Is there something new on the horizon from nVidia?

[James]

The reason I ask is that the 8800GTS 512MB cards seem to be on "clearance" at a lot of the e-tailers.

For example, mwave has an XFX for $255. Most other e-tailers have it for around $269.

At that price it's a better deal than what a lot of places are still charging for the 8800GT.

So what's the catch?

[Timman_24]

No catch really. XFX just slashed their prices. The 8800gt is now around 190-200 with the 9600gt going for 150.

[miltark]

XFX is giving out a lot of rebates, lower brands are trying to stand out, and so are bigger brands

[scheibler]

well the 9800 series is coming out and are way too expensive if what everyone is talking about is true. The 8800gts is a great deal at that price though...wish I would have waited till not to buy a card. I bought a 8800gt oc for $225 with $20 mail in rebate last month

The 8800gts 512mb will run anygame but crysis with eye candy pretty well even at high resolutions

[OpStar]

9800GTX is only $349, which is cheap imo.

[James]

Is it out yet? That might be worth looking into if it provides a tangible benefit over the 8800GTS.

However, the 8800GTS @ $250 is a smoking deal. It will be tough to match it's performance/price ratio. Didn't it start out at like $350 or $400?

[XJ]

9800GTX is only $349, which is cheap imo.

Where did you hear this? I have been waiting to see what will happen with this card. Last update I thought I saw was that we would see more info sometime in April.


Edit: was it here? X-bit labs

[OpStar]

Either there or the [H].

[iamsostupid]

http://translate.google.com/translat...&hl=en&ie=UTF8

heh the 9 series is such a disappointment. the 9600 is the only new piece of hardware, and it's underpowered. the 9800 GTX is a GTS, and we all know what the GX2 is. god, early adopting 8-series owners are certainly pleased with their investment.

[OpStar]

Considering the 9800GX2 blows the GTX and Ultra out of the water and is as fast or faster than 8800GTS SLi...

Plus the 9800GTX is going to be faster than the 8800GTX and it will be half the cost at launch when compared to the 8800GTX, not to mention run cooler, consume less power and be more overclockable.

Why are you complaining again?

[iamsostupid]

Opstar, what on earth are you talking about? The GX2 is a pair of 8800GTs with a PCI express bridge. It's a SLI setup on a single card; two 8800GTs. The specs are identical. Check out the review at overclockers club.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_9800gx2/

The only game it beats a pair of 8800GTs is COD4. In world in conflict, a G92 GTS is faster than a G92 GX2. In Crysis, the SLI GTs are faster. In Bioshock at 1200p, both the SLI GT's and 3870 X2 beat the G92 GX2.

So you see the results are varied from game to game but the trend favors the two 8800GTs. Considering you can get 2 G92 GT's for under $400 and a GX2 is going to cost like $600... come on.


What's even more interesting is that a single G92 GTS also held its own, which is a $250 card.

I also regret to inform you that for the most part, the 9800GTX is going to be identical to a G92 GTS, but with more memory bandwidth. A chinese review I posted somewhere showed this to be a 5% gain. This, to me, is not worth $150 over the 8800GTS.

I would like to see the 3870 X2 come down to $300-320. I would like to see the G92 GT come down to 175 and the G92 GTS come to 225, and I would like to see the 9-series replaced as soon as possible.

the 8800 G92s are still the best cards for the money. The 9-series is fast, but not that fast. and they bring nothing new to the table. I'm not trying to crush your dreams, but listening to you sprinkle pixie dust on them with comments like "oh the GX2 is faster than 8800GTS SLI," is a little absurd. Two G92 GTS have 240 more gFLOPS and 10 more GB/sec of memory bus than a GX2. not possible.

[Transfurzz]

Opstar, what on earth are you talking about? The GX2 is a pair of 8800GTs with a PCI express bridge. It's a SLI setup on a single card; two 8800GTs. The specs are identical. Check out the review at overclockers club.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_9800gx2/

The only game it beats a pair of 8800GTs is COD4. In world in conflict, a G92 GTS is faster than a G92 GX2. In Crysis, the SLI GTs are faster. In Bioshock at 1200p, both the SLI GT's and 3870 X2 beat the G92 GX2.

So you see the results are varied from game to game but the trend favors the two 8800GTs. Considering you can get 2 G92 GT's for under $400 and a GX2 is going to cost like $600... come on.


What's even more interesting is that a single G92 GTS also held its own, which is a $250 card.

I also regret to inform you that for the most part, the 9800GTX is going to be identical to a G92 GTS, but with more memory bandwidth. A chinese review I posted somewhere showed this to be a 5% gain. This, to me, is not worth $150 over the 8800GTS.

I would like to see the 3870 X2 come down to $300-320. I would like to see the G92 GT come down to 175 and the G92 GTS come to 225, and I would like to see the 9-series replaced as soon as possible.

the 8800 G92s are still the best cards for the money. The 9-series is fast, but not that fast. and they bring nothing new to the table. I'm not trying to crush your dreams, but listening to you sprinkle pixie dust on them with comments like "oh the GX2 is faster than 8800GTS SLI," is a little absurd. Two G92 GTS have 240 more gFLOPS and 10 more GB/sec of memory bus than a GX2. not possible.

