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Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - February 14, 2007 5:37 AM

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18 comment(s) - last by Mudvillager.. on Feb 22 at 4:41 AM

The 320MB version of NVIDIA's high-end is here; why not?

Yesterday marked the launch of the GeForce 8800 GTS with 320MB. Not surprising in the least, the card really has no problem going head-to-head with its 640MB older brother. So you get exactly the same performance as the 8800 GTS 640MB for only $299? Why wouldn't anyone want to buy this card?

The majority of people I've discussed the new card with take issue in the possibility that games tomorrow might require the full 640MB buffer.

I've been saying this for years, but I'll say it again: Never buy hardware today for games you want to play tomorrow. Computer hardware is not a commodity. Very rarely do prices increase and, without fail, even the most expensive hardware today is bargain-bin fodder six months down the line.

My next PC title will likely be Spore, but I'm not going to pay a cent for gaming hardware until the benchmarks are in. The fact is, the few games I play today could benefit from new hardware, but there's also a very distinct possibility that top dollar hardware today might not be up to snuff for Spore. On the other hand, there's also a possibility the hardware I have today is also may be just fine. Why second guess the performance of tommorow's games based on today's dollar?

So if the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB rocks games you want to play today, why give NVIDIA the extra $100 for memory that's clearly not going to boost performance on any games today.

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well,

By Hyperlite on 2/14/2007 7:53:57 AM , Rating: 2

until you turned on AA, then it sorta all went down the tubes...

RE: well,

By Hyperlite on 2/14/2007 7:59:38 AM , Rating: 2

**Edit** not that it didn't still perform well, but it really couldn't keep up with the 640mb at rez above 16x12

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RE: well,

By LtFarva on 2/14/2007 8:01:58 AM , Rating: 2

still, playing at 1600x1200 or less, its pretty much rocks for $300
I'm planing a computer in the next month or so, and this looks like the best option for the price (for now).
And I figure I'll keep some space open for sli in the future.

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RE: well,

By Hyperlite on 2/14/2007 8:12:50 AM , Rating: 2

Ok ok, sorry, its early, and i don't want to walk to class in the pouring rain. What will be interesting to see is how it performs against the 8600ultra @ the $300 pricepoint. (8600u was supposed to be $300msrp right?)

I realized it was important not to look so much as how the performance scaled against the 640mb part, but just look at the raw fps numbers. Even if it wasn't keeping up with the 640, it was posting great numbers, even in most situations with AA.

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RE: well,

By Marlowe on 2/14/2007 11:29:05 AM , Rating: 2

Yeah you're right about the 8600Ultra. But does anyone know the ETA of those cards? Probably gonna be a while if this is just launched in the same price/performance range?

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RE: well,

By Hyperlite on 2/14/2007 11:53:46 AM , Rating: 2

late march IIRC? could be wrong...sometime around R600.

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RE: well,

By LtFarva on 2/14/2007 1:36:18 PM , Rating: 2

Hopefully there will be info on them soon. Ha, I don't know how much longer I can wait to build!

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RE: well,

By MrTeal on 2/14/2007 2:36:17 PM , Rating: 2

Hopefully some of that is driver related and can be fixed. If you look at the performance in the Anandtech review, it performs worse than the 256MB X1900 XT and X1950 Pro at high res with AA on. Unless there's some strange mismanagement of resources, you'd think the 64MB advantage it has over those cards would keep the framerate higher.

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Oblivion

By Mudvillager on 2/14/2007 6:12:05 PM , Rating: 2

Playing Oblivion @ max quality 1920x1200 noAA noAF takes my 8800GTX to its knees (fps is between 10-70 something), so 320MB must be unplayable.

This card is just for low-res monitor users imo. Or those who don't play Oblivion :P

RE: Oblivion

By leexgx on 2/15/2007 12:17:18 PM , Rating: 2

you find its the CPU thats your limit there

8800GTX/GTS 90% of the time is cpu limited thats why we have DX10, untill game makers start getting the patches out that get the support DX10 some games will not work well on high setings

this page alone Sums up the CPU inprovements of DX10

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/11/08/what_dire...

on the 8800 cards thay are basicly CPU Bound on DX9 should not be to long now when the patches come out (1-4 months there will be DX10 based gaems soon)

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RE: Oblivion

By Mudvillager on 2/22/2007 4:41:51 AM , Rating: 2

Hm and I thought I had a powerful CPU (3.4GHz clocked C2D) =)

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Difficult choice

By Trisped on 2/14/2007 9:52:21 PM , Rating: 2

When I bought my current Video card 3 years ago I tried to get one for a reasonable price that would last 3 years till I built my next PC. The card will still run new games, though if it is graphic intensive I have to play it at the despicable res of 1024x768 instead of my preferred 1600x1200.

Since that time we have moved into a new world, where not only can you pay $50-100 more for a 5% performance increase, you can double that cost with CrossFire or SLI and get a 50% increase, which often has buggy, limited, or no support for the games I play.

So the question is, how much power do you need now, latter, and how much are you willing to spend? If you only need the power of one card now, buy it and save the rest of the money for next year to buy the next new card which will be better then having two of what you wanted to start with. If you want power latter, you can save $100 now on a card that works fine, then put that towards getting a new card sooner.

The problems start when you get new interfaces. I currently use a P4(yeah, it sucks) with DDR400 and AGP. I can't upgrade because I would then need to buy a new motherboard, and RAM in addition to the video card and if I am going to do that I might as well get a new processor and make the transition complete.

So yeah, there are a lot of considerations, but that is what is nice about DailyTech and Anandtech. They give you as much information as possible so you can make as informed a decision as possible.

Hmm, looks like I just ranted on your blog. Sorry. :)

RE: Difficult choice

By jtesoro on 2/15/2007 1:07:14 AM , Rating: 2

I can relate to your "rant" since I'm in the same situation as you are: P4 with a 3-year old video card (6600GT) on AGP. I'm going to be getting a new system in a few months, and the main trigger point will be a the arrival of a "good" DX10 card at the $200 price point. I'm imagining this to be a 8600GT, but who knows what AMD/ATI will bring.

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Am I wrong

By kamel5547 on 2/15/2007 12:13:42 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Computer hardware is not a commodity

I always thought computer hardware was a commodity, and thus the reason prices spiral downward. I thought that was the point of declaring something to have reach the status of a commodity.

RE: Am I wrong

By afkrotch on 2/15/2007 1:11:11 AM , Rating: 2

It's all dependent on which definition of commodity that you follow. It is both a commodity and not a commodity.

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Why not upgradeable?

By Spyvie on 2/15/2007 12:30:33 AM , Rating: 2

Back in the day you used to be able to add more memory to some video cards. I once had a Matrox card with 2 empy sockets on it.

I wonder if a design like that would still be possible with modern memory/GPU setups

RE: Why not upgradeable?

By Future145 on 2/15/2007 4:43:24 AM , Rating: 2

where would you find the GDDR3 memory?

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OMG

By therealnickdanger on 2/14/2007 4:19:44 PM , Rating: 2

Are you kidding me? You mean that instead of getting 150fps in Half-Life 2 at 1920x1200 4xAA, I'll only get 105fps!!?!??!? HOLY SHIT! NVIDIA DROPD T3H BAL!!

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007