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Vry's Mini Unbiased 8800gt vs 640mb gts Review

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Vrykyl

Tornado Guy
Joined
Dec 7, 2003
Location
UK
Ok, so iv had a chance to play with a pre overclocked Zotac 8800gt (not mine), courtesy of a friend who's pc I have just built, as I managed to pick up one of these rare as rocking horse ***t (in the uk at least) cards for his new build.

Anyways, on with the testing. As a comparison, I benched MY 8800gts 640mb before installing the gt, to get some initial numbers and make my mate feel good about his purchase ;)

Test setup was as follows for testing both cards, overclock on cpu/ram lowered for more 'real world' results:

q6600 @ 3ghz 1.1v (to represent average joe 100% achievable everytime overclock) on p5b deluxe
2gb Crucial Ballistix pc8500 @ 334fsb (1:1 @ 4-4-4-12, 1.8v)
2x 80gb seagate 7200.9 RAID0
Windows Xp sp2 and Nvidia beta driver 169.04


169.04 driver was used as I did these tests before the 169.09 came out, and I no longer have access to the card - it was a temporary mate to mate loan.

Driver cleaner was run between card installs to make sure each driver install was clean and fresh for each card. Nvidia drivers set to force 'High Quality' and LOD bias set to 'Clamp'.

Now for the cards:

In the 'old' corner we have my Palit 640mb 8800gts @ stock clocks - 513mhz/792mhz (shader 1188mhz)
In the 'new' corner, the Zotac 512mb 8800gt @ factory OC - 660mhz/900mhz (shader 1620mhz)


Tests!!

First up Crysis........Now before anyone shouts "169.04 beta has driver cheats for crysis" - I know. Thus crysis.exe was renamed to avoid the hack, and graphics etc were therefore acurate and perfect.

Game cfg files were modded to 'enable' vista's 'Very High' settings under xp dx9, res @ 1280x1024, no AA or AF.
Crysis gpu bench mark allowed to run all 4 loops, then I took an average of the 4 average fps stats.

640mb 8800gts - Average fps: 18.96
512mb 8800gt - Average fps: 26.42


World In Conflict - Set to 'very high', 'water reflects clouds' enabled, AA and AF both OFF @ 1600x1200.

640mb 8800gts - Min 15fps, Max 73fps, Average 36fps
512mb 8800gt - Min 26fps, Max 96fps, Average 47fps


Aquamark - default settings.

640mb 8800gts - 165,133
512mb 8800gt - 165,333


3dMark 2005 - default settings.

640mb 8800gts - 16,574
512mb 8800gt - 18,795

3dMark 2006 - default settings.

640mb 8800gts - 10,721
512mb 8800gt - 13,493


Soooo, a conclusion is in order. My mates got a bargain :) Seriously though, the 8800gt is a very nice bit of kit, it definately showed up my 8800gts, although neither card can manage crysis at my native tft res of 1600x1200....thats a next gen 9800 etc task. But for here and now its a very capable bit of kit.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------


As an extra test I re-ran all tests on my 8800gts, but with clock speeds boosted to exactly match those of the 8800gt.

So my 640mb 8800gts was overclocked to: 660mhz core, 900mhz memory, 1620mhz shader. 100% 24/7 stable btw.

So if i copy and paste my 8800gt scores but update the 8800gts comparative numbers we get:

Crysis

640mb 8800gts Overclocked - Average fps: 24.72
512mb 8800gt - Factory OC - Average fps: 26.42


World In Conflict -

640mb 8800gts Overclocked - Min 23fps, Max 92fps, Average 43fps
512mb 8800gt - Factory OC - - Min 26fps, Max 96fps, Average 47fps


Aquamark - default settings.

640mb 8800gts Overclocked- 170,024
512mb 8800gt - Factory OC- 165,333


3dMark 2005 - default settings.

640mb 8800gts Overclocked- 18,214
512mb 8800gt - Factory OC - 18,795

3dMark 2006 - default settings.

640mb 8800gts Overclocked- 12,904
512mb 8800gt - Factory OC - 13,493


A MUCH closer result. So at same clock speeds its simply the extra pipelines giving a little extra boost to the 8800gt....
essentially it wins out simply due to higher clocks.

Ok, so we technically new this already, but I just wanted to show people that anyone with a decent overclocking 640mb gts has no real reason to swap out to a gt....its simply not much of an upgrade IF your gts can hold the same everyday clocks of a gt - if it can theyre basically the same.

