8600GT vs 7900GS

[Pob255]

Now while it'll e a few months before I can afford a new card to replace my 6800 I'm looking in this now to get a idea of it now.

The cards I'm currently looking at are
Plait 7900GS, 256mb, Mem 1320 MHz, GPU 450 MHz currently at £92.58 Inc VAT
or
Leadtek 8600GT, 256mb, Mem 1400 MHz, GPU 540 MHz currently at £81.78 Inc VAT

The first question I ask myself is can I be assed with DX10 ??
Answer: currently no, I've got no plans to change to vista, the games I play are DX9 and/or OpenGL and the 3d software I use is OpenGL

I haven't found much useful info or reviews to make a good comparrison on the performance.
the few I've looked at are quoteing the 8600GTX which are a good deal more for little performance increase (from what I've read so far)
and the make no comment on drivers where used (seeing as the 8 series drivers are getting updates)

Any good reviews out there?

[shaithis]

Nope, not much of a performance difference between a 7900GS and a n 8800GTX

Those charts are quite handy, although it can take a few weeks for the newer cards to appear on it.

[DanceswithUnix]

My first stop for reviews is always Anandtech, they seem pretty unbiassed and, unlike most others, actually technically competent!

They seem generally disappointed on a bang for buck basis, but they seem to like the hi definition playback capabilities.

[Queelis]

Firstly, it'll be a few months later when new Radeons are released. Those should be taken into consideration.

Secondly, 7900GS is a lot faster than a 8600GT, although there is no HD support. But ask yourself whether you really need HD decoding support, as the CPU can do the decoding itself fine.

I'd say definitely a 7900GS, that Palit cooler is quieter than reference aswell.

[Pob255]

Nope, not much of a performance difference between a 7900GS and a n 8800GTX

Well DUH But I said the 8600GT and not top of the range £365 nvidia card.


Thanks DanceswithUnix, although a little vague about the exact setting they ran thoes games at, they are atleast uptodate so are not running eairly drivers and not quoteing predicted prices.

Queelis, sorry I sould of said not ATi, while they often look great on paper and have the edge over nvidia cards, I've never had an geforce die on me (both the Ati cards I've had died)
But more importantly untill they sort out there currently exteemly shody drivers I'm staying away. (lets hope that now AMD have taken control they get things moveing)

[this_is_gav]

Queelis, sorry I sould of said not ATi, while they often look great on paper and have the edge over nvidia cards, I've never had an geforce die on me (both the Ati cards I've had died)
But more importantly untill they sort out there currently exteemly shody drivers I'm staying away. (lets hope that now AMD have taken control they get things moveing)

Dude, have a look around for the current hoards of nVIDIA driver issues. The old adage of ATi drivers letting down the products should now be confined to the depths. Their drivers are excellent at the moment.

[Pob255]

Well the current game I play the most it the MMO City of Heroes, currently 7series no driver issues, 8series one shader issue on a couple of maps, all types ATi massive issues, from bloom causeing crashes, shader issues on anything except minimum settings, too Alt-tab'ing causeing bluescreen.
shame really as 18months ago it was superburb on my 9700Pro, before the memory chips fried them selves and before I'd done any real overclocking.
Oh and that card came from ocuk who apparently sourced them directly from ATi like I said bad past experiences.

[Phillikon]

I too work with PCs and have one for many years.
Although there is no denying the power of ATI cards their stability has always been bad, this has been mainly because of bad drivers I have found.

[Phillikon]

I am looking for a mid range card to replace an old AGP 6800GT on my kids PC
I cant seem to find any comparison reviews for it against newer cards.
I have been told the 8600GT XXX was probably the one to go for.

Any ideas

Thanks

[Pob255]

Nice therad resurrection

But to answer your question, the 6800GT is roughtly the same performance as the 7600GT, it still is ok midrange as long as it's the 256mb version, I found the real problem I was haveing was down to 128mb of memory on my 6800LE, it was ok with lower texture settings but anything over medium/low and it would start to get rather stuttery.

Must say I really like my current 7900gs 256mb (although I replaced the stock cooler as it was a little noisy)

Unless you're on vista (ie XP) the I think the best cheap option is a 7900gs or x1950pro (7950gt if cheap)
If you don't mind 2nd hand then you should be able to pick up a 7900gt, 7950gt or 7900gtx cheap
For DX10 cheapish, 8800gt 256mb are around £120 or an HD3850 256mb for around £105.

A 8600GT is ok not great but as long as you can get it for less than a 7900gs I'd say it was ok. (nothing over £70)

EDIT: Opps totally missed the words AGP, none of the 8series nvidia cards come in AGP AFAIK And while there are better AGP cards around (7950gt ) they are not cheap or easy to find.
I seem to remember that ATi did bring out some DX10 AGP cards . . . HD2400 I seem to remember, where to get or how much I don't know.
just a quick look ebuyer have got a HD2600XT 256mb for £72

[Phillikon]

Thanks for your answers, I managed to get hold of an 8800GT 256 from scan for just over £100, and unless you crank up the AA it looks a pretty cool card, especially for the money.

I am too busy to build his new machine this week but I will test it asap and get back with the results.

thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The HD3850 is coming out in AGP FYI!!