eVGA GeForce 8800 GT

[Cov]

Alright, have ordered the eVGA GeForce 8800 GT a few minutes ago.
I wasn't sure about this card when I placed the order for my other computer items, but the person who took the order convinced me to the point that this is the card to go for and he managed to calm me down regarding my heat-problem concerns ... I then just ordered it .

I know for Crysis and Flightsimulator X for example - every single FPS counts.
Hopefully I won't get my case in flames one day, hehe.


eVGA ! Please don't let me down !



I was really unsure which one to get, the 8800 GT or the 9600 GT.
The 9600 is reported to run approx 20 degrees cooler but has about 10 to 15 % lower performance.

[staffsMike]

I think i'd have gone for the GTS. Better cooler and better performance. You can get them for as little as £165 now. If this is going in an SG01 i'd be a little concerned too.

What resolution are you playing at though?

[matty-hodgson]

did you buy it from Scan?
i bought it the other day when it was on 'today only' for £136.
got it OC'd a lot and if you turn the fan speed upto 55% it's still pretty much silent and runs at 59'C at full load on Crysis.
has plenty of extras and has the 90 day step-up program.
you won't be disappointed.

but the fan on my 8800GT looks bigger than the 1 you have on that photo.

[Cov]

Yeah, ordered it from scan for £ 138.52 ... I planned originally to order the BFG one but the polite gentleman who took the order recommended the eVGA - so I trusted him as he said he'd be a hard core gamer too ...

No, that card on the picture is not my one ... it's copied from newegg's website just as a sample.

Thanks for your lovely picture ... is that your original card ? And you got it overclocked ?
I have zero experience with overclocking. The CPUs from my time were still locked you know.

Now I wonder wether it would be possible to underclock the graphics card ... to tackle a possible heat issue ?

Well, regarding the 3rd party VGA cooler I ordered the Zalman VF900-CU too:



I think it's beautiful.


and Mike ... I tried to avoid getting anything bigger than a single slot solution because it would block the only free PCI socket on the mATX board, which I need for my wireless card.

And regarding the screen resolution ... hmmm, I have to admit that my current onboard's graphics only allows to run Halo (Combat Evolved) on 800 x 600 with a frame rate of about 15 - 25.

I expect this card to allow playing games on high settings to run on the native resolution of my current TFT screen 1280 x 1024 smoothly.

Oh by the way, I intend to order a 24 inch monitor as soon as I have made my mind up of which model to get.
Stepping up from my good old Compaq FP1707 (3:4) to a 24 inch (16:9) will be nice. Hope that the different format won't mess up the aspect ratio. (???)

Well, first I was thinking to get the Dell 2408 but I'm not sure what it is but I don't feel comfortable with it anymore. I know it has a S-PVA panel, so the quality is supposed to be better than TN ones, but to be honest, I'm happy with my old Compaq TFT and think a TN would be fine for me.
Then I liked the Acer P243W, but the response was negative so far and I'm put off now.

The HP W2408H is heavily promoted in our area, you find it at almost every shop on sale. I quite like the stand - in fact it's the most beautiful of them all. (Looks is very important to me)
Then again, the thick frame around the panel spoiles it again ... it looks too chunky. Besides this, it hasn't got a DVI socket.

Now I think to have made my mind up with the Samsung SM-2493.
I would like to ask the owners of this monitor if you could let us know the positive and negative points please ?

Any banding / ghosting issue ? Any dead pixels ?
Is the viewing angle of 160 degrees enough (Dell has 178 degrees) ?


here are the candidates again:

Dell 2408



Acer P243W



Hewlett Packard HP W2408H



Samsung SM-2493 HM

[Ommid]

is the gts worth the extra 30 quid though?

[HSK]

i was originally going to buy the super super(i think) oc edition of the evga card, but ended up getting a GTS coz the opportunity came up. but it still looks pretty good.

[staffsMike]

for a 24" monitor it certainly would be worth the extra imo

anything less, probably not

[matty-hodgson]

at 1280 x 1024 you can play Crysis at all very-high at about 20 - 25FPS.
set it to all high and the game runs flawlessly..

and i think that the 24" is a brilliant idea..

but why have you bought that after-market cooler? you should've tried the stock first, just up the fan speed a bit (rivatuner) and you can also use Rivatuner to underclock the card if you wish, which is a good idea if playing anything other than Crysis at your Reso.

i game at the same resolution as your native screen reso is and it's an awesome card.

and by the way. you can change the cooler on your eVGA card and still keep your life-time warranty, which you wouldn't have got with the BFG.
but don't open that Zalman cooler until you've tried the card with the stock first.

