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8600 Ultra SLI vs. 8800 Series

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This is hard, since we don't really know 100% what the specs of the 8600 cards will be. It does seem to come without any doubt that the 8600 Ultra will be the best of the 8600 series, and for a very reasonable price. By reasonable, I mean sub $250.

With that said, do you imagine that SLI'd 8600 Ultra's could potentially surpass a single 8800 series card? I'm thinking just the 8800GTS, the GTX seems to be quite the heavyweight.

I don't foresee myself spending over $400 on a 8800 GTX. I don't see myself even really wanting to spend more than $300 at once on a video card.

MY train of thought is to purchase a 8600 Ultra at the time of my new PC purchase, and then add a second one at a later date.

Unless the price drops significantly on the 8800GTS and GTX cards by the time those cards come out, I don't see myself buying a 8800 series card. Although we all know how resisting temptation for sweet technology goes.

What course of action are some of you taking? I know it is hard to tell right now without knowing exact specs, but I would imagine some people have been trying to plan for the future, now.

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if you're willing to spend the money at some point or another, i would say just pony up and get an 8800 series card. based on the fact that SLI isnt always useful, youll get better consistency from an 8800 series card.

With that said, do you feel a 8800GTS is a sufficiently good card for the price?

I am assuming the price will drop once the 8600 cards come out, as well as ATI's new cards.

I really do not want to spend the money on a GTX unless the price drops to the $300 range by the time those cards come out or shortly after.
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my friend has the current 8800gts and an E6400 running his 24inch widescreen dell monitor, and there are no slow downs in his games. so im gonna say, yeah, its more then enough for now and should last you at least a couple of years at high quality settings.

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my friend has the current 8800gts and an E6400 running his 24inch widescreen dell monitor, and there are no slow downs in his games. so im gonna say, yeah, its more then enough for now and should last you at least a couple of years at high quality settings.

The 8800gts is your best bet, and the 8600 series I would personally avoid for the most part. I think it will be too crippled to be faster than a lot of the x1950 series products, and by the time it is released at a fairly high price, the x1950's will be very cheap and possibly be even faster, just with a lack of DX10 support.

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The 8800gts is your best bet, and the 8600 series I would personally avoid for the most part. I think it will be too crippled to be faster than a lot of the x1950 series products, and by the time it is released at a fairly high price, the x1950's will be very cheap and possibly be even faster, just with a lack of DX10 support.


Definitely. One 8800GTX or GTS is fool-proof mixed with a hint of GPU longevity. Though the 8600 series will have a nice price tag, we will have to roll our thumbs as we wait for graphs.

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The benifets of going DX10 only applies if your going to upgrade to Vista too.

everybody is going to go vista at some point. and besides, the 8800gts and gtx are still the 2 best cards on the market right now for dx9 as well. just because they have dx10 support doesnt mean they dont support dx9 as well.

Unless he wants some fluently smooth and maxed out DX9 games. If the 8600U's are tagged at it's $190 pre-precieved price, 2 in SLi should pack quite the DX9 and 10 'punch' cheaply; not to mention being DX10 ready.

Hey mate, i would advise against going for a SLI setup, unless you are going to buy both cards at once. In my experience you dont end up getting the 2nd card, because after 6 months have gone by you get better preformance by buying another single better card ;p

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everybody is going to go vista at some point.


Tell that to the folks still using Win2000.

Microsoft thinks Vista is going to sell like hotcakes, but I'm telling you right now it isn't. The only place Vista will sell is in the OEM market...

Hell... the Social Security Administration (as a whole) JUST upgraded to WinXP about 18 months ago. I seriously doubt they're going to be banging on Dell's door lookin' for Vista anytime soon.

Sorry... got off on a tangent there. Not directed at u.

Thank you for all the information so far. Very helpful.

In all honestly, I want to build a system for games like Crysis, Supreme Commander, etc. Crysis is obviously going to be the one game I really want to be able to run near flawlessly.

I figure my best bet at this point would be to get a 8800GTS when I build my system, and down the road if i so choose, I can always SLI another 8800GTS.

Heck, maybe by the time I'm ready the GTX's will have dropped enough where I can tolerate the purchase.
Graphics card Expert

sli aint worth it, go with a faster single card

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This is hard, since we don't really know 100% what the specs of the 8600 cards will be. It does seem to come without any doubt that the 8600 Ultra will be the best of the 8600 series, and for a very reasonable price. By reasonable, I mean sub $250.

With that said, do you imagine that SLI'd 8600 Ultra's could potentially surpass a single 8800 series card? I'm thinking just the 8800GTS, the GTX seems to be quite the heavyweight.

I don't foresee myself spending over $400 on a 8800 GTX. I don't see myself even really wanting to spend more than $300 at once on a video card.

MY train of thought is to purchase a 8600 Ultra at the time of my new PC purchase, and then add a second one at a later date.

Unless the price drops significantly on the 8800GTS and GTX cards by the time those cards come out, I don't see myself buying a 8800 series card. Although we all know how resisting temptation for sweet technology goes.

What course of action are some of you taking? I know it is hard to tell right now without knowing exact specs, but I would imagine some people have been trying to plan for the future, now.

8600ultra reported 180 on release with 512 mb ram, but being released q3 07, the 8600gt at 150 with 256mb ram coming may

prob end up getting amds mid range cards, buyign comp in summer and those cards are coming out may. even if ur not getting dx10 high end, ur prob not gona spend that much on a card dx9. if ur running a dx10 mid range card on dx9 even, its going to be overkill wich is ALWAYS a gd thing, theres no such thing as too many fps

Well I am doing my new build by the end of this month, because my buddies computer just bit the dust and he has always liked the one I have now for casual gaming, so I'm going to use that money towards a new build.