Well, that's some real self-ownage there.

You neglected to check out the other benchmarks besides 1024x768 for Crysis in your link. Hell, I don't think you even read the review. There's ownage across half the board for the 9800GX2. 18 out of 32 is really good, considering their using early release drivers.

Some of the results however, are just odd, and should be attributed to early driver deficiency. For example. the 9800GX2 can only just overtake 8800GTX in Bioshock by 10FPS. Wouldn't you consider that odd ? It should be roughly equivalent to the 8800GT SLi at least, when you consider the specs in that cleancut manner you like.

There's a reason why there aren't any other reviews besides what you linked, what I just mentioned is that reason.

The 9800GX2 makes Crysis very playable at 1680x1050. The 8800GT SLI however is left wallowing in the dirt.

Clearly, the specs... AREN'T identical. It's not something that's aesthetic, they definitely did something there. I'm sure if you did a little more research, you'll find out why.

Nvidia was bitten hard on the *** for not sticking strictly to the DX9 standard for video cards with the 5 series. This time round, they made a smaller mistake regarding the DX10 standard. Not very clear on it, but it involves the Call Of Juarez incident. Where developers told Xbit that Nvidia was not sticking strictly to DX10 specs with the 8 series too. Luckily it's minor, and the 9 series probably has cleared it up and some more.

The power consumption isn't anything to sneeze at either. I won't consider the former link to be a suitable review, as it only has one product up on the chopping table besides the 9800GX2. The 8800 Ultra.

That early review you posted even had a very outstanding commendation for overclocking in the conclusion. You also fail to realise that the price point is incredible for a just released card. It's exceptional performance in a game like Crysis at 1680x1050 despite having early drivers truly mark it as something worth talking about.

Our resident NV guy knows what he's talking about. I think he's going to be bang on with his expectations of the 9800GTX. You can stare at that chinese review all you like.


Good job.

[XJ]

Opstar, what on earth are you talking about? The GX2 is a pair of 8800GTs with a PCI express bridge. It's a SLI setup on a single card; two 8800GTs. The specs are identical.

No, it's not identical.

A geforce 8800 GT
112 stream processors

The 9800GX2
128 shader processors per GPU

The nice thing about the the single card is it allows you to use non SLI motherboards if you prefer an intel board or something else. And if you do choose to use one you can go Quad SLI.

Two GTs in SLI is a great setup and a great bang for your buck, but they don't cater to strictly the same groups.

[Transfurzz]

No, it's not identical.

A geforce 8800 GT
112 stream processors

The 9800GX2
128 shader processors per GPU

The nice thing about the the single card is it allows you to use non SLI motherboards if you prefer an intel board or something else. And if you do choose to use one you can go Quad SLI.

Two GTs in SLI is a great setup and a great bang for your buck, but they don't cater to strictly the same groups.

Unfortunately fellow poster, I don't think those numbers will have much impact. He has put his accquired FLOP values through that arcane mathematical formual he keeps lying around. They disagree with you, and since he thinks stream processors are just FPUs and not much more. He'll be inclined to disagree with you. He thinks the new card has less shader power or what not.

I wouldn't worry though. Wonder why he thinks FLOPs are a great measurement of performance. Didn't we put that idea away since the AMD Athlon XP days ?

It's also the same reason why he thinks the midrange offering, the 9600GT is overpowered, but frankly I think I've had enough of his shennanigans.

[iamsostupid]

No, it's not identical.

A geforce 8800 GT
112 stream processors

The 9800GX2
128 shader processors per GPU

That explains it. I heard ages ago the GX2 was going to be 112x2 and I just kept on believing. If it really does have 256 shaders that would certainly account for the near-GTS SLI performance. unfortunately the cores are at 600 and shaders are at 1500. those are 8800GT clocks. it's certainly an unnecessary thermal challenge over standalone GTS's. at least they got the memory to 2ghz, not that it matters.


and transfurzz, as long as the discussion remains common to an architecture, FLOPs is a more than adequate description of relative performance for a given processor/memory system. Since all of these chips are G92, whether they have 112 or 128 shaders (alternatively, 506 or 624 gFLOPS at 600/1500 and 650/1700), predictions can easily be extrapolated. i'm not saying performance, or even FLOPS is proportional to the number of shaders on your chip. but what i am saying, is that if you have at least 55GB/s of memory bandwidth, the more shaders you have, the faster you'll be, and i was under the impression earlier the GX2 had 112x2 SPs.

If nVIDIA had made any architectural changes to the 9-series GPUs, why are G92 chips going onto the cards? Why would you think nVIDIA would do this to address your "call of juarez" incident? This would have been addressed during the die shrink from G80. You're saying nVIDIA "definitely did something there."

what are you talking about. the gx2 does not have wham-bam performance over 2 GTs, let alone 2 GTS