GeForce 8600: DirectX 10 For The Masses - Page 2

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i smell the FX fiasco just with a different name, 128bit memory thats bs my gf 6800xt ( yes i know its crap) has 256bit! so my point is, why even put it out, i mean the x1900pro is doing better and thats a generation older, i dont see where this is going but good luck, lets hope ati spit out a good card

It's still a DX10 card, that there are no DX10 apps to test it on other than nV demos means you test it on current DX9 titles. It's still a DX10 card, blame M$ and the Devs for poor DX10 implementation. So regardless of your semantics, DX9 is the area these cards currently compete in until there's actual titles in stores or patches on sites.

Except the GF8800 dominaes everything else in DX9 and will of course beat them in DX10 since it's not an option to the others, in this case it's a question of price/performance. Still fine to spend you money on this card, because it can play old, current and future titles, just not worth the current MSRP.

Yes there are, but there's likttle point in getting them, because dollar for dollar right now the X19xx series outperform them.

You could if the official COH path were out of Alpha/Beta testing, it's still only 1.5 on THQ's site(at this time), 1.6 was just announced (still in dev/testing),and DX10 doesn't come until Patch 1.7.
FSX's patch isn't out of Beta yet either, so what mythic DX10 games are out there that are publically available?

Quite yer moaning and get a clue.
Informed criticism is valid, yours on the other hand is moaning about the state of the industry not this review.
All I hear is LAME. Lame article, Lame 8600 card, Lame 32 pipes, Lame 128 bit bus, Lame DX10 implementation, Lame Vista. LAME LAME LAME. I guess you CAN play DX10 Chess on Vista Home Premium?
I can't be too harsh; the 9700 Pro was way ahead of DX9 and no one complained.

There are tons of info about 8600 leaks to the web way before its official release.
What about AMD? How come we're not seeing much of new HD2x00 info being release? are they not schedule for 4/23/07 release date?

I am debating buying Vista Ultimate just to "play" that one.

Seems the very best of them is around 800 / 1250(2500).

Which is only about +75 core /+100 memory boost from the GTS XXX and about +100/+200 from stock.

Now I'm not sure if any of them are shipping with GDDR4 yet, I haven't seen them, but if you could get another 100-200(200-400)Mhz out of the memory it would likely make a huge difference.




edited bad (math), d'oh!

Sooooo....Save another £40 and buy the 8800GTS 320mb.

Wait until the X2600's come out, then you should see the 8600's price drop to something more reasonable... although everyone in this thread will probably have grandkids by the time AMD release a new card

Will be interesting to see how the X1950XT stands up in a DX10 title against the 8600.

I know, it's annoying. Same phenomenon as dual-core processors when the Pentium D and Athlon X2s came out, I think I heard 3245 times that although there was no measurable benefits from dual-core now, there would be in some kind of near future, and people with single-core would be let down. Well, two years later we have finally seen one game to back up this statement: Supreme Commander. And there are new, much faster processors (the Core2Duo) to replace those Pentium Ds and X2s now, so the kind of gaming enthusiast who paid a premium back in 2005 for dual-core has probably upgraded now and never actually used the second core on his Pentium D or X2.

I'll play Crysis when there will be a 200$ video card to play it perfectly. There's no rush, plus by that time there will be all the free strategy guides, patches, mods, etc.

By that time, Crysis will be in the discount bin and the latest games may not run at all on what we have today, while the hardware will be so far advanced that a Nvidia 8800 will be like an ATI 9800 Pro is now.

You say you bought a card that was 1.5 gens (? the 1900 was a different core than the 1800 but not a "full" gen different) behind to play a 2 year old game, wow. You are still way off the curve. (budget may force you to this, but that does not mean it is the "best" way to go)

Sure, if you are having problems that is the first thing you do to debug any issue... duh. Once the issue is found, go back to business as usual. I did not say to encode video while gaming (h.264 is super intensive on the cpu and most encoders use multi-core so that is a dumb idea anyway), but I have got in some quick online matches of CoH and UT2k4 while burning cd's... Others run folding@home or other apps while gaming. Dual cores free you up for that on a game that only uses one core.

well, i aint keen on the games you test, no source games which is a shame considering how many people play them, only FPS games as well.

apart from that i won't hold my breath for any revelations caused by driver updates in the next review.

