anyone else see what I'm seeing? They claim to have a 1 gig version for sale. Luckily, I live 30 minutes from one of their stores. If this is the case, I might pick this up. I do have 2 GTS's on hold at the same store. I just noticed the 1 Gig GX2 30 seconds before I started posting this.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing this card in a different way.
What do you guys think? This card or 2 GTS cards? I know the price difference. I don't care. But 2 GTS's in SLI will still only be 512MB, right? That is what is going to seal the deal for me. I'm already running out of memory on my 8800gt believe it or not. COD4 @ 1920x1200 16xAF 4xAA cooks. I use v-sync, so it's practically pegged at 60fps. When I turn the supersampling on, my frame rate drops to the single digits. That's gotta be v-memory, right?
The only reason I bought the 8800gt was the price vs. performance. If it wasn't so inexpensive, I wouldn't have bought it. I saw the benches, then saw the price. And i was off to buy the card. But I was really waiting for a beefy 1 gig card. And the GX2 may be it.
I'll wait for some feed back before I make the jump.
EDIT: The store is not expected to recieve any until the 25th. And also in the article the card is stated to have a gig of mem but can only use 512MB of it. Whatever the hell that means.
Many such a myself won't deal with the buggy under performing and power hungry Nv chipsets. That combined with fact that dual card solutions are a pain to start with. Single card Single GPU is the right way to do it. Having said that this thing is a good deal faster than anything else out today.
So, nVidia has buggy inefficient GPU, while ATI with 800MHz+ core and .55um production technology can't still beat it (even with 2 GPU vs 1).
So, what are you going to buy? A S3? Matrox?
I could not understand that comment of yours, really.
It was in response to why not buy an SLI motherboard and couple 8800's, simple Nv Chipset. My statement in no way said anything about a buggy GPU. I'm also a fair weather Intel/Nvidea supporter at the moment if you go by my gear. My 8800 GTX was purchased on launch day and I am sad to say I still don't have a good replacement to buy. I was actually wishing that the 9800 GTX would double the performance as my current card had when it was released. At this point that seems as likely as avoiding a recession and .99 gas.
No high-end graphics card should remain so competitive for so long. On the positive side I may feel better when I purchase that next trophy card for $600+. At this pace it might be king for two years.
Well, first of all you guys asking about comparsions between SLI`s systems haven't read the first four phrases of this review: they had no time so they just threw it out now.
Having said that, all I have to say are three things:
1 - Good job Tom's, great review given the time you had. I would like to see 1680x1050 or 1600x1200 but I'll consider that this is still an unfinished topic.
2 - It was a predictable result, but it comes to my mind the concern that it is getting harder to consider buying an AMD/ATI VGA. And that does not come from a Nvidia user: I have one OC'ed X1900XT and am still waiting for anything worth to trade it. DirectX10 with low framerates on Vista? no Thanks
3 - Still waiting for a fair (wich means upper mainstream or enthusiast not breaking the U$450 barrier) VGA to beat Crysis' ass in a moderate res (1680x1050) in very high. I'll probably have to wait till Q1 2009, when the second wave of GeForces 10xxx or Radeons 4xxx comes out. Still waiting...
Oh my.... I am so very largely dissapointed with the price of this sucker! It really should not be 599. I am thinking 499 would be too much too.... but more understandable. It's 2 8800GTS for heavens sake!
anandtech provides a few lower rez specs on the card vs. other cards, and as was suspected before, lower rez the 3870x2 passes it up.... anyway... link.
Here in Australia the GX2 costs like $900, and the performance isn't that great. Either its that or the new drivers, I'll give it some time and will see again.
It's nice but nothing I will be buying. If I upgrade I think I'll get two 8800GTS 512mb for 480.00 after rebate and get identical performance. I guess if you didn't have the option of SLI this would be a good card.
2 - It was a predictable result, but it comes to my mind the concern that it is getting harder to consider buying an AMD/ATI VGA. And that does not come from a Nvidia user: I have one OC'ed X1900XT and am still waiting for anything worth to trade it. DirectX10 with low framerates on Vista? no Thanks
I only have two regrets with the 3870x2:
1. It had DDR3 and a DDR4 version is in the works.
2. It seems to be as much of a stopgap as the 9800gx2 because the 4xxx series is due in June. A 4870 should be as fast as a 3870x2 without worrying about games that don't support Crossfire. The 4870x2 should be 100% faster than a 3870.
As is, I don't know whether to move the 3870x2 to one of our other PC's this fall and get a 4870x2, or just get a 4850 that's clocked at 850 and do CrossfireX with a new board and power supply once Deneb arrives.
Overall image quality with ATI is a bit better in my subjective opinion; though Nvidia did correct the blur found in the 7xxx series with the 8xxx series. Nvidia tweaks for sheer framerates, but that can be dodgy at worst. Note Crysis' water not displaying perfectly in one driver release. Also, Linkboost on Nvidia boards creates inflated benchmarks for the 9600gt. and it's been reported that overclocked 9600gt's had to be clocked down to work on those boards.
So, how is it hard to buy AMD? I'd trade a few less fps for a better history of image quality along with more transparency, such that I can trust the benchmarks for an ATI card, but if a site doesn't do their homework with Nvidia, I can't trust those benchmarks at all.
