[Nuke]

a forum full of geeks and no one has noticed that new geforce 9 cards have hit the market? tisk tisk

they dont seem to have changed much, they use the same gpu as the 8 series. and they all seem to have 512 megs of ram. the exception is the gx2 which has a gig, however its technically a 2 gpu board in sli and the memory is essentially two mirrored 512s (i think, please correct me if im wrong). the big selling point is the 3 and 4 card sli setups which are too expensive for anyone to own (let alone the 1200 watt psu to jack up your electric bill). the gx2 looks nice in the reviews as well.

anyway i had planned to get me a second 8800 gts (the original 640 megger) this summer, if i have enough money left over after buying that gargantuan monitor that i always wanted. but these new cards change those plans. none the less i want to see how my current card drives said gargantuan monitor (was looking at something with a res of  1920 x 1200) before buying a new/second video card.

ive only read a couple reviews, none of them had a reference to the original 640 meg 8800 gts, so i dont know how they compare. ive read 2 reviews but neither had a side by side with mine (singular or sli). with the exception of crysis most games run fairly well with what i have. crysis seems to be sluggish even on the post powerful setup, never topping 40 fps at full settings. its playable on this rig, so long as i keep my settings on high and the anti aliasing off. anyway i just wanted to stir up some opinions.

[Hellstryker]

The suck. It's all overclocked 8000 series ****. I can get my 8800 GTS 512 to run as fast as a 9800 GTX. 

[Nuke]

thats about what i figured.

[CP5670]

a forum full of geeks and no one has noticed that new geforce 9 cards have hit the market? tisk tisk

As Hellstryker said, nobody has posted about them since they're so underwhelming. The 9800GTX is actually inferior to the 8800s in some ways. It has faster core and shader clocks, but the smaller memory buses combined with a reduced number of ROPs means that the 8800U typically beats it at high resolutions and AA settings. It's not even deserving of an 8900 tag, much less a 9800 one. Even if you consider it to be a midrange card, it's too expensive considering how similar it is to the G92 8800GTS, which is cheaper by around $100.

The 9800GX2 looks good on the surface, but a closer examination paints that card in a bad light as well. The minimum framerates in many games are similar to a single card, even when the averages shoot up. Most reviews don't show these numbers (Xbit is the only major site that does), but they are a better indicator of actual ingame performance than the averages. It appears that the memory subsystem is heavily bottlenecking the card. More people are also starting to notice the AFR microstutter effect on SLI and CF now, and it means that the perceived smoothness wouldn't be at the same level as a single card even when the framerate looks high.

These are reportedly all stopgap cards, with Nvidia releasing their real next gen core (GT200) in July.

[achtung]

When are the new ATI cards coming out, and are they going to be decent?

[BloodEagle]

I thought that, in terms of power use, the 9 series cards were more effecient than the 8 series cards. Don't they run cooler as well?

I've known about them for awhile now, and I have to say, this makes my jaw drop.

One more thing, aren't the older 8800 cards PCI-E 1.0?

[CP5670]

When are the new ATI cards coming out, and are they going to be decent?

May or June probably. It's hard to say how good they will be at this point. The only thing known for certain is that the high end part will be a CF-based dual GPU card and will carry all the issues that implies.

I thought that, in terms of power use, the 9 series cards were more effecient than the 8 series cards. Don't they run cooler as well?

They're more power efficient than the G80 cards, but the G92-based 8800s are actually a bit more so because of their slightly lower stock voltages (although that also means lower overclocking potential).

I've known about them for awhile now, and I have to say, this makes my jaw drop.

Doesn't do anything for me. As I said, this card has severe limitations when you look beyond the basic average framerates.

One more thing, aren't the older 8800 cards PCI-E 1.0?

Yes, but it makes no difference in practice, as PCIE 1.0 and 2.0 cards/slots are compatible with each other.

