CptMorgan
07-11-2008, 01:11 PM
Just thought I would throw out my expierences with this card as I have had it for about 2 months now.
When I bought it, newegg was selling it for 130 - 30 mail in rebate - $100 for a decent video card seemed too enticing so i bought 2 of them.
Just a side note - they still make the 8800GS but have rebranded it the 9600GSO - same card same specs - typically nvidia naming weirdness - so you might not be able to find the 8800GS anymore but the 9600GS is around still - same card.
The reason i bought these cards is because i wanted something to replace two old 6600GT's that was cheap but still had dx10 capabilities - and they were cheap enough to warrant buying two - since i have an sli motherboard i figured i might as well.
so for me it made sense since i have an older system (AMD socket 939 Athlon 64x2 2.2ghz, 2 gigs ddr400, gigabyte nforce 4 mother board, CRT monitor at 1024x768) - i didnt want to buy some ridiculously overpowered card and dump in a mediocre system
so far though so good - basically these two cards can run anything without any problem - even the crysis demo (dx9) on high - for me i average about 25-30fps (it drops sometimes but not too bad - playble through and through) but for a $100 card thats not bad at all (keep in mind i have two of these though) - i believe my 3dmark 06 score was somewhere along the lines of 9k but i dont exactly remember - all source games run maxed out with full filters without any issues - it is a huge improvement over the two 6600's i had i can say that for sure
when i first bought them i was a little dissappointed at the frame rates - but to be honest if i shut off the frame rate thing and am oblivious to it the games all run fine (really i only play source games these days) - my fps in any source game never drops below like 35 or so and in HL2 it remains in well above 120 - so i think having the FPS counter is more of a psych out than anything - obviously higher is better but as far as i can tell 30 is not any different than 60 than 120
as far as having these in SLI - probably not worth it, at least not on my system - my processor is the culprit, as it definitley bottlnecks them - in a few games they run perfectly in SLI (doom 3 for example) and the CPU is not an issue, but in the crysis demo you can turn on the SLI indicator and it shows that it barely utilizes the second card - so at least for me and my system - SLI'ing these cards is heavily dependent on the game - even in 3dmark my score only jumped about 1200 between the first and second card - i imagine with OCing or a better processor you could overcome this to some extent
other issues - they run a little hot, i can tell if i shut the door that they are hotter than the 6600's, but if the system is just sitting or im just surfing the web they are fine - they are however very quiet and in this respect i am very pleased
power consumption - im guessing fairly high since they run a little warm but i have two HDD's, a 95w processor, DVD burner, and two of these cards all running off an enermax 535w psu with zero issues - i believe its rated at 36 amp on the 12v rail total which would be sufficient for most cards i think
so i guess if i had to do it again i would buy only 1 of these, or maybe dish out the 25% or so more and pick up an 8800GT (assuming i/you were going to go with nvidia) - two seemed like a good idea at the time, but in reality im getting almost no boost in any game except doom 3
but if you are in the same boat as me - with an older system and a fairly low res monitor and looking for something to give your comp a little bit of life for the time being - its an excellent choice - its probably absolutley the best buy for the $100 price point in video cards
When I bought it, newegg was selling it for 130 - 30 mail in rebate - $100 for a decent video card seemed too enticing so i bought 2 of them.
Just a side note - they still make the 8800GS but have rebranded it the 9600GSO - same card same specs - typically nvidia naming weirdness - so you might not be able to find the 8800GS anymore but the 9600GS is around still - same card.
The reason i bought these cards is because i wanted something to replace two old 6600GT's that was cheap but still had dx10 capabilities - and they were cheap enough to warrant buying two - since i have an sli motherboard i figured i might as well.
so for me it made sense since i have an older system (AMD socket 939 Athlon 64x2 2.2ghz, 2 gigs ddr400, gigabyte nforce 4 mother board, CRT monitor at 1024x768) - i didnt want to buy some ridiculously overpowered card and dump in a mediocre system
so far though so good - basically these two cards can run anything without any problem - even the crysis demo (dx9) on high - for me i average about 25-30fps (it drops sometimes but not too bad - playble through and through) but for a $100 card thats not bad at all (keep in mind i have two of these though) - i believe my 3dmark 06 score was somewhere along the lines of 9k but i dont exactly remember - all source games run maxed out with full filters without any issues - it is a huge improvement over the two 6600's i had i can say that for sure
when i first bought them i was a little dissappointed at the frame rates - but to be honest if i shut off the frame rate thing and am oblivious to it the games all run fine (really i only play source games these days) - my fps in any source game never drops below like 35 or so and in HL2 it remains in well above 120 - so i think having the FPS counter is more of a psych out than anything - obviously higher is better but as far as i can tell 30 is not any different than 60 than 120
as far as having these in SLI - probably not worth it, at least not on my system - my processor is the culprit, as it definitley bottlnecks them - in a few games they run perfectly in SLI (doom 3 for example) and the CPU is not an issue, but in the crysis demo you can turn on the SLI indicator and it shows that it barely utilizes the second card - so at least for me and my system - SLI'ing these cards is heavily dependent on the game - even in 3dmark my score only jumped about 1200 between the first and second card - i imagine with OCing or a better processor you could overcome this to some extent
other issues - they run a little hot, i can tell if i shut the door that they are hotter than the 6600's, but if the system is just sitting or im just surfing the web they are fine - they are however very quiet and in this respect i am very pleased
power consumption - im guessing fairly high since they run a little warm but i have two HDD's, a 95w processor, DVD burner, and two of these cards all running off an enermax 535w psu with zero issues - i believe its rated at 36 amp on the 12v rail total which would be sufficient for most cards i think
so i guess if i had to do it again i would buy only 1 of these, or maybe dish out the 25% or so more and pick up an 8800GT (assuming i/you were going to go with nvidia) - two seemed like a good idea at the time, but in reality im getting almost no boost in any game except doom 3
but if you are in the same boat as me - with an older system and a fairly low res monitor and looking for something to give your comp a little bit of life for the time being - its an excellent choice - its probably absolutley the best buy for the $100 price point in video cards