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Athlon X2 4600+ MSI K9AGM2 690V 2 gigs Kingston DDR2 667 MSI 3870x2 850/901 100 gig Maxtor SATA 2x 160 gig WD SATA 400 gig Seagate IDE Memorex DVD R/RW Antec Neo 650 PSU Antec Nine Hundred case.
No way I am giving up my cool and quiet under 50c at load box for a heat beast, and looks like it will be tricky to get a waterblock in there BETWEEN 2 pcbs........
I have two 8800GTS 512MB that run nice and solid @740/1100. At 1920x1200 with an E6750 @ 3.6GHz with Dominator sync'd at 900MHz I get 100% smoothness even with Crysis (1.2) with 2X AA and AF. The human eye is not THAT discerning, especially when you add things like motion blur. That said, I definitely want a 30 incher to play on someday, but I'm getting to the point where the screens I buy need to be multifunctional. I need them to be PC monitors as well as TVs and new 30" stuff is too expensive when you can get awesome 1080p screens that do it all and are huge (50" ). What's the point beyond that?
I wanna see a 50" screen pushing 3840x2400(or 2160 for you 16:9 fans) and some graphics cards that will push them. THAT would be a revolution. Not any configuration we can obtain now can perform in that range so discussion is really moot.
Why is this card a big deal? Yeah, it fits in one slot, but who cares if its 800 dollars when you can get two faster (650+MHz) G92s for 500? It's not even revolutionary... it's a slapped together interim solution designed to be the "top single card"; it's not even ONE GPU.
NVIDIA took a step forward switching to 65nm to boost clocks...great idea. The step backward to a 256bit bus seems RETARDED when they already had 320 and 384 in the G80. Seems like they could have just given the G80 an honest die-shrink (cheaper) and been better off. I'm no engineer but their apparent logic defies me.
The G92 should be a shrunk G80 with 128 SPs and 384bit wide buses, it's not a revolutionary product, they had it at 90nm. Who wouldn't be satisfied if they did things like Intel, alternating die-shrinks and new architectures every other year, say, about September (in time for the holidays)?
This card is a stopgap. It performs well, but not worth its cost. No one so concerned with value should consider this product, and since you can't use two (or three), no one so concerned with performance should buy it either. 8800GT/GTS (G92) are THE best bang for the buck, and you get a whole lot of bang out of them. The GTS 512s even overclock like a MOTHEREFFER due to that big HSF.
I won't be surprised if the 9800GTX has only 160 SPs, a 320 or 384 bit wide bus, and 768MB of memory. NVIDIA has no reason to be more aggressive with its design schedule. You can only use 4GB of memory anyway, 1.5GB for video and 2GB for SDRAM these days. BUT GEEZUS wouldn't it be nice to see a GPU at 65nm with 224 or 256 SPs, 512bit wide buses with 1GB of RAM ?
If I were NVIDIA, I'd pucker my sphincter and license or buy some of that 45nm business Intel has going on, give them SLI permission, and build my bada** GPUs. It makes business sense to have the best technology and the most efficient production lines. Whatever form of pride NVIDIA uses as an excuse to avoid partnering with Intel now is retarded. Oh well, I'm spent....
I dont understand Nvidia's logic either... why take that step back in bit bus? ATI did the same thing. They had the 2900 at 512bit and now they shrunk it to 256 for the HD3000 series. Although performance is better.
Nvidia has the same pride thing going that AMD did a year ago. AMD had a huge opportunity to merge with Nvidia and had a very solid relationship with them and that all fell apart due to the companies CEO pride and wanting to "do it myself" and run "things that I want to them to run".
Message edited by hughyhunter on 03-19-2008 at 07:50:42 AM
It was nVidias CEO that wouldnt budge. He was the cause of the non merger, or a big part of it. The same one that said he doesnt like X2 gpus . Also, quoting from Anantech :The GeForce 9600 GT, in addition to finally encroaching on ATI's naming scheme, is fabbed on a 65nm process by TSMC and sports a 256-bit memory bus. The differences between G9x and G8x are small, but even so details were light. Their compression technology has evolved to provide higher effective bandwidth between the GPU and framebuffer. We would love to provide more details on this and the other changes, but NVIDIA is still being a bit tight lipped.
Now this appears that it isnt the 256 bus width, but more likely, as seen in the benches out, the amount of ram on the card
Well I can't speak for other countries but in Sweden 9800GX2 costs exactly as much as two 8800GTS and it seems that the performance doesn't differ that much. So the 9800GX2 would be a nice upgrade for people that don't have a SLI motherboard.
Yeah but 9800GX2 isnt alot better than 8800(ULTRA,GTX,GTS 512) in resolutions lower than 1920x1200, unfortuantely most benchs are in 1920x1200 or higher
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"I ordered to bury my body without coffin untill the ingredients of my body gradually become part of Iran."
The Great Koroosh
Indeed in Europe 2xGTS's have the same price like GX2!
And did guys read all rewiew on www.firingsquad.com? 2GTS's are not even fater than GX2...i would rather buy GX2 than two older cards...
Not everyone has an SLI motherboard though and GeForce 9800 GX2 can be clocked to run faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB in SLI!
Still i'am waiting for 9800GTX(349$) GX2 is just a overkill
