Your search for the perfect graphics card is over

...says NVidia:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8800gt.html

Apparently the 8800 GT has the perfect combination of performance, power, and price. My understanding was that this was to be the first lower-price high-end 8 series card.

I bought my 8800 GTS here a year ago for the same price it still is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000380048%20106791921%201067924922&bop=And&Order=PRICE

Here is pricing for the new 8800 GT, "the perfect combination of performance, power, and pricing":
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000380048%20106791921%201067932704&bop=And&Order=PRICE

Wow, a whopping $25 difference. That's like an 8% off sale.

I've got the 8800 GTX.

I hope mine is better.

It look like the 8800 GT is quite a bit faster than your 8800 GTS, in addition to being a little bit cheaper:
http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-3555-view-GeForce-8800-GT-benchmark.html

Yeah, but they can't even get users to upgrade to the lowest-end 8 series card.

I'd say the average gamer's card is somewhere between a 6800 and a 7600.

Maybe, but if I did decide to upgrade to a DX10 card, it would probably be the 8800 GT. Considering how close the 8800 GT's performance is to the 8800 GTX's, I'd say the price is very good.

Of course if you want the absolute fastest card available, there's always the 8800 Ultra / etc., but that's going to be very expensive. That's why they say it has the perfect combination of performance / price, and from what I can see, I'd have to agree.

Edit: Also, I've found that nVidia says the 8800 GT should sell for around $200 - $250. I guess the current prices are inflated due to shortages of the card.

I got a new machine a few days ago with a 8800GT, and it's very nice so far.

Performance wise I haven't had any problems (except with Crysis before installing the latest beta drivers).

Nice piece of hardware and pretty cheap.

Yupp, the 8800GT is definitely the best performance / buck card at the moment.

112 Stream processors (compared to the 96 on the 8800GTS 2006 *I clearly specifiy it like that as there will be a new 8800GTS soon ... NVIDIA naming idioty round X ^^*) and plenty of VRAM unless you are a noob and buy a 256MB version.

And I would say the average card is either a 6600, 6600GT, 6800GTS or a 7600GT at the moment, not "inbetween" as the other 6800 series cards are just too expensive and always have been.

My favorite games (Combat Mission) do not work correctly with the 8X series cards for some reason. Works fine with the 7X series cards though.

So no more Nvidia cards for me...

Personally I don't see myself paying more than ~$125 or so for a video card any time soon, since that crop so far is more than capable of playing anything I've thrown at it. (I currently have an ATI X1650XT)

The latest generation FPS games may need more, but I never play those anyway since they give me a bad case of motion sickness.

yeah, they have the 8800GT starting at $250. I almost bought a new computer this week, what with the black friday sales and Q6600's with mobo for $190. Could have gotten a nice system with the 8800GT for $600 - $700 if I'd gotten there earlier and not stayed in bed late with mild food poisoning lol.

I'll wait till next year now, Just finished witcher and crysis is the same game in medium/high settings if your willing to lose a little detail. Not any other games I'm interested in for the forseeable future.

I hope this thing doesn't sell too well. I just ordered a new computer with an 8600GT, and if that thing becomes bottom line any time soon I will be furious. (Mind you, I probably won't be too injured in the long run; the Radeon 9600 Pro has served me well up until now).

Edit:

Hah!! Looked up the 3dmark06 score for my desktop's video card and compared it to what people get with the laptop I've ordered:

Radeon 9600 Pro: 392
NVidia 8600M GT: 3577 (4570 overclocked stabley)

Any doubts I had of this thing not pleasing me have been thrown out the window.
I wish these newer games were better optimized, because the new card should feel centuries ahead of my 9600 (almost 9x!), whereas the actual catching up with newer games feels fairly minimal given that Crysis still (reportedly) runs pretty poorly. Granted, it does not run at all on my 9600, but seeing as this 8600 is not a low end card and extremely popular, Crysis should really run perfectly on it.
I'll see for myself in a week, but now I know: Blame the software. If my Radeon 9600 can still run Half-Life 2 with full HDR, Crysis had damn well better work (and well) on an 8600 GT. I suppose those Crysis benchmarks were with Vista and DirectX 10, so there is probably quite a bit of hope to see that one living well, and if it does, it is a good omen for years to come.