[BloodEagle]

I thought that, in terms of power use, the 9 series cards were more effecient than the 8 series cards. Don't they run cooler as well?

They're more power efficient than the G80 cards, but the G92-based 8800s are actually a bit more so because of their slightly lower stock voltages (although that also means lower overclocking potential).

That's good news for me, because I don't overclock anything.

One more thing, aren't the older 8800 cards PCI-E 1.0?

Yes, but it makes no difference in practice, as PCIE 1.0 and 2.0 cards/slots are compatible with each other.

2.0 has more bandwidth though, which means that 2.0 cards will be more useful in the future than 1.0.... Right?

Anyway, if they run cooler, then that's good enough for me.

[IceFire]

The 9 series is just building on the 8 series like the 7 series built on the 6 series.  Logical extrapolation of quite a bit of R&D.  Of course the next gen cards are around the corner apparently...the 10 series or whatever they want to call them are due early summery.  No word on if they will have DX10.1 support or not (not a big deal anyways) or what they can really do...

[CP5670]

2.0 has more bandwidth though, which means that 2.0 cards will be more useful in the future than 1.0.... Right?

It doesn't really matter. None of the current cards come anywhere close to saturating the bandwidth of 1.0.

The 9 series is just building on the 8 series like the 7 series built on the 6 series.  Logical extrapolation of quite a bit of R&D.  Of course the next gen cards are around the corner apparently...the 10 series or whatever they want to call them are due early summery.  No word on if they will have DX10.1 support or not (not a big deal anyways) or what they can really do...

The 7 series was much faster than the 6 series though, even if it was architecturally similar. The 9 series, on the other hand, uses the exact same G92 GPUs as the refreshed 8 series, and provides very similar performance.

The new lineup is supposed to support DX10.1, although as you said it probably won't make any difference for a while.

[IceFire]

True the relative differences....the 9 series seems to offer the best bang for your buck yet.  Maybe not worth the series version number...I suspect that maybe nVidia decided that the next gen product after the 8/9 will have a new numbering scheme as they are approaching the end of the "single digit" GeForce series and that it makes more sense to bring in a new design with a new scheme than switch halfway through or something like that.  I don't know.

[CP5670]

Well, the 9600GT is indeed a pretty good buy for its price, but certainly not the 9800GTX or 9800GX2. It seems that the only reason they released the 9800GTX was to have something capable of triple SLI, while being able to discontinue production of the older, more expensive G80 chips. It's so similar to the 8800GTS otherwise that it wouldn't have made sense to release a new part for $100 more.

As for the name change, the fact that the name 9800 used to be associated with ATI probably also had something to do with it.

[Bob-san]

The 9600GT is a G94 card--not a G92 as seen in the 8800GS, 8800GT, 8800 GTS 512, and 9800GTX. As it is--I really hate nVidia for giving such a lackluster core a new name. Also realize that the 8800GS has been renamed the 9600GSO. Either way--the entire series is freaking underpowered for the name. A new series is supposed to be a major improvement--a 30% or more performance boost in the high end. Having a dual-GPU version of a card doesn't cut it either--the new high-end should be a smoother and more reliable solution than the lackluster SLI.

[Nuke]

These are reportedly all stopgap cards, with Nvidia releasing their real next gen core (GT200) in July.

that pretty much solves everything. because il be getting my 4 megapixel screen around may, and probably wont have the money for another big buy till those gf10s come out.

[DeepSpace9er]

I think i'll keep my 8800GTX, for the price I paid for it, for a few more years 

[Fineus]

I'm glad to see the 9 series isn't a massive leap, as it came out around the time I splashed out on an 8 series card!

[Hellstryker]

I'm glad to see the 9 series isn't a massive leap, as it came out around the time I splashed out on an 8 series card!

Agreed

[Unknown Target]

So should I get an 8800GT or a 9800GT for a new system?

[Bob-san]

So should I get an 8800GT or a 9800GT for a new system?

You mean 9800GTX?