8800GT Superclocked Review and Deal

[JMaster299]

A little back story on my set-up, I made the mistake two years ago and bought a Dell. I have spent my time since then upgrading it as much as possible. The stock X1300 it came with was just sad and the x1950pro I replaced it with was not a major improvement. When upgrading to that x1950pro I had to upgrade my PSU, so when I got my Tax Refund back in March I felt the 8800GT would be a great fit.

So for the last four months I have been running an Evga 8800GT Superclocked and it's just fantastic. 650 Core Clock, 1620 Shader Clock and 950 Memory Clock (in listed specs the Memory Clock is always listed as double at 1900). I've never played Crysis but it runs Bioshock flawless with the highest possible settings, same with TF2. In TF2 I average 60-100fps in fire fights when FPS matters the most. Ofcourse in an empty server, facing a wall, I can get 200-300fps but that does not really count. As mentioned before I have all the settings up as high as possible except I keep Motion Blur and Bloom Effect disabled as I feel they are pointless.

My 8800GT Superclocked is running at stock settings but I do use Evga's Precision 1.0 to keep my fan settings at 40% idle and 60% in game and it keeps my temps below 60c. My 8800GT is running on a cheap Intel board made for Dell and is paired with an E6400 running at a stock 2.13GHz. Even with a the card running on a less then impressive system I give a 9.0 out of 10 as it's handled anything I have thrown at it so far.

As we all know different versions of the same cards just have different clock settings that the end user cna change on their own. Right now TigerDirect as the 8800GT on sale for $140 after mail-in rebate. I strongly recommend anyone in need of a new graphics card to pick this up.

[Tippo]

I also strongly recommend this card. May it be older technology and similar to 9600 GT superclocked speeds, it still holds its own very well. The bargain prices only make it better since the new cards are pushing the 88's price lower and they still compete with new cards. Although, for about 40 dollars more, you can always pick up a 9800 GTX+. overall the 8800 GT SC is a very good card

[JMaster299]

I also strongly recommend this card. May it be older technology and similar to 9600 GT superclocked speeds, it still holds its own very well. The bargain prices only make it better since the new cards are pushing the 88's price lower and they still compete with new cards. Although, for about 40 dollars more, you can always pick up a 9800 GTX+. overall the 8800 GT SC is a very good card

The 9600GT is a lower end card then the 8800GT. Clock speeds can always be adjusted and don't mean too much when comparing different cards. Both the 8800GT and 9600GT are from the new G90 series family and the 8800GT has more Stream Processes. 112 for the 8800GT compared to only 64 for the 9600GT. Even the 9600GSO only has 96, the 8800GT is the better card.

Also for those that are intersted in saving money, the 8800GTS 512MB is the same card as the 9800GTX it just has different clock speeds. They have the same GPU and you can adjust the clock speeds to match that of the 9800GTX and save some green. This only applies to the 512MB and 1042MB versions of the 8800GTS as the 320MB and 640MB versions are from the old G80 GPU family. Nvidia is slowly eliminating the 8 Series name plate so you should be able to find all kinds of deal on the 8800GT and GTS in the coming months. They have yet another GPU series being released before the end of the year.

[Tippo]

9800GTX plus edition is faster than the 9800GTX, same chip but yeah you can clock it like any other card

[Enlightened Viet]

I plan on grabbing a 8800gt when I build my cousin's comp soon. I'm just not sure if I want the regular one or SC since I'm going to OC it a bit in the end.

[JMaster299]

I plan on grabbing a 8800gt when I build my cousin's comp soon. I'm just not sure if I want the regular one or SC since I'm going to OC it a bit in the end.

If you are going to OC yourself then save the money and go with the regular one. My system can't seem to handle any sort of OC on my end so I had to go with one with higher factory clocks. I have tried many thrid party programs for OC any it always passes what ever built in Stability Test the program has but as soon as I run 3dMark or play a game my system crashes so I am stuck with factory clocks for now.

[armond21]

My PNY 8800gt is at a pretty good overclock. At those levels I have my fan turned up to 70% on idle and 100% in graphically intense games. You can see the stats in my sig. Stable but gets a little warm in Call Of Duty 4 (around 85c.) Any higher and it crashes. Now my biggest concern is when will I have enough cash to feed my SLI board another gt.

[PandaBear Assassin]

Yea I strongly recommended this card as well. I have a MSI OC 8800GT which is the same as urs except my core clock is at 660. Yea this card is definitely older technology but it can surely hold it's on. It's handled everything i've thrown at it (including crysis). On top of that, in SLI it can seriously compete new GTX serious cards. In SLI, It flat out beats the ATI 4850, 4870, the GTX 260 and sometimes beats the GTX 280. And two of them would cost you hundreds less!! If you want to see benchmarks, check out my threads.

http://www.stompfest.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6180
http://www.stompfest.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6107

[Timmah!]

In SLI, It flat out beats the ATI 4850, 4870, the GTX 260 and sometimes beats the GTX 280. And two of them would cost you hundreds less!!

Hundreds less than the GTX280, yes. But more expensive than either the Radeon 4850 or the 4870 (again, if buying two 8800GTs, as you said).

[PandaBear Assassin]

Hundreds less than the GTX280, yes. But more expensive than either the Radeon 4850 or the 4870 (again, if buying two 8800GTs, as you said).

Not entirely true. My MSI OC 8800GT now costs 134.99 after rebate. Total cost for getting two of them in the end would be $269.98. The card he's referring to in this thread is 144.99 after rebate. So that would be $289. The cheapest 4870 i've seen costs $294 on newegg. And if there is one cheaper, it won't be much cheaper. So actually the 8800GT's in SLI is cheaper and better than the 4870. And yes, getting them would be $100 more than getting a 4850 but they completely dominate the 4850. So just like Intel vs. AMD, you pay for what you get. And the best part about it is, the prices will continue to drop fairly quickly. When I bought my card 2 months ago, it was $180.

