Budget buying 9600gt or 8800gt

dragas89

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I've found two cards in my budget that I'm willing to spend. I run games normally at 1280-1024 and plan fully to overclock either one of these. The 9600gt I would be purchasing is new, but the 8800gt I would be purchasing is open box.

9600gt EVGA - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130334

Open Box 8800gt - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127329R

I've never used neweggs open box, have no idea if it is good or not, especialy for overclocking.I don't plan on doing any MIR deals, so cards around this price are perfect.So, which one should I get?
 

dragas89

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Yeah, I did look at that, but from what I got from every one is that its almost useless. Anyone use that video card in their PC that can vouch? I'm definatley buying a card today though.
 

dagger

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http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/02/g80-vs-g92-hi-end-geforce-gfx-cards-round-up/?page=10
A 640mb g80 8800gts is considered equal performance to a 9600gt and 8800gs. 320mb model perform lower. But at that price, it's still excellent value. Just don't expect g92 8800gts performance.

http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/02/g80-vs-g92-hi-end-geforce-gfx-cards-round-up/?page=8
Full chart comparasion.

You might want to consider this g92 8800gts, at $169.99 after MIR, it's a bargain for the performance level. It's brand new plus 3 year warranty:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134037
It's half the price of 8800gtx for about the same performance, and priced slightly lower than g80 8800gts 640mb for much higher performance. Plus the dual slot stock cooler is just as good and better than some dual slot aftermarket coolers.
 

sarwar_r87

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9600GT works fine for me at 1400x900 with max details for all games i tried so far. cyrsis plays at 20fps at 1280-800 wit high specs....so if ur in budget i think 9600GT is perfect for u. den overclock it to get 8800GT performance.....but for future proofing i think 8800GT is better as it has 112 shades. G92 GTS would be an overkill. and G80 is more or less same as 9600 with more power power consumption
 

dragas89

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Thanks for the advice, I'm not big on mail in rebates, takes too long sometimes and i've been screwed before on them. What id like to see is what the 9600gt and 8800gt and gts 320 are like overclocked and matched up. My main reason for a 9600gt is the 512mb of ram, where as I'm not so sure about the 320 on the GTS. I play games like AoC, LOTRO, Movie Battles, HL2 mods and 2142. But id also like to leave myself open for some of the Crysis mods coming out, so im not very sure if I would need the 512MB or not.
 

dagger

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Most those games are rarely used for benchmarking. But other games can give you a good idea too of where things are. See table for FPS comparasion.
http://www.guru3d.com/category/vga_2/
 

ohiou_grad_06

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Whoa!!! TIME OUT!!! Those cards are a lot if your on a budget. Consider an 8800 gs. It's basically the little brother to the 8800gt. The normal gs is worse than a 9600 gt. However, Newegg has a superclocked version by EVGA listed on their site. I think it's 135. Not a bad price, even though you are not big on MIR, it does have a 30 dollar one. Which means 105. It's only got 384 mb of ram though. But at the resolutions your wanting to run, ought to be plenty. And the overclocked ones according to the benchmarks at lower resolutions outperform the 9600gt in some cases. Meaning you'd have a good compromise, cheap price. Where you'd be limited is if you want to start playing high resolution. I think what I've read is above 1600x1200. But don't quote me on that, do a little research. But for 105 after rebate, it's not bad. I think EVGA also has a step up program, so if you weren't happy with the card, you could essentially trade the card in upgrade to a better card within 90 days. But look for some benchmarks and see what you think. I've been looking and that's what I've been wanting for my own rig.
 

dragas89

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I was thinking about the 8800gs, but the lower memory and and lack of AA in 1280-1024 is what kept me skeptical about it.
 

mihirkula

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For that resolution either of the three cards give a good performance ... though if you're thinking of a little futureproofing or are thinking of upgrading your resolution (new monitor) later, 8800GT is a better investment......... but as Shadow said, open box isn't the safest way to buy a card.
 

dragas89

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Can't you just buy an 8800gs whatever version and overclock it yourself, do the brands realy do anything that much different then a heatsink fan and a sticker?
 

B-Unit

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If you can afford it the 8800GT wins hands down. I own that specific card and I must say the beefed up cooler kicks ass. Im yet to break 60C with it, and Im OCed to 700Mhz.

