GeForce 8800... dayum!

Yep, trading in my 7900GTO's to eVGA ASAP.

Didn't you just get those a month ago?

Bluesnews has a nice list of articles on the G80 chipset. I guess "impressive" sums it up pretty well. AnandTech's take:

A single GeForce 8800 GTX is more powerful overall than a 7900 GTX SLI configuration and even NVIDIA's mammoth Quad SLI. Although it's no longer a surprise to see a new generation of GPU outperform the previous generation in SLI, the sheer performance we're able to attain because of G80 is still breathtaking. Being able to run modern day games at 2560x1600 at the highest in-game detail settings completely changes the PC gaming experience. It's an expensive proposition, sure, but it's like no other; games just look so much better on a 30" display at 2560x1600 that it makes playing titles at 1600x1200 seem just "ok". We were less impressed by the hardware itself than by gaming at 2560x1600 with all the quality settings cranked all the way up in every game we tried, and that is saying quite a lot. And in reality, that's what it's all about anyway: delivering quality and performance at levels never before thought possible.

Architecturally, G80 is a gigantic leap from the previous generation of GPUs. It's the type of leap in performance that's akin to what we saw with the Radeon 9700 Pro, and given the number of 9700 Pro-like launches we've seen, they are rare. Like 9700 Pro, we are able to enable features that improve image quality well beyond the previous generation, and we are able to run games smoothly at resolutions higher than we could hope for. And, like 9700 Pro, the best is yet to come.

I certainly intend to get one.

$600? For that price you could install discipline in your house by getting a PS3..I kid I kid.

The GTS version is $450. Also, there's the usual post-Christmas season price drop. Not like one cannot wait 2 months or so. ATI's unlikely to have something equally efficient ready by then.

Asz wrote:

Didn't you just get those a month ago?

For this exact purpose actually.

Interesting, thanks for the link Spunior. Some details I had to dig for from Anandtech, emphasis mine:

Today we expect to see availability of two cards based on NVIDIA's G80 GPU: the GeForce 8800 GTX and 8800 GTS. Priced at $599 and $449 respectively, the two cards, as usual, differ in clock speeds and processing power.

The 8800 GTX gets the full G80 implementation of 128 stream processors and 64 texture fetch units. The stream processors are clocked at 1.35GHz with the rest of the GPU running at 575MHz. The GTX has six 64-bit memory controllers operating in tandem, connected to 768MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900MHz.

The GeForce 8800 GTS loses 32 SPs bringing it down to 96 stream processors and 48 texture fetch units. The shader core runs at 1.2GHz, while the rest of the GTS runs at 500MHz. The GTS also has only five 64-bit memory controllers with 640MB of GDDR3 memory running at 800MHz.

NVIDIA does recommend at least a 450W power supply that can deliver up to 30A on the +12V rail.

They said it uses about 8% more power than a X1950 XTX and is on par with a 7900GTX quiet-wise. Once these go down in price a little, I might get one to replace my pair of 7800GTXs SLI.

Have to say the new cards looks pretty good.
I guess we don't know how they perform with Vista yet. Time will tell.
I don't see the price comming down on these for quite a while yet so it may be a long wait.

Does anyone know when ATI will launch their new card?

-Xino

Well the 8800 is projected to get a die-shrink in spring, so at least by then the current ones will go down in price.

I'll take three!

Well the 8800 is projected to get a die-shrink in spring, so at least by then the current ones will go down in price.

Sweet, I should be returning from "the war" about the time these puppies are ready for public consumption.

I wish GameGuru was still around to give us a report

hubbinsd wrote:

I wish GameGuru was still around to give us a report :(

Wha, where did he go?

NVIDIA does recommend at least a 450W power supply that can deliver up to 30A on the +12V rail.

Coming soon: the Nvidia Desktop Nuclear Power Station!

Badferret wrote:
hubbinsd wrote:

I wish GameGuru was still around to give us a report :(

Wha, where did he go?

I don't know. I think he's taking a break since his post in Games about the forum tone, he hasn't posted since.

Anand has a review up...nice and in depth as usual. Check out the page on the power supply they had to pick up to run 2 of these beasts in SLI

LeapingGnome wrote:
Badferret wrote:
hubbinsd wrote:

I wish GameGuru was still around to give us a report :(

Wha, where did he go?

I don't know. I think he's taking a break since his post in Games about the forum tone, he hasn't posted since.

He's just standing in line for the PS3 and Wii releases.

I'm resurrecting this in advance. I'll have my 8800GTX in the next two weeks.

I decided to skip the second one. That can wait for some day down the road when it's actually useful for something.

swweeett... lemme know how awesome it is....