I might just suck it up and throw in a 8800GTS, although I'm not sure.

I really want to put it together with a C2D, but I don't think I'll be overclocking, so I might go with an AM2. With my budget, I could do an AM2 build with 2 gigs of ram and a 8800GTS, but It doesn't look like I can do that with a C2D setup. My only concern is will the AM2 bottleneck the 8800GTS?

I was also considering just gettin a 7900GS or something to hold me over till the prices go down and new product comes out, probably getting an eVGA so I can use their step-up program.

The confusion never ends.

Hey guys I just purchased the BFG 8800 GTX and it is awesome. I had a 7900 GTX before, but I wanted something new with my new conroe build. So I sold my 7900 GTX for 255.00 on ebay. The 8800 GTX card cost 550.00 - 50.00 rebate - 255.00. So the final cost was my the new card cost "245.00"
To spend 600.00 for a new card is harsh on the wallet but if you can do what I did, it is more cost effective.
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Hey guys I just purchased the BFG 8800 GTX and it is awesome. I had a 7900 GTX before, but I wanted something new with my new conroe build. So I sold my 7900 GTX for 255.00 on ebay. The 8800 GTX card cost 550.00 - 50.00 rebate - 255.00. So the final cost was my the new card cost "245.00"
To spend 600.00 for a new card is harsh on the wallet but if you can do what I did, it is more cost effective.


lol and how much did u spend on your old card?

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Hey guys I just purchased the BFG 8800 GTX and it is awesome. I had a 7900 GTX before, but I wanted something new with my new conroe build. So I sold my 7900 GTX for 255.00 on ebay. The 8800 GTX card cost 550.00 - 50.00 rebate - 255.00. So the final cost was my the new card cost "245.00"
To spend 600.00 for a new card is harsh on the wallet but if you can do what I did, it is more cost effective.


lol and how much did u spend on your old card?


350.00 off ebay! Also the card was a chaintech not a BFG or EVGA. So the card was cheap.

As has been said before in this forum and as has been said before in practically all forums pertaining to SLI. SLI is for those with deep pockets who can afford to buy TWO graphic cards at once. Once you have bought one, after 6-9 months u can buy a much more powerful card for the same price and so on ad infinitum. So my advice would be, go for the 8600 Ultra, milk it for all it's worth, then after a year or 18mths go for 9600 etc etc. That way you get the best value for money. Unless of course the next-gen GFX cards are PCIE 2.0. hehehe :lol: 

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So my advice would be, go for the 8600 Ultra, milk it for all it's worth, then after a year or 18mths go for 9600 etc etc.


I must be tired, I spent about a minute trying to think why someone would replace a geforce 8600 with a Radeon 9600......

**goes to bed**

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I must be tired, I spent about a minute trying to think why someone would replace a geforce 8600 with a Radeon 9600......


It'll get confusing with the next generation of GeForce cards... I mean, not for the people who has a little bit of knowledge, instead for those who doesn't know pretty much anything at all... :lol:  :lol: 

- "A 9600? Radeon? Are you sure it's more powerful than a 8800?
- Sure! I read in some forum that the 9600 is da sh*t!
- I can't wait to get one!"

The difference in a e6300, and a halfway compatible AMD cpu is maybe $50.

e6300 is as good as a X2 4800 in FEAR and 3DMark 06, so why not go with the better option for the future,

Heaven forbid, drink cheap beer for a week or two to save the $50.

Remember, good quality outlives paying less for too little!

Hehe I know it's going to be funny, but the way things are going the next Geforce series will be the 9xxx. And in the 3 generations time the Radeon will be having the same names as the GeforceFX series. Things will get pretty confusing then.

I'd really love to see how the naming business guys get their ideas. I mean, imagine them in 50 years time, I guess they'll all be poring over their thesauruses (or is it thesauri?) trying to eke out their last superlative. Geforce HyperSuperTurboExtreme anyone? They could name it the Geforce HSTE for short, not bad huh?

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I must be tired, I spent about a minute trying to think why someone would replace a geforce 8600 with a Radeon 9600......


It'll get confusing with the next generation of GeForce cards... I mean, not for the people who has a little bit of knowledge, instead for those who doesn't know pretty much anything at all... :lol:  :lol: 

- "A 9600? Radeon? Are you sure it's more powerful than a 8800?
- Sure! I read in some forum that the 9600 is da sh*t!
- I can't wait to get one!"

This assumes Radeon and GeForce will be around for years to come. Before GeForce Nvidia had Riva, while Mach and Rage are ancestors to Radeon. Completely different numeration schemes accompanied this generations. Personally, I think ATI might ditch their current numeration after R600, it sounds "less" than Nvidia. Sure we the knowledged will look at the benchies first, but the graphically ignorant will still be drawn to a higher number, like flies to a bright light :)  .

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This assumes Radeon and GeForce will be around for years to come.


I don't think NVidia is anywhere close to ditch the "GeForce" brand. Remember, it's the product that made it what it is today. :wink:
The same thing happens with "Radeon". Ok ok, we (as, "we" hardware geeks :tongue: ) know about both companies' history, but not everyone else does. A strong brand makes a strong product.

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Sure we the knowledged will look at the benchies first, but the graphically ignorant will still be drawn to a higher number, like flies to a bright light :)  .


Aaannd... Amen. 8)
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