Ive had reasonably good luck with open box, ive gotten a motherboard and a hard drive open-box and they both perform as good as new. The motherboard didnt come with drivers or an I/O plate, so be prepared to recieve no accessorys, but Newegg tests the item to make sure its not dead, so you should recieve working product. If you do decide to go with the open-box, be sure to test it promptly, as you only have 10 days (I think from date of purchase) to return it if there is something wrong.
 

fatcat

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What's interesting about that card is the dual slots setup which should provide good cooling and certain dose of silence. I have one of another brand and single slot, it's noisy as a jet engine.
 

dragas89

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8800gts 320 is gone so its between the 8800gs and 9600gt, would a super clocked evga 9600 be achieveable if I bought the regular 9600 and overclocked it manually? And is Ntune best for that?
 

marvelous211

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lack of AA in 1280x1024? How? 8800gs supports upto 16xAA.
 

marvelous211

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Depending on the brand it varies.
 

marvelous211

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Usually newegg open box is fine. It's customer returns. However, I don't think newegg checks each card that is returned. It still comes with the same manufacturer warranty but doesn't come with good return policy. I would stay away from MSI warranty though. They aren't too known for their warranty policy like EVGA, XFX, BFG, etc..

Both of those cards will do fine for such low resolution. You might also want to put an eye out for EVGA 8800gs if you want to save more money. It is just as good as 9600gt in that resolution.




I'm not too fond of rebates either because lot of times it does not come however EVGA are very good with their rebates long as you follow directions and include everything that the form asks. I got mine within 6 weeks.
 

dragas89

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Ah marv I was wondering when you'd take attention to my post, I alike have a e6300 but @3.2. How far does the 8800gs support AA. Being that I will most likely only get up to a 19" screen my resolutions will stay low, so I'd liek to use AA as much as possible in 1280-1024. But as I said, I'd like to try out mods for the crysis engine too, so would a 8800gs overclocked cut it?Found a xfx one with cod4 on newegg.
 

marvelous211

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I can tell you this. I've yet to play a game that made this card choke. Even crysis @ high settings is pretty smooth at that resolution. Just no AA with Crysis unless you want to run medium settings and turn up AA.

On older engines 16x CSAA +TRMS + 16xAF like Half Life 2, BF2, you know some older engines and still pull nearly 100fps average.

With any of the recently released games I usually turn on 4x AA 16x AF. That is the base I start with the settings at that resolution. Sometimes more depending how good the game was coded. Games like COD4 I can turn on 16x CSAA and still over 60fps average.

If you don't have COD4 that xfx 8800gs is a STEAL. COD4 costs $40 alone and after rebate you are getting a high performing card for $60. However there are some draw backs to that XFX 8800gs card. The fan is not variable so it will be pretty loud. It also comes with slower memory. I'm not sure how far they can clock in the memory dept which these 8800gs seems to bottleneck. You might want to ask Paul the forum giggalo since he has that card.
 

dragas89

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Yeah what I'm looking to do is buy either the 9600gt or the 8800gs and wait till the new gen stuff comes out and gets cheaper for me to upgrade to in about 1-2 years.Im not planning on getting the higher 9 series or even the start of the new next gen coming out and I kind of want to do some video card overclocking to see what my machine can do. I think your right about the xfx cards being loud, my friends 8800gt XFX alpha dog is like a rice burner.
 

teamlosigp

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I would purchase the 9600GT if I were you. I say that because if you were going to buy the 8800GS 384MB version you will have limited memory and the 9600GT has about 20 more GB/s of memory bandwidth which is nessesary for todays heavy texture games. Also (i know from experience) the 9600GT overclocks quite well and memory running at 1000MHz is easily obtaind along with a 740 MHz core, same as the EVGA SSC edition.
 

marvelous211

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It's actually 16 GB/s more memory bandwidth if you want to go by overclocked 9600gt at 1000mhz and 8800gs @ 1000mhz which is a given considering EVGA uses 1ns memory and more can be achieved if you want to clock further. Memory bandwidth does help AA but heavy texture games? 9600gt has much lower texture fillrate than 8800gs. :heink:

In raw performance without AA an overclocked 8800gs performs more like 8800gt. The draw back is AA performance however. One thing 9600gt is good at is AA with higher pixel fillrate and memory bandwidth because in AA situations you are limited to memory bandwidth and pixel fillrate than anything else.

Considering a 8800gt can be had for $20 more over 9600gt I advise people to get that or if you are budget is $100 a 8800gs is just as good as 9600gt now maybe better in the future. Cuda physics is based on SP which 9600gt won't be in a good position. Only time will tell.
 

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