640mb 8800gts dual slot stock cooler manages much better than the gt single slot POS even at identical clock speeds for what its worth too ;)

and whilst I have no comparative numbers, the 640mb gts did much better at 1600x1200 with AA and AF turned on than the gt when at ident. clocks, simply due to larger vram.



Sooooo, any thoughts or comments? Sorry if this post seems pointless to anyone.

:beer:
 
beautiful post :) thank you

Cheers I do my best :) - tis my first post in months, about 5 months i think!

I just wanted folks who are desperately trying to shift their 'old' gts to know, they arent out of the fight.....why spend cash when virtually the same performance is sat right there for free?

gt is good for those without an 8800 series card, those with are all fine, no need to sell up yet.
 
Well, I think the point really was that clock for clock there is only about a 7-9% difference between the two. Since every card will overclock differently, max oc vs. max oc is less meaningful IMO.

Well done, makes me feel a bit better, though I did pay $50-100 more than the current gt prices... That said, with my 640 GTS (702 core 1050x2 mem and stock shader multi) I can run Crysis at 1440x900 AAx2 all very high but shaders on high with good FPS (over 20 min for the most part), or 1680x1050 AA off all very high but shaders on high with good FPS (bug made me turn AA off). Since it's under water, I'm going to volt mod it to see if I get those extra few FPS :beer:
Dan
 
Thats pretty sweet. COnsidering the GTS has 4 more ROP's, and the higher memory interface, and more mem it still looses by a good nice margin even with the OCed to the same speed.
 
Nice read. The only thing missing that I would've liked is a max OC comparison between the two cards.

Good job though.

Sadly as the card wasnt mine and was only on loan i couldnt OC the GT...my friend wasnt happy with me clocking it. But as a GT will easily go higher still we all know it does beat the old gts on every level.

Dman - its not as massive as it appears, yes the GTS has more ROPS, but theyre worth less in overall performance boost than the extra pipes the GT has - if there was a g80 based GTS with 4 less rops, but the same 112 pipes and clock speeds as the GT, the two would be identical, im 100% sure.
How are you anyways buddy - long time no chat ;)

Fact of the matter is, yes i paid, for eg. £240 for my 640mb gts back when they were brand new (320mb version wasnt even known about then), and now the GT is a faster card at stock and costs £170....but in the extra 7-8 months iv had the gts iv easily had the extra £70 worth of value out of it.....if that makes sense? £70 for 8 months of everything maxed in games is a bargain...

I wouldnt buy a gts now....but I have no regrets, which is a stark contrast to all the folks screaming in all the online forums about how nvidia 'shafted them'....its simply not true :D
 
Yeah, the GTS has 20% more ROP's and the GT has 20.8% more pipes, and at his testing res the memory interface should make a negligible difference.

No regrets with buying the GTS, but this review has convinced me to wait to upgrade until the next gen cards come out.
Dan
 
How does the 8800gt compare to the 8800gtx? I recently sold my GTS and bought a GTX, starting to think it wasn't worth the $$.
 
A comparison of the 8800GT to the new 8800GTS with 112 SPs (eVGA SSC) should be made.

All reviews I read on that so far indicate that the SSC gts is better at very high res and in DX10, all other cases GT wins.

So basically, you have Vista and play at high res? get new GTS, otherwise GT is a much better choice.
 
Great comparison, confirmation that selling my GTS and move to the GT was indeed a wise decision. Thanks Vry:beer:
 
No probs - basically as we already new the GT is by far the better buy. BUT folks with 640mb gts cards have zero reason to sell them now unless they can make 100% of what it costs to buy a GT as a replacement....theres simply not enough difference when clocked up to match to imo warrant making a 'loss' on selling one to buy the other.
Existing gts cards that are sitting unsold at retailers are gonna have to drop to around £130 GBP (as GT is £170, gts is still £220+ atm) for them to stand a hope in hell of ever getting sold......

I cant wait for the new g92 based GTS to appear (note - NOT the evga SSC "96+" rubbish) - the full fat 512mb and 1gb flavour gts replacement part with 128 pipes :D
 
I cant wait for the new g92 based GTS to appear (note - NOT the evga SSC "96+" rubbish) - the full fat 512mb and 1gb flavour gts replacement part with 128 pipes :D

i cant wait as well

hopefully they will come out soon and get a good bench march. if soo ill use my step up for one :D
 
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