You keep mentioning the 8600 GT, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying (this thread is referring to the 8800 GT). I think the 8800 GT is about 3 times as fast as the 8600 GT (sorry, but I really doubt Crysis will run well on a 8600 GT - Crysis really needs a completely top-of-the-line video card like a 8800 Ultra, 8800 GTX, or 8800 GT to run fairly well).


My 7800 GT is supposed to get ~3700 in 3DMark06, and it runs Crysis at maybe 5-10 FPS. On low settings, I'm lucky to get 15-20 FPS.

A 8800 GT's 3DMark06 score is around 12000 (quite a difference from 3500).

You should return this item immediately. The low-end 8 series cards are significantly slower.

It seems to me that few people still using a 7 series card are going to upgrade now, if they haven't already.

Oops, there I go confusing notebook matters with desktop matters. I've been talking too much about little hardware. Getting difficult to tell the difference!

12000, eh? I'll try to clear that number from my mind before I go insane with jealousy :o

Desktop hardware these days is ridiculous! I guess this is actually a good thing; I haven't upgraded my desktop yet, so I'll be able to enjoy an 8800 GT (without the M) or its even superior successor. Of course, that's assuming the perfect world where the 9900 XULTRA GTX isn't right around the corner anyway :(

Still, too much power consumption...the GT. A third of it and it would be good.

A third it can not run 112 stream processors and never will ... reason is that most of the energy is not needed by the GPU but the cooling. So unless you pay 200$ extra for electrical cooling components, it will use that much power.
And to be fair: at least it does not need a new PCIe standard like ATIs ;-)

None of the current cards is really up to DX10 if you go into high settings, so if this is your target, wait for G100 or ATI HD4000 series (the 3000 series is as crap as the 2000) or give the devs 12-24 months of experience with the new technology.
It is like with new consoles: it will take 1-2 game generations until they are used to the technology and for that time, any hardware will just be too weak ;-)

Who needs 112 stream processors to these conditions? What i need is as resonable system with a good mixture of performance and consumption, something like the new mobile chip from nvidia but for the desktop. Counting in further die shrinks and enhancements, getting more out of this is for sure no problem. Problem is more that they don't want to target that market and not that it wouldn't be possible.

"who needs 112 stream processors"
Anyone who wants to see DX10 games with more than 15 FPS

DX10 is fully shader based, even physics partially goes over it.
So you either have the power or you can switch down the visual quality to nowhere.

Sure they want to target that market, thats where the mobiles are for that make you believe that they are comparable with their desktop naming counterparts.
But thats fake ... I've a 7600Go for example. Thats a G73 and even there lower clocked than the 7300GT, so the performance ratings come out quite low.

Thats the same on any mobile version. The reason is quite simple: they share the same core technology but do not have the same die size and therefor far lower amount of stream processors to keep the temperature and power consumption low.

If you want power consumption and power like a 8600M or 8800M, take a 8400GT, 8500GT or 8600GT

*Choke* What did you call me?



As I found out recently. I guess I was a bit out of practice, the benchmarks and specs showed it would be quicker than my 7600gs, but it isn't, not unless you're using shader heavy games.

In fact, i'll probably sell the card back tomorrow, and buy a new one when i can get a new mobo etc.

Cygnus: This was not targeted at anyone especially but due to the way that DX10 works and the amount of dynamic data they use, 256MB of VRAM is hard at the bottom border for the future, it is already too low for some current gen games if you plan to play on higher than 1024x768 (I'm at 1680x1050, less than 512MB does not allow me to play with Anisotropic filtering and AA on any game of the last 18 months)


The performance was somewhere expected. 8000 series cards do not have any fixed pipeline anymore. Fixed pipeline is done through some default fallback shaders which potentially need a little more attention until they are "up to the max". NVIDIA did a quite good job at squishing out more of them lately, sadly DX7 especially suffers due to that as the fallbacks are opted for DX9, not DX7 ...

As far as i know the power consumption of a lowrange desktop gpu still isn't in the range of a up to date mobile gpu. They still look worse on the performance per watt ratio.

Intensive DX10 games aren't possible today with a reasonable power consumption. It's kind of a fake and cheating if you're looking at how much more a up to date gfx card is consuming and heating up compared to some older ones.

