Well, I just recently found out about the 8800GS and it looks to a promising card that will give the 3850 a run for it's money, but I'm a little confused. The 786mb edition is going to be in the same price bracket as the 8800GT 256mb, so which one is faster? Also, wouldn't one of them cannibalize the other's sales? I'm guessing that they are releasing the 2 variations to compete with the 2 variations of the 3850, but I thought that's what the 8800GT 256mb was supposed to do. What do you guys think of the new card?

Either way, I'm happy because, the 7900GS has held up great for me and I can play all my games in 720p with pretty much everything maxed out and I usually get above 60 FPS (granted, it's heavily overclocked.) I'm going to get a 3870 pretty soon, so I can play Crysis and so I don't have to deal with Nvidia's craptastic overscan compensation.

It's funny.

8800Ultra
8800gtx
8800gts 640
8800gts 512
8800gts 320
8800gt 512
8800gt 256
8800gs 768
8800gs 384

It's just funny that there are so many in the 8800 series.

(Just to clarify, the list is not necassarily in order of performance, just in order of suffix followed by most amount of memory.)

Yes it is odd ^^ I can't see why nvidia need any more in the 8800 series - I just want the 9x00 series to come!

As for comparing the 2 cards IndigoMoss, I can't be sure. I would have a look at the brand you have chosen and compare the cpu mhz and memory mhz to the GT, but obviously an extra half gb of memory is going to help quite a lot and I think that it would out do the 256mb GT.

So is the GS just a slowed down GT, or something else? Never heard of it before...

It's starting to get confusing, again. lol

And two versions of the GTS 640MB also. (96 SP and 112SP).

And don't forget the 8800 GT OC

A bit ridiculous - took me a week to figure out which version to get. And then another 2 days to change my mind.

Not exactly a slowed down GT. Yes, CLocks are lower (at least on the cheap 384MB version), but it's got a 192-bit memory interface vs 256 bit for the GT. I'm not sure if it's 112 sp or 96 sp, I expect 112 from rumors so far. Seems NV want to compete in price with the HD3850 and 3870 and can't do that with the 256MB and 512MB GT. (note I said PRICE)

Memory doesn't mean a lot, the 8800GS has 112sp's etc but like 192bit bus if I remember so limited there by quite a bit.

8800GT available in 1GB too.

Yeah I understand that, but what exactly is the 8800GS 786MB card supposed to achieve, if it performs slower than the 8800GT 256mb card, it's useless. If it performs better than the 8800GT 256mb card, the 256mb card is then useless. And if you think about it, how the hell are you going to benefit from such a high memory buffer when your memory bus is 192-bit?

Personally, I'd be nice to see the 8800GS 768mb version perform a little slower than the 8800GT, but have a nice overclocking overhead like the 7900GS did to get it to perform even better than the GT, but with more memory buffer, which will help with higher resolutions and heavier textures.

seems like a very nice card, the 384 and 768mb memory look nice. Would be real nice if ati pulled a 1gb 3850 or 3870 to make this card obsolete. I wanna see benchmarks of it vs 3850 and 8800gts(320 and 640.)
i think it woulda looked better if nvidia had this naming scheme

8800 gts (320)
8800 gts (640)
8800 gtx
8800 ultra
8900 gs
8900 gt
8900 gts
??8900 gtx??? if only ati competed at this end

I totally agree with you. All of the G92 based cards should have been named as a 8900, it would be a lot less confusing and it's just logical, since they are releasing the 9800 series soon. Unless they are saving those names for something?

Is the GS AGP? Like the 7800 GS.

Untill ATI/AMD can threaten nvid's top cards I'm sure they'll be in noooo rush to pull the 9000 rabbit out of the hat.. If ATI's offering had come anywhere near the gtx we would already be seeing the 9000 bunny..
Just my two euro centimes.
Ryan Nadds

So nVidia is trying to make it cheaper by narrowing the memory bandwidht and lowering the clocks but at the same time they are putting more memory on it. Weird. Guess memory is so dirt cheap nowadays it doesn't really matter, and it might look more appealing to some people with lots of memory.

The amount of memory doesn't automatically make the performance jump. It is a lot more complicated than that. A 1gb 3870 would have bugger all performance increase over the regular 512mb 3870 at anything but the most riduculouis resolutions.

If you don't believe me look at any reviews comparing the 2900xt 512mb and the 2900xt 1gb. There was no performance difference. The 2900xt also has a larger memory bus than the 3800 series.

As for Nvidia releaseing another low/mid range gpu and not a new GTX or 9000 series that is simlpy to do with lack of competion in the high end. They have no reason to release better faster cards if they are already the fastest. The low/mid range is where the largest market share is anyway.

Can anybody post some solid specs of the 8800GS?

+1

From what I have heard from... who knows where online, the 3870 x2 (the dual gpu one) is should be really good. This may be enough to cause the G 9000 line to come out of hiding.

It is strange. I understand that Nvidia is better, faster, smoother... but I still feel compelled to buy ATi. There is something there that ATi has that Nvidia does not. I can not put my finger on it.... but I can see it when playing games. I am not sure it is color representation or what.... but there is something different between the two vendors.