Revised 8800GTS

Well that's not completely fair given the state of things at 6600/7600 launch. It's not like those cards were tearing up DX9 titles. We are at the current state of affairs now because bleeding edge GPU's have trickled down in price. The X1950XT-256MB isn't much slower than the X1950XTX-512. So you pretty much can get ATi's best technology for < $300 now.

I don't think it's fair to demand a certain level of performance from a certain price bracket. As always value is going to be measured against the other options in the market.

 

That's assuming so much and rather impractical. I would expect no current card (that includes R600) to be able to run Crysis at its full settings, in fact if a card can then I'm going to be rather dissapointed with Crysis in a way.

 

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not expecting great framerates at 1920x1200 with 6x AA and 16x AF but I do expect to get greater than 40 fps at full settings in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 with some minor AA. I guess I'm just accustomed to waiting for the best price to performance option to come along, and right now it seems to be the X1950 XT which I noticed is as little as $220. I don't honestly think Crysis will be too much for an 8800 GTS but I do question the possibility that you rightly may have to turn down the texture quality in the game with 320 MB or less, thus if I were to fork out I may personally rather pay the extra $50-100 for that extra memory.

There is no correlation between having high requirements in order to look good, that is all in the design and efficiency.

 

Nothing fancy really. Company of Heroes @1600x1200/4AA/16AF, High quality, Max in-game settings, 8-player map with nothing much going on.



By the end of the year, 4GB system memory and GPUs with 1GB framebuffer will be a standard for benchmarks, I predict.

 

DX10 introduces video memory virtualization, on all resources - so it remains to be seen how important a huge amount of memory will be for DX10 games, imo.


Uttar

 

The 512MB ceiling in the monitor window is the Rivatuner default, I guess. Company of hero is actually the most memory hungry game I've ever seen. (be it for GPU or for system) Even Oblivion @1920x1200 barely uses 512MB frame buffer and 1GB system RAM. But for 1600x1200 and higher, 256MB is certainly less than adequate for modern games, IMO.

Other games that can use ~512MB framebuffer among what I've played lately: Call of Duty 2, F.E.A.R., G.R.A.W., and of course Flight Simulator X. FS X is ridiculously stressful to the whole system and even a 8800 GTX can't handle it @1920x1200 for decent quality.

I agree, however, it remains to be seen how things will change with upcoming games since they look quite different from what we have had so far. I just hope FS X isn't an example.

Edit: Oblivion @1600x1200/4AA/16AF, High Quality, Max in-game settings. Took the screenshot right after the game. I have Windows Desktop Search running in the background, so usually my system memory usage is ~500MB even without any major app running.



What's interesting is that this kind of large frame buffer usage often doesn't show up in FPS benchmarks. Various sites have done benchmarks comparing FPS between 256MB and 512MB frame buffer, but the differences are rather small. But according to Rivatuner, the memory usage is so high that it makes me think 256MB cards should be quite slower. I wonder why the tested FPS are similar between 256MB and 512MB cards in many games, even under same quality settings if those games can actually make use of such large frame buffers?

 

It depends on how long you want to keep your card, because it won't be long before less memory does mean less performance, all else being equal. If you want the same perf as the 640MB card, you may need to turn down the texture detail to avoid texture swapping that hammers framerate. I'd definately rather play at 1280x1024 with higher texture detail than an equally priced faster chip that runs 1600x1200 with medium textures at the same framerate.

For $300, a 512MB 8600 may be a better value than a 320MB 8800GTS in this respect. Of course, there is no 8600GT right now, so this cheaper GTS looks pretty nice.

 

Flight Simulator X in my experiences has been a completely CPU limited title.

Chris

 

New SKUs detected

1) 8800 gts/320 listed in webshop, not yet available: http://www.tbh.se/index.asp?id=3&kat_id=2159&prod_id=25756

U.S street price estimate ~260-280$

2) X1950XL (?) on its way http://www.theinq.com/default.aspx?article=37245
Fuad hopes for faster memory but I believe its going to be more like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814153034
This is a castrated x1950pro with 1200 mhz memory instead of 1380 mhz. I believe the "custom" x1950s will be similar, otherwise they will be uneconomic against 8800 gts/320. Sorta like a x1950GTO2.

 

Strange.
I did a conversion of the price they had on that link, and it amounts to almost US$400.
Considering that there are 640MB versions already selling cheaper than that, either things are expensive in Sweden, or it's just speculative MSRP's from this particular shop.

 

We have 25% VAT here. Smaller market with high labour costs leads to higher markups while margins still are thin due to efficent competition. The 320 mb model is ~1000 kronor cheaper than the 640 meg -> 1000 kronor *0.8 (25% vat)/7.15 (exchange rate) = 111 $ -> Current U.S prices for 640meg GTS just under 400$ and slowly dropping according to froogle. So 260-280$ in mid feb seems to be the range its gonna land in. Its a nividian gut-punch in the soft belly of ATI. They better get those R600s rolling and that as fast as possible. I wonder if Nividia will launch a 384 meg GTX too when ATI comes with R600.

 

A LOT of people(and this includes gamers too) use 19" tft monitors that have 1280x1024 max/native resolution. For those people, a 8800gts with 320mB ram is more than enough. They get dx10, they get kickass perfomance(even with heavy special effects on, unlike 8600 can give them for example) and that memory is more than enough for that resolution. Thats why i consider 8800gts 320mB can be pretty good choice. A 512mB 8600 might not have the raw power of 8800gts to enable hdr/geometry/cool effects.

 

I thought this wasn't due until CeBit...
Less than two weeks to go for the 320MB version of the 8800 GTS:

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4563

February 12th is the day.

 

CompUSA lists 8800 GTS 320MB on website

http://www.compusa.com/products/pro...71&Ne=303827&Cn=Computer_Upgrades_Video_Cards

Priced at $350, but clocked at 550 MHz.

 

2007 games will be targeting 512 mb . If you think about it, the target would have been set before making the art assets and what shaders would be used. 2-4 years to make a game they wouldn't set it higher then 512 mb. Possibly in 2008 we will see games go above 512 extensively. Even Crysis really doesn't push over 512 mb much. I would think UT 2007 would be in that catagory as well. Of course adding in AA and AF the frame buffers will exceed 512 but not that much more.

 

Hmm, that's way over priced as of now. Newegg has 8800GTS 640MB at $380~ as of now and the extra $30 for a much more secure investment sounds a lot better to me. I'd be interested to see how this'll go out on the online retailers though, I'd expect sub $300 price points possibly, which is indeed very tempting. I'm rather shocked they are going to position such a powerful card so early at that price point. Very interesting.

 

Yeah why are you comparing CompUSA to Newegg? It'll be interesting to see what Nvidia does with the 640MB SKU cause I'd imagine OC versions of the 320MB GTS will end up faster than the stock 640MB one.

 

Where was the direct comparison of CompUSA and Newegg? The CompUSA link is the first place I've seen a 320MB 8800GTS even listed, therefore comparing it to other widely available 640MB versions (even if at an online retailer) in price is completely valid. Newegg was just a point of reference, as in you can visit Newegg quickly and see such prices are available for 640MB versions of the cards. Also, even if I was I would say it is completely valid to compare the two, they sell the same type of products, one is a retail chain while the other an online retailer, either way the purpose of visiting either is the same and therefore a valid comparison could be easily drawn.

I doubt Nvidia is to worried about OC versions. Because an OC 320MB is as fast as stock (or faster) than the 640MB it would not have any real effect on which SKU I'd go with. One being 320MB and the other being 640MB would be the only concern, that and price.