait for my step-up card next month? j/k.

[Jachyra007]

Is there a consensus on what are currently the best drivers? Last I knew, they were in the 97.xx range, but now I see 163.71 as the top option. I know I haven't been out of the loop that long...why the sudden huge jump in numbers? Throwing the in sedona/coolbits of course - Is the Gainward Tool still good for overclocking, or would Rivia tuner be a better option?

 

Anyone?