i for one never expect midrange cards to do well so nothing unusual for me. true some were expecting it to put up a bit more of a fight against the "old" high end and especially the 1950pro.

still, for those on a budget it might be a disappointment considering i bet more than a few have been waiting for the mid range. we shall see if its power, heat and video capabilities will save it but all this does i am sure is make the wait for ATI to release their cards all that more bearable for the target market.

that is why I made the possible comparison to the FX gen cards. The ti4200 and 6600gt were insane deals at the time for the money. The FX5600 was not. Granted the FX gen did great on dx8 (previous gen like dx9 is now) but sucked at the "next gen" dx9 (like dx10 is now maybe) and the midrange of the FX REALLY sucked.

Nv totally came back on both high end and midrange with the 6 series... and everyone was hoping a repeat of that (7 series was good too btw) but while the midrange seems to be missing I hope the whole 8 series is not a repeat of the FX bomb.


Just some thoughts...

Mmm...

Stock: 675/1000
"The very best of them": 800/1250
Result: +125/+250

Keep editing Ape!

Well my edit was from the original 1250(2400) error since I originally put 1200, but noticed I had seen a low core high memory in another so I originaly changed the base memory, the 'about' covers the area of overclocking in 'general'.

Thanks for the pricing.
But I will NEVER get a 8600 as long as I can get a X1950XT for the same price.
I hope things change soon.
Myself (like most) wished the 8600 was 64 pipes/256 bit, etc.

Excuse me but I don't get your point: what do you mean by "way off the curve"?

Well on a single-core you can also burn cds and run apps that require little cpu power and it won't have a significant impact on your framerate, so, so much for going to dual-core. If running other apps will have an impact it can also be the result of more I/O on the hard drive or RAM usage and dual-core doesn't help on that. So seriously X2s were just marketing, for gamers that is.

I mean just that... you are not on the leading edge, the front of the curve... whatever term you want to use. You were not any where near the top performing cards of that time. It was not a slam, just that your budget did not allow (or you did not want it to allow) you to get the best of breed. You were basing performance on old games so that old card did what you wanted it too. Running newer games hit it much harder.

You are totally missing my point man... and arguing with a wall I suppose. I am saying that you can run MANY apps while gaming. That disc burning includes some encoding for a particular format (video cd for example) plus all the things running in the background. (like xfire, folding, speedfan, key-loggers, spyware, rootkits, trojans... whatever)

You are whining about an issue that you seem to think existed 2 years ago and yet is still relevant today... give it up and admit that everyone is moving to dual core and those of us that have are seeing tangible benefits that, while not directly a result of games "seeing" two cores are a result of having that extra processing power for any number of things.

Whether your hobby is computing in general, PC gaming, CAD or crunching code... more power = teh good! That is a rule that will always hold.

if you are only a passer-by then you will never understand and you should not whine about those who do... get a console or go weave some baskets and just be happy.

i never use an single core cpu agane (in my prime pc any way) system is alot more smother even thought games are not muti threded (games that i play even) it uses more then 1 cpu when playing games

some users still think single core cpus are faster then dual core past maybe right but you cant get an core 2 duo as an single core so No single core can beat it (Quad core is still an overkill unless maybe supream commander is used or progs that use more then 2 cpus)

X1950 is not DX10 card it can not use DX10 games only DX9 as some one posted compareing 8800 and an x1950 with dx10 (dx10 performace will wipe the floor with DX9 cards unless its an 8600 mite be slower)

Of course, that's my basic initial point you're just restating. That's just another way of saying "I'll play Crysis when there will be a 200$ card to play it perfectly": I mean you pay not for the technology being what it is, you pay for it being what it is now, ie: the top-end. My point is, you save a lot of money and trouble by living 1-2 years in the past. Half-Life 2 is the same game it was upon its release, it's just as freaking good, and it runs flawlessly on cheap hardware.

So ok earlier you said video encoding was a dumb idea but now you're suggesting doing it again ; and anyhow EVEN with a dual-core processor you'll want to minimize that kind of background activity to ensure best possible performance; running a spyware scan for instance even if the CPU role was absolutely free, implies a lot of hard drive activity which WILL be the major source of stutters in-game.