No pc vendor i'm aware of is offering a 30watt cpu with a 30 watt gpu based system in reasonable numbers for instance and forming this to a capable desktop system. Either you have to waste energy or you have to go for a notebook solution without the possibility to expand it.

I don't need a gfx card which eats 120watt or even worse. This is too much brute force. You could have a complete system running by this which is offering a good performance if you would pick out the right components. And even better if they would concentrate on such a market and offer complete solutions which don't suck or either are way too expensive because of the silent/low consumption aspect.

I've got a x1950 Pro and I will not upgrade till mid 2008 if ever. I'm getting more and more into console gaming, GuildWars and Team Fortress 2 are the only games I play on the PC currently (plus some indie games).

I have a X1950 Pro, my 8800GT arrives on Wednesday, I'm hoping it lives up to the hype.

Darkheart

taumel: There are offerings. Buy an mATX board with onboard intel and you have a <= 10W solution for your GPU. That gives you up to 50W for your CPU according your equation.

You will not get any real 30W desktop cards with DX10 and that will never change. The amount of stuff a card must be capable of doing to get DX10 / OGL 3 certified and play current or even next gen games usefully just does not allow it.
Notebook cards do not perform anywhere near the desktop one nor are they even supported by games so if you have troubles its your problem, if your drivers outdate, which happens even more often, its your problem as well.
I've been on notebooks for about 8 years now and I always had the mid range versions of the desktop ones according their names and believe me: Thats actually the fake.

If you buy a notebook with a 9700M in and you get something with the performance of a downclocked 9500, you feel seriously cheated. and thats what happens whenever you do not have one of those Alienware / XPS monsters as those are the only ones I know that use the highest mobile cards which are the only ones that are somewhere near their desktop counterparts at the price of using massive amounts of power.

Oh and just to point that out: Gaming will not really work anymore at < 120W (Wii) in total. HighDefinition gaming not with less than 300-350W (X360, PS3)
If you don't agree, don't do it, its that simple.

High pixel densitiy visual, super cool effects etc need floating point calculation monsters that have the power a whole supercluster had a few years a go!

So much propaganda. Best deal for the buck, sure, why not.

@Dreamora

Well, not quite something to add beside of what i've already written about this...

a) There does not exist a reasonable priced and scaled system and everything you can build on you're own either will be a compromise not utalising the best components for such a goal or you'll have to pay a lot of more money to do so and so such a system is missing whilst it would be possible technically.

b) I don't agree to your "DX10" and "will never change" argumentation as this isn't true in my opinion and more a problem of what i've written before. Maybe the situation will kind of improve with the next generation and these systems wil offer a better scale due to another die shrink and multicore. But primary it's about were the vendors want to go go and not about that it wouldn't be possible.

c) Wii works pretty well for a gaming platform if you're looking at how well it sales so again i can't follow your argumentation. And if you just would offer a more expensive system with better components you could offer more performance on the cpu and gpu side for the same power consumption and that's what i'm aksing for. Naturally i don't expect it for the same price but i also don't want it for the price i have to pay today. Such systems should be targeted more in a mainstream segment and so to a reasonable price and they would be able to run some pretty fine games. Not as good as the best cards can do it today but who needs that under these circumstances...

8800GT is a great card, overclocked mine past GTX performence with no trouble.
£180 for a card that will last me 12-18 months before I replace it is a bargain.
Its only the price of 1 pint of beer a week, not that I will reduce my drinking any. I will just make the missus have a few cokes.

@taumel: Wii sells because it's a console for everybody. It's a casual console with very few good "blockbuster" titles. Plus it's affordable. But it's not a machine to run Crysis or Hellgate London on, which are the titles you think of when speaking about DX10. Indie titles will gain nothing from DX10 or OpenGL 3.

Yep and i never said that it should be able running Crysis. But you could build a system which is performance wise between a high end pc and a Wii with a reasonable power consumption on a Wii level. And on this machine you could make even more attractive games/apps than on the Wii.

You're right on that.

I have zero clue why anyone would care how much power their video card consumes if it plays games well. Blows my mind.

It's like the "omfg that program is 3 meg!?!? I could write it in 300K!!" argument. It just doesn't matter.

Really, is this so hard to understand?