[Cov]

Well, I bought the Zalman vga cooler because firstly I have a SFF case and the airflow there is bad anyway,
secondly I don't want my graphics card to melt and thirdly I think this cooler just looks awesome ! honest .
To vary the frequency is a great invention ! I'm impressed that it's possible at all.
Looks like there is a lot of measuring of temperatures coming up with the new PC.

But why do you limit your games to only 1280 x 1024 ?
Could your screen display a higher one ? Bluray needs 1900 x 1200 already ... or was it 1900 x 1080 ?
When I change from 800 x 600 to a higher one, the graphics look so much better.
I wonder if the improvement continues if you'd go even higher ??

Then again, I think the res mentioned above offers plent high quality details already.

Because of my low spec PC, I haven't much experience with top titles.
But when I was recently at PC World (just to browse around), they had a games pc on display with GHOST RECCON 3 as demonstration running ... well, I certainly was blown away dude.

Gosh I am so not up to date ... but that's gonna change soon

That's funny that you menation the eVGA warranty because I wasn't sure. Yeah, looks like the eVGA was the better desicion then. I just need to register the card in order to get more than the usual 1 year warranty.

Boy I can't wait to get my new screen ! I hope that I can get used to it as my eyes have adapted so much to the good old 17 inch Compaq one. And something else I'm a little concerned about the different aspect ratio ... from 3 by 4 to 16 by 9.
How does Windows resize itself ? Will the space be just wider ... or will the display be horizontally stretched ? That would be terrible I think.

And same question with older games. Will the screen cut off the parts on the left & right ?
Or maybe zoom in ? ... hmmm

I intend to order from eBuyer cause they have the Samsung for a good prize.
Really hope that dead pixels won't happen these days anymore.
Have read somewhere that somebody managed to get a dead pixel on his son's screen re-activated, haha.
Honest, he said he flicked his finger for a long time at this dead pixel, then it became unstable (blinking) until it workd fine again ... great !!

[Pob255]

A few things here

@matty-hodgson the fan is large because that's the revision 2 stock cooler, doesn't effect the temps much (1-2c if I remember) however it is far quieter esp if you tune the fan up to 100%.

@Cov, you do realise that that zalman is taller than a single slot, so while it will not take up a back plate it will stop you from putting anything in the slot below the graphics card.

With LCD monitors the native resolution is the maximum they can work to and also the best image quality, unlike old crt monitors they don't scale as well to lower resolutions as the pixel size is fixed, so running a a tft under native resolution causes lots of bluriness and other image problems as it tries to scale the image over the pixels.
The same also works in reverse if a image being displayed is larger that the native resolution then it get scaled down to the working resolution (although scaleing down loses less quality than scaleing up)

[Cov]

I've ordered the Asus P5E-VM HDMI mATX board.
From the looks of it, the card with the Zalman cooler plugged into the PCI-E slot would not obstruct the last PCI slot on the very left of the picture ... I hope.

[badass]

at 1280 x 1024 you can play Crysis at all very-high at about 20 - 25FPS.
set it to all high and the game runs flawlessly..

Dont mean to pick on you but there is an important thing all people quoting these frame rates miss that is missleading to anyone reading the posts. Have you actually palyed the game to completion?
At the early levels that may well be the case, but later after the whole place freezes, the frame rates are reduces to half.

[Cov]

Interesting !

Have you finished the game already ?
Can you play Crysis online ?

Please tell.

[cougarslam]

crysis doesn't warrant the gfx card costs its not a very good game. First few levels are decent then it goes downhilllllll.

cod4 is best fps to get imo.

[matty-hodgson]

Dont mean to pick on you but there is an important thing all people quoting these frame rates miss that is missleading to anyone reading the posts. Have you actually palyed the game to completion?
At the early levels that may well be the case, but later after the whole place freezes, the frame rates are reduces to half.

yes, i realised that, especially when you play against the people in the nano suits on your way to the mine.
but then you just switch it to all high and it's fine.
still a beautiful little card!

crysis doesn't warrant the gfx card costs its not a very good game. First few levels are decent then it goes downhilllllll.

cod4 is best fps to get imo.

CoD4 is only good online.. i hate the story-line and the graphics aren't too good either.
but online i'd say it's easily the best game out atm, on any platform!

[Pob255]

I've ordered the Asus P5E-VM HDMI mATX board.
From the looks of it, the card with the Zalman cooler plugged into the PCI-E slot would not obstruct the last PCI slot on the very left of the picture ... I hope.

You may be able to get away with it, depends on the size of the card you plug into that 1xpci-e slot below the graