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Nvidia 8800GT/GTS



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 14th 07, 08:34 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
mcp6453[_2_]
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Posts: 26
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

While I know quite a bit about computers, I am certainly not up to speed
on video cards. Others have recommended that my son get an 8800GT or GTS
for a Christmas present. The recommended seller seems to be newegg.com.

The computer is an Intel DG33TL. It supports PCI-E. What is the
difference between PCI-E 1, PCI-E 16, and PCI-E 2.0? Are there any
differences as far as the motherboard concerned? Will a PCI-E 2.0 work
in any PCI-E slot?

How do I know what brand of card to buy? XFX? EVGA? ASUS?

Thanks! Time is running out!
  #2  
Old December 14th 07, 10:24 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
deimos[_2_]
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Posts: 225
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

mcp6453 wrote:
While I know quite a bit about computers, I am certainly not up to speed
on video cards. Others have recommended that my son get an 8800GT or GTS
for a Christmas present. The recommended seller seems to be newegg.com.

The computer is an Intel DG33TL. It supports PCI-E. What is the
difference between PCI-E 1, PCI-E 16, and PCI-E 2.0? Are there any
differences as far as the motherboard concerned? Will a PCI-E 2.0 work
in any PCI-E slot?

How do I know what brand of card to buy? XFX? EVGA? ASUS?

Thanks! Time is running out!


You're pretty much on track with the advice given so far. Problems
you'll run into however include a VERY SHORT supply of 8800GT's.
They're nearly impossible to get for a sane price. Most all of them are
marked up well beyond MSRP.

8800GTS's like my 320MB are plentiful, but the 320MB is being
discontinued (previously available around 315-330 USD). You can still
find the 640MB version and the new 512MB version is around, but in
somewhat short supply.

Depending on what kind of games your son plays, you can get away with a
cheaper and more available 8600GT
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16814130298).
These don't hold a candle to the insane amount of power present in an
8800, but they're still faster than anything previously in their price
range and very good cards overall.

For games like World of Warcraft, it's complete overkill; but even for
new games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3, it offers
surprisingly good performance. I've recently replaced my brother's card
with one and he was amazed how well the UT3 demo ran.

Now PCI-E.

The different speeds you see refer to both the PCI-Express slot size and
how much data it can send over it. A PCI-E X1 slot is small and runs
really no faster than an old PCI slot. It's suitable for modems and
soundcards, etc. After that, you have X4, X8, X16. They're all the
same full length slot, but how fast the card runs is determined by the
motherboard. Most all video cards will operate at 16X unless otherwise
specified (or in an SLI configuration). This gives them the full amount
of bandwidth required.

Physically you're limited to the slot size for video cards. The main
difference is full length X16 slots compared to the very sort X1 slots.
Don't buy X1 cards, they're worthless. You shouldn't have to worry
about that.

PCI-E 1.0 and 2.0 are just different versions of the same standard and
2.0 is backwards compatible with 1.0. There is little difference to
you, unless you're buying a new motherboard. All 2.0 devices will be
backwards compatible with 1.0 motherboards. 2.0 simply provides more
wattage to the card.

Please read this article for more info:

http://www.directron.com/expressguide.html

Post back if you'd like comments on a specific card.
  #3  
Old December 14th 07, 11:04 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
Thomas Andersson
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Posts: 124
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

mcp6453 wrote:

While I know quite a bit about computers, I am certainly not up to
speed on video cards. Others have recommended that my son get an
8800GT or GTS for a Christmas present. The recommended seller seems
to be newegg.com.


Newegg is very popular and have good prices, common recomendation.
8800GT is the new 'miraclecard', its a midrange card but with very high
performance. Those cards are PCIe 2.0 and DX10 so will last a while. When it
coems to 8800GTS you should know that there are two very different cards
with that name, one is beeing phased out and is based on slightly older tech
and are trimemd down versions of the old king of the hill 8800GTX, the otehr
variant (and the much prefereed one) is the new 8800GTS based on the G92
core (it can be said to be a trimmed up version of the GT with the enw core,
PCIe 2.0 etc). The way to tell them apart is by the memory on the cards. The
old ones will ahve 320/640MB while the new ones (if not marked as G92) will
have 256/512MB ram. The problem with the GT/G92 GTS is that they are very
new and hot and supplies are VERY short right now.

The computer is an Intel DG33TL. It supports PCI-E. What is the
difference between PCI-E 1, PCI-E 16, and PCI-E 2.0? Are there any
differences as far as the motherboard concerned? Will a PCI-E 2.0 work
in any PCI-E slot?


As explained earlier it doesn't realy make a difference, 2.0 is fully
backwards compatible with 1.0 and there are very few gfx cards and even
fewer motherboards around that actually is PCIe 2.0 yet. As sais earlier,
the x factor of a PCIe slot is how many lanes it uses for communication,
each extra lane adding a set amount of extra bandwidth. PCI 2.0 is supposed
to double that bandwidth.

How do I know what brand of card to buy? XFX? EVGA? ASUS?


AFAIK most cards are made in teh same factory and then each brand just add
their own logos, extras etc so they should be fairly similar, go with the
best package and price. (Asus are known for all around good quality and
packages, XFX/BFG for tested and overclocked cards etc... If you're unsure
just google for the model name and review and read up ona card befroe
deciding.

Best Wishes
Thomas


  #4  
Old December 15th 07, 02:09 AM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
Mephisto
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Posts: 9
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS


"mcp6453" wrote in message
...
While I know quite a bit about computers, I am certainly not up to speed
on video cards. Others have recommended that my son get an 8800GT or GTS
for a Christmas present. The recommended seller seems to be newegg.com.

The computer is an Intel DG33TL. It supports PCI-E. What is the difference
between PCI-E 1, PCI-E 16, and PCI-E 2.0? Are there any differences as far
as the motherboard concerned? Will a PCI-E 2.0 work in any PCI-E slot?

How do I know what brand of card to buy? XFX? EVGA? ASUS?

Thanks! Time is running out!


This 8800GT is selling for a good price.

http://www.ncixus.com/products/27328...%20Technology/

I just installed the above card in my PC about two hours ago. Tested with
3DMark06 and no issues at all. Usually a card will fail Deep Freeze
benchmark in 3DMark06 if it is flaky at all. Benefit of this card is that it
is not factory overclocked (had to RMA 7900GT KO twice to EVGA because of
their bull**** factory overclocking) and comes with a much better HSF than
they put on the other cards. This is a heatpipe cooler which is very good
because quite a few people have had issues with heat on the 8800GT's. They
used a fan that was too small for this class of card IMO. New stock of
8800GT's have better fans but still not as good as this one. If I want to
overclcock the card then I am quite capable of doing it myself so won't be
buying any more overclocked video cards. EVGA eventually sent me a 7950GX2
and even that card seems to have an issue where the screen gets scrambled at
the end of the driver install (is ok after a hard restet though) and my
monitor won't detect the card when I use it over dual link DVI-D. New 8800GT
works fine over DVI-D. EVGA is about to be getting a new email from me
reaming them out once again. That will be three RMA's over one effing card!
Ridiculous.



  #5  
Old December 15th 07, 04:33 AM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
Augustus
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Posts: 738
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

I just installed the above card in my PC about two hours ago. Tested with
3DMark06 and no issues at all. Usually a card will fail Deep Freeze
benchmark in 3DMark06 if it is flaky at all. Benefit of this card is that
it is not factory overclocked (had to RMA 7900GT KO twice to EVGA because
of their bull**** factory overclocking) and comes with a much better HSF
than they put on the other cards. This is a heatpipe cooler which is very
good because quite a few people have had issues with heat on the 8800GT's.
They used a fan that was too small for this class of card IMO. New stock
of 8800GT's have better fans but still not as good as this one. If I want
to overclcock the card then I am quite capable of doing it myself so won't
be buying any more overclocked video cards. EVGA eventually sent me a
7950GX2 and even that card seems to have an issue where the screen gets
scrambled at the end of the driver install (is ok after a hard restet
though) and my monitor won't detect the card when I use it over dual link
DVI-D. New 8800GT works fine over DVI-D. EVGA is about to be getting a new
email from me reaming them out once again. That will be three RMA's over
one effing card! Ridiculous.


I own the factory overclock version of this card with the usual 8800GT
shrouded cooling. The DDR3 is clocked at 2000Mhz vs 1800 on yours. The
shader and GPU clocks are identical. The problem with your version of the
card is that while there's excellent heatpipe/fan cooling of the GPU,
there's basically no directed decent cooling of the ram, not even ramsinks.
On the typical 8800GT, the ram is cooled by the shrouded casing, metal
airflow channels and albeit noisy fan. From my experience, and others that
I've read, it's the ram that causes most issues. My card never faltered once
in multiple runs of 3DMark06 1.1 and others. It locked up in F.E.A.R and
F.E.A.R Extraction point after 2-5 minutes with the typical screenful of red
artifacts which are indicative of overheated and pushed DDR3, while it could
play endlessly in Bioshock, Crysis and others. Partly this was the fan not
ramping up, but even with it set to 100% manually it was still an issue
within less than 10 min in that game.
I rewrote the BIOS of my Galaxy OC 8800GT (using NiBiTor) from
600/1500/2000 clockings to 675/1600/1900 clocks, while setting the fan at
35% idle to 75% in 3D. Noise isn't an issue now, I don't have to use
Rivatuner, and it's never once locked up in F.E.A.R. in over 2 days on hours
at a time playing. 100% stable. Benches a bit faster now. Far as I can tell,
the real issue with these cards is the memory overclock causing heat an
instability issues. Pretty sure the GTX and Ultra versions use a higher
quality, higher binned DDR along with the different core.


  #6  
Old December 15th 07, 05:25 AM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
kobe
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Posts: 2
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:34:10 GMT, mcp6453 wrote:

While I know quite a bit about computers, I am certainly not up to speed
on video cards. Others have recommended that my son get an 8800GT or GTS



8800 GTS 320 or GTS 640 are older, overpriced, "slow" cards.

The correct new GTS is the 8800 GTS 512 using the G92 GPU.