Higher power consumption = noisier and larger systems + more dust produced if you're going with a standard fan design + higher energy bill, higher environmental pollution, ...

In addition, such specs are really quite unnecessary. On a system like the Wii, for example, games still look good, with the reason being that software developers are taking time to get used to the hardware and use it effectively.

Yes but certain things just can't be done right without a certain performance.

You are concerned about how much pollution your graphics card causes?

Yep, when i'm looking at my energy bill comparing months i used my pc more to months in which i was fine with just using my mini and think of the extra energy which just has to be produced to run some dinosaur concept based gfx cards then it's one part of what could be enhanced, even more if i have some children running through my home.

Well you'd be wrong. At least not in the traditional meaning of "average", and depending on your definition of "gamer". The GeForce 8800 is currently by far the most popular graphics card on Steam. Just the other day it was the 6600. So a significant number of people seem to have upgraded, in a relatively short timeframe.

Maybe Vista isn't such a bad idea after all?

@taumel Just get some more low energy curly lightbulbs to offset the video card :) I got LED christmas lights for our tree this year to replace the 125 watt energy saving lights I had before :)

We breeding and training fireflies since some time. This way our christmas tree can alter it's lightshape according to clapping signals, 3d transforms are working already, although there are some problems with the hidden lines... ;O)

Less than 10% of the users on there have an 8800. More people have 6800s, 7300s, or 7900s than have 8800s.

Top 5 on Steam as of now.

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 47,385 9.38 %
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 34,980 6.93 %
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 26,865 5.32 %
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 21,342 4.23 %
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 18,531 3.67 %

I think that makes 8800 cards the most popular card.

Unless of course you mean that if you add up those other cards, you get a bigger percentage. But if you want to play the game of adding up disparate cards, then the wondrous "Other" card is the most popular card at a whopping 15%. Anyone know where I can buy this "Other" card?

Sure, but there are many more cards that are not an 8800. No single card is going to dominate, because there are so many. I don't care what the single most popular card is. I care about what 80% of users have.

Theres also the issue that by its nature Steam attracts those who are more likely to spend on new hardware.

Yeah, but define 'user'.

If you're talking about 'all PC owners', then sure, the average spec is probably around GeForce4-ish.

But if you're talking about 'PC owners who download/buy 3D games', then I suspect the average spec is considerably higher.

Josh, have you ever done any surveys of your user community specs? I think that would be very interesting, and probably less distorted than the BRL community (which has an understandable bias towards 2D!) in terms of 3D.

I'd think Steam users would have about as high an average as any other sampling.

Mark, what do you think of that issue I emailed you about? Looks like a threading problem to me, but I don't know enough about that area to say.

By definition, you can't have a 'high average'!

And did you send the email to blitzmunter at gmail dot com? The blitzbasic.com address has been a bit unreliable over the last month or so....

I did now.

@mark

I hope you're not thinking of SM4 as a minimum spec for the 3d engine as this would be shooting for the moon (outside our solar system). Nowadays it's pretty save to assume that SM2.0 is available and depending on when the 3d module might hit earth SM3 but for sure not SM4. Also you have to take into account that Intel is very strong in the gfx market and their gfx chips aren't this powerful/featurerich. Whilst this isn't a problem for hardcore gamers it for sure would be a problem for indie developers leaving these clients out as a GMA950 is nothing for Crysis but it's good enough for a nice 3d casual game. Speaking of Apple the specs are even lower and a ATI 9200 is the minimum.

According to JonPeddie the GPU marketshare (vendors) looks like this:

-> http://www.jonpeddie.com/about/press/2007/GPU_market_Q307.shtml

The problem is that GPU market share is fairly pointless when it comes to games, because not all computers are used for playing videogames. Only about 70% of people (in the US) play video games at all, and even less do so on their PC, this is not accounting for the millions of PCs that are sold to businesses each year.

Yep and the european market is totally different. And here people with GMA950 do play games, also 3D.

The majority plays wow and sims. DX8 ish games.

Irritating that the mobile version of the 8800GT is released less than two months after puchasing my SLI 8700GT equipped laptop.

I can only hope there is an upgrade path at some point.

Now tell me why i can't buy a reasonable desktop system with a merom and a 8800m on board...