The Core2Duo is just plain faster in games and everywhere and I could hardly care less whether that's because it's dual-core or not: it's a faster processor. But the X2 in 90% of game benchmarks was NOT faster so the selling argument was not performance, unlike the C2D, it was just "two cpus lolz". Which is why the issue is not the same today. I don't care what makes CPUs faster as long as they prove to be so, in the case of the X2 there was only the theoritical feature and little performance.

has anyone else seen the cards on newegg:
8500gt = 97.99
8600gt = 169.99 - 189.99
8600gts = 199.99 - 229.99
link
they arent lookin that great

Maybe they should have, it would have made the 8600 look closer to the others. 8)

And not only are there no DX10 games yet, there won't be any DX10 and above only games for at least a year if not 2.

Right now the GF8600GT being DX10 doesn't make it better than an X1950XT if they're selling at the same price.

I'm not brazen, like so many, enough to say that I "know" this will happen. But, I'm wagering on the likelihood that by the time that DX10 is so widespread that the 8600/8500's support will really make it pull away from it's current competition... ATI and Nvidia will have a better card, or two, of the same price point by then, so as to make the adoption of it at this time insignificant. And, that otherwise even non-native (i.e. DX9 cards like the 79s and x19s) will still be sufficient by comparison to what the 86s and 85s are doing. With that in mind, if I still had a budget that placed me way too far below the 320mb GTS, I'd still comfortably get a DX9 card for the same short term as a "midrange" DX10 one now. I'm not saying nVidia is dumb or anything they did exactly what they should do, but I am saying that the DX10 compatibility seems much ado about nothing. [/quote]

I should have been clearer but I meant my post to be in agreement to yours, so I hope you didn't get the idea that I was calling you out.
Oh and... "Beagle Beagle"

I must be missing something here... I've just read the review and this entire post and the numbers just aren't adding up.

Here (in Australia), the 8600GT is $180, comparable in price to the X1950GT. Performance between the 2 would assumedly be close, but as it wasn't included it's hard to determine. I'd say that it (8600GT) would perform on par with the 7900GS (also not included, clearly this review was centered around the 8600GTS), which in turn is similar to the X1950GT. So from a realistic POV, the 8600GT get's my vote; similar performance, similar price, +DX10 and possibly less power/heat/noise.

As for the 8600GTS, it would certainly appear that it's not worth the PCB it's printed on. The X1950Pro/XT craps all over it, with a higher price tag to boot.

So, is you were looking at getting the 7600GT, would it be safe to assume that the 8600GT is a welcome upgrade, for very little $ change?

And if you had a slightly higher budget, you would choose the X1950Pro/XT instead?

Would be interesting to see the VGA charts updated, as well as a new price/performance chart. Not everyone is here to purchase the biggest, baddest GPU available.

My bad: Price diff. between 8600GT & 7600GT here is about $50 now.. Guess the comparison between them is a bit off.. Still, my points are valid.

It's easier to swollow if you think of the 8800 GTS 320 as midrange and the 8600 GT as budget-end, and the 8300 as integrated.

Fair enough, the only reason I responded was that if you want to be 2 years behind on HL2 (which does still look good in all fairness) that is fine, but playing that while a friend plays crysis is not for me... when I see it I want it... to each his own.

No, earlier I said encoding H.264 was dumb as it hits the cpu very hard. Encoding something lower qual is fine... like say a video cd.

The rest of that list was sarcasm... I did not say a spyware scan, but literally spyware. (and rootkits and trojans and...) It is tough to get sarcasm accross in a forum, but I figured that if you missed the spyware bit, you would get it with the rootkit comment. I was wrong. No harm no foul. 8)

The X2 was faster in games over a p4 when it came out. (socket 940 and 939... 754 was ~ equal) Still is I believe...

sure, it was not as big a gap as the core2 currently owns, but it was a win.

Regardless, this is an old argument that is boring and irrelevant now. Moving on.

I totally agree wif u on this one, I mean the 8 series mid range should have been 256bit at least.I guess their probably not taking their competition seriously.I really hope a geforce 9 is in the works rite now, and release it after the r600 comes out.Coz as of rite now the 8 series seems to suck big time.Even the old 7950 could still do the trick for most games rite now.
Heck, the 7 series on the playstation3 could even play Crysis and Oblivion with HDR and Anti-aliasing enabled. The 8 series just seems to be the card nvidia release to enable HDR and anti-aliasing for current games on the pc.
Dont get me wrong, I really like Nvidia, but they really need to step it up a notch with the 8series.