I have 2 8800GTX's with a new EVGA 680i motherboard.. be mindful of the insane power requirements.. (700W+ and make sure it has 4 PCIe video card plugs and quad rails) and be even more mindful that while fast (in some games) this time around Nvidia really rushed this product(s) to the market.. Both the Videocard and Motherboard are plauged with bugs, and generally flaky driver support. The days of Nvidia providing vastly superior driver support are long gone.. instead we're getting rushed products and even more rushed driver support. It's bad enough that these 680i motherboards are $250+ with the Asus Striker going for $400! but we then get saddled with crappy drivers and even crappier BIOS'es.. Crackling sound with Creative Cards, SATA corruption issues.. its basically like the Nforce 1 debacle all over again but at twice the price.

The 8800GTX while a monster in performance (and size!) suffers from Source based game issues (choppiness.. greyed out textures) and currently its a finger pointing game between Nvidia and Valve on whoes fault it is. Not to mention that perodically your performance goes to sh*t and you need to wipe clean your drivers with Driver Cleaner and re-install. (this seems to plauge people the most who reboot frequently thier PC's). Last I checked there still isnt SLI support under Vista yet (.....) and I'm scared to even try and go down 64bit Vista support with the 680i boards.

Oblivion while 90% of the time runs awesome.. it seems that certain combinations of textures/scenes will cause the game to become a slideshow (it seems most related to grass).. and WoW has basically maxxed out GPU performance in the last gen of cards so the 8800GTX's are basically only useful in boosting AA and AF levels to levels outside WoW's normal settings.

I dunno.. after the lackluster 570/590 series on the Intel Platform.. and now the 680i I really wish Nvidia would allow SLI on Intels 975X platform which on my other system which has ATI Crossfire is super stable and fast.

Here is the card next to a 7900GTX which was the previous size king

IMAGE(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/141/321283722_28a13f3602_b.jpg)

Engadget just posted this.

If one of your New Year's resolutions involved spending a massive chunk of change to kick out as many frames per second as technologically possible, you may want to put the brakes on that impending NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX purchase. Lvl505 got their palms on a pre-release ATI R600 graphics card and put it up against the best NVIDIA currently has to offer, and the results thus far show ATI's device as "the clear winner." Of course, these benchmarks have to be taken with a certain grain of salt, as the drivers used were "a modified version of a 32-bit Vista pre-build version," which should have yielded less-than-optimal results; interestingly, the R600 still ran all over the optimized NVIDIA setup. Testing the cards on an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700-powered machine with 2GB of RAM, the single R600 card bested the solo 8800 GTX in basically every benchmark they tried, with common applications seeing minimal gains, but games saw between ten-percent (Half-Life 2: Lost Coast) and 42-percent (1701 A.D.) hikes. Apparently, the R600 was exceedingly impressive, as reviewers actually suggested that you "return your NVIDIA" card as soon as humanly possible while patiently waiting for January 22nd, when you can gleefully drop your $630 or so to pick up your very own R600. Oh, and you might end up paying somewhat of a monthly surcharge to use this bad boy too, as the 230-watts (which beats the estimations, actually) it'll require to operate could kick your power bill up a notch or two. Nevertheless, it's not exactly shocking to see a newer graphics card outgun one that's been on the shelf a moment or so, but we're still holding out for a finalized unit before making any final judgments on the combatants.

Welcome back Guru!

Interesting to hear your experience, too bad about the flaky drivers. Have you found the SLI to be worthwhile, or is it only like a 10% real world increase so the money would be better saved for something else.

If the Engadget thing proves to be true then I'll end up with one of them at some point and then.. hey, I'll just have a spare 8800GTX laying around. Not something I'll be complaining about.

On the other hand part of me thinks the 8800 cards performance will improve a lot over the next couple driver revisions.

Whats so shocking about a part from ATI coming out several months after Nvidia and taking a 10% or so lead in performance? In the end Nvidia will refresh the 8800GTX and outperform the first R600.. then ATI will do a R650 yadda yadda yadda..

On the other hand part of me thinks the 8800 cards performance will improve a lot over the next couple driver revisions.

Less speed increases and more stability and working games. Nvidia dropped the ball big time.

These things are rediculous. I feel so outdated with my x850xt :/

TheGameguru, what case did you use to house those bad boyz? I just got a Antec Solo case and I heard that G8800 won't be able to fit in it...

stylez, don't feel bad I still use my radeon 9800 pro

What is the designation of the R600?

I ask because DQ wrote this.

I thought we'd seen the end of high-end video cards, but I was (fortunately) wrong. There's an AGP version of the Radeon X1950 Pro, and from everything I've seen, it's a scorcher. There are some detailed benchmarks in a Firing Squad review that you can read here.

Visiontek, Powercolor, and Sapphire are all making cards. The Powercolor version, in particular, looks like a fantastic deal, because it's apparently going to retail for just over $200 (it should start shipping in early-mid January). That's a great upgrade for someone who doesn't want to buy (or build) a new system.

I don't know what designation the R600s will take on, but x1950 pros uses the RV570 core

lethial wrote:

TheGameguru, what case did you use to house those bad boyz? I just got a Antec Solo case and I heard that G8800 won't be able to fit in it...

stylez, don't feel bad I still use my radeon 9800 pro :(

Best case made

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

wow that is a monster of a case... How quiet is it?