But that's IF you were starting from scratch. If you already had an 8800GT(Which i'm sure alot of people do), you could SLI and beat all of those cards (With the exception of the GTX 280 sometimes) for much less. And eventually the 9800 cards will also drop in price also. I'd love to see benchmarks for those in SLI vs. all the new cards out.

[Timmah!]

Fair enough, but again we come back to the question of upgradeability.

Once you have 2 8800GTs, then you've hit your cap for most mobos at least. But say you were to buy a single Radeon 4870 now instead of 2 8800GTs for about the same price - it may be slightly slower, but will still run any current games at max settings just fine and can be upgraded further (with a 2nd 4870) later on. Just food for thought.

[PandaBear Assassin]

Fair enough, but again we come back to the question of upgradeability.

Once you have 2 8800GTs, then you've hit your cap for most mobos at least. But say you were to buy a single Radeon 4870 now instead of 2 8800GTs for about the same price - it may be slightly slower, but will still run any current games at max settings just fine and can be upgraded further (with a 2nd 4870) later on. Just food for thought.


I figured you say that. And you're right. But take a gander at these Multi-GPU benchmarks:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=20

Now no doubt about it, in most of these games the 4870 CF dominates the 8800GT SLI. And it should. I'd be very disappointed if it didn't. It still competes with the 4850 CF though. Bests it, in a few games actually. But the thing is, at those high resolutions, the 8800GT stacks up relatively well against the 4870 CF, with all things considered. And at lower, more common resolutions, the performance difference would definitely be less. And a 4870 CF setup with cost you $400 give or take a few bucks. While, a 8800GT SLI would be $269 (Less in the coming months). To me, that seems to be more of a "Bang for the Buck" option.

[Timmah!]

I do find this note very interesting:

"We've said it over and over again: while CrossFire doesn't scale as consistently as SLI, when it does, it has the potential to outscale SLI, and The Witcher is the perfect example of that. While the GeForce GTX 280 sees performance go up 55% from one to two cards, the Radeon HD 4870 sees a full 100% increase in performance. It is worth noting that we are able to see these performance gains due to a late driver drop by AMD (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=21#) that enables CrossFire support in The Witcher. We do hope that AMD looks at enabling CrossFire in games other than those we test, but we do appreciate the quick turnaround in enabling support - at least once it was brought to their attention."


...so maybe AMD/ATI isn't the way to go if you intend to use dual GPUs if this is the way AMD/ATI does business...

[PandaBear Assassin]

Yea I remember when I first read that in the review, and saw that and was like wtf? I mean seriously, a 100% increase in performance! I don't understand why they wouldn't optimize Cross-fire for all games. Clearly, like they stated, Cross-fire definitely has the potential to outscale SLI.

[JMaster299]

Yea this card is definitely older technology

Older technology? Why do people keep saying this. It's the exact same GPU family as the 9000 series boards and only starting at the 9800GTX do the 9000 series cards actually start to out perform the 8800GT. There are a few GPUs in the 9000 series, the G92, G94 and G96, with a few subclasses with in each model, the 8800GT houses the G92 just like the GTX, GTX+ and GX2. As mentioned before the 8800GTS 512 and 1024MB cards hosue the G92 as well. Only difference is the 8800GT uses 112 steam processes, or GPU Cores, while the GTX. GTX+, GX2 and newer GTS models use 128.

The 9600GT and GSO are below the 8800GT, the GSO uses another verion of the G92 with 96 steam processes and the 9600GT uses the G94 with only 64sp. Also like all the 9 series cards the 8800GT and newer GTS models support PCI 2.0.

[PandaBear Assassin]

Older technology? Why do people keep saying this. It's the exact same GPU family as the 9000 series boards and only starting at the 9800GTX do the 9000 series cards actually start to out perform the 8800GT. There are a few GPUs in the 9000 series, the G92, G94 and G96, with a few subclasses with in each model, the 8800GT houses the G92 just like the GTX, GTX+ and GX2. As mentioned before the 8800GTS 512 and 1024MB cards hosue the G92 as well. Only difference is the 8800GT uses 112 steam processes, or GPU Cores, while the GTX. GTX+, GX2 and newer GTS models use 128.

The 9600GT and GSO are below the 8800GT, the GSO uses another verion of the G92 with 96 steam processes and the 9600GT uses the G94 with only 64sp. Also like all the 9 series cards the 8800GT and newer GTS models support PCI 2.0.

Ummm...settle down killer. I only meant that it's an older card. I didn't mean that the G92 was ancient or anything. But I'll make sure to say that next time so you won't get all 'bothered'. :D

[JMaster299]

Ummm...settle down killer. I only meant that it's an older card. I didn't mean that the G92 was ancient or anything. But I'll make sure to say that next time so you won't get all 'bothered'. :D

Was not upset Panda, just providing info with my statement. Most people around here are picky when you don't provide enough to back things up. I have seen a lot of people make false statements about the 8800GT. Not just here but also on places like Yahoo Answers Computer section and other forums I frequent.

[Timmah!]

Was not upset Panda, just providing info with my statement. Most people around here are picky when you don't provide enough to back things up. I have seen a lot of people make false statements about the 8800GT. Not just here but also on places like Yahoo Answers Computer section and other forums I frequent.
There was nothing false about his statement. "Older" is a relative term. And the 8800GT (even the G92s) are "older" than the GTX 200 series (and the Radeon 4000 series).