This is similar to the 8800GT, but with some extra processing power
unlocked, and these cards have higher stock clocks on GPU, Memory,
and Shaders. They perform close to the most expensive older Ultra
cards except in games where the Ultra's extra memory bandwidth
really helps. These GTS 512 cards come with a real cooling
solution, and not a noisy fan that dumps heat into your case and
needs an extra utility to set the fan correctly. They use an extra
slot next to the video card slot because the cooler is wider.
Benefits are cooler GPU temps, the hot air exhausted out the back of
the case, and a quieter fan. Costs more but you do get good value
for that extra cost, esp if you want to run SLI down the road.

PS you might watch your local papers for good deals. A local store
is selling the Asus 8800GT for $249 this weekend. Newegg is
backordered at $299.


  #7  
Old December 15th 07, 01:33 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
Mephisto
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Posts: 9
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS


"Augustus" wrote in message
news:qWH8j.7360$5l3.5155@edtnps82...
I own the factory overclock version of this card with the usual 8800GT
shrouded cooling. The DDR3 is clocked at 2000Mhz vs 1800 on yours. The
shader and GPU clocks are identical. The problem with your version of the
card is that while there's excellent heatpipe/fan cooling of the GPU,
there's basically no directed decent cooling of the ram, not even
ramsinks. On the typical 8800GT, the ram is cooled by the shrouded casing,
metal airflow channels and albeit noisy fan. From my experience, and
others that I've read, it's the ram that causes most issues.


Yea, but they fail because they push the ram past a stable clock speed. I
had to RMA 7900GT twice thanks to factory overclcocking of the ram. Ram
doesn't really need heatsinks IMO. I have no heatsinks on my system ram
either. No issues with system ram or this video card. If it turns out that
it ever did need heatsinks then I can pick up a pack for ten bucks. I read
an article a few years back that claimed heat spreaders on ram actually act
as heat insulators instead of helping to dissipate heat. Like I said,
3DMark06 Deep Freeze bench will show up any ram isssues quite quickly and it
ran flawlessly. I give this Galaxy 8800GT with the really nice and quiet HSF
my seal of approval.


  #8  
Old December 15th 07, 05:22 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
GMAN
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Posts: 170
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

In article , kobe wrote:
On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:34:10 GMT, mcp6453 wrote:

While I know quite a bit about computers, I am certainly not up to speed
on video cards. Others have recommended that my son get an 8800GT or GTS



8800 GTS 320 or GTS 640 are older, overpriced, "slow" cards.


The 8800GTS 640 is by no means slow.

The correct new GTS is the 8800 GTS 512 using the G92 GPU.

This is similar to the 8800GT, but with some extra processing power
unlocked, and these cards have higher stock clocks on GPU, Memory,
and Shaders. They perform close to the most expensive older Ultra
cards except in games where the Ultra's extra memory bandwidth
really helps. These GTS 512 cards come with a real cooling
solution, and not a noisy fan that dumps heat into your case and
needs an extra utility to set the fan correctly. They use an extra
slot next to the video card slot because the cooler is wider.
Benefits are cooler GPU temps, the hot air exhausted out the back of
the case, and a quieter fan. Costs more but you do get good value
for that extra cost, esp if you want to run SLI down the road.

PS you might watch your local papers for good deals. A local store
is selling the Asus 8800GT for $249 this weekend. Newegg is
backordered at $299.


  #9  
Old December 15th 07, 06:12 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
007[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 72
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS

"kobe" wrote in message ...
On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:34:10 GMT, mcp6453 wrote:

PS you might watch your local papers for good deals. A local store
is selling the Asus 8800GT for $249 this weekend. Newegg is
backordered at $299.

Newegg overpriced most of the video cards and monitors. I used to do all my
computer shopping at Newegg, not any longer, you can buy majority of the
stuff somewhere else with substantial savings.

  #10  
Old December 15th 07, 07:31 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
Augustus
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Posts: 738
Default Nvidia 8800GT/GTS


8800 GTS 320 or GTS 640 are older, overpriced, "slow" cards.

The correct new GTS is the 8800 GTS 512 using the G92 GPU.

This is similar to the 8800GT, but with some extra processing power
unlocked, and these cards have higher stock clocks on GPU, Memory,
and Shaders. They perform close to the most expensive older Ultra
cards except in games where the Ultra's extra memory bandwidth
really helps.


Older and overpriced? Not when they were introduced. Compared to the new
8800GT and GTS? Yes, but that was then and this is now. That's the usual
playout of any cutting edge technology. The stores still selling these are
selling stock that they too had to pay high wholesale price for and aren't
willing to take a huge loss on their stock.
As for speed and perfromance, any 8800 series card is within close spitting
distance of the others. There aren't any crappy ones performance wise. And
with any newer hi-perf card, the real differences are magnified when
resolutions and eye candy is above the 1280x1024 level. A G92 8800GTS is not
the equal of an 8800 Ultra simply because default synthetic benches and game
framrates are within 2-5% at 1280x1024 and under. There's a couple of newer
reviews comparing the G92 8800GT and 8800GTS with the GTX and Ultra, and
where the GTX and Ultra shine is at the high end of resolution and the
newest most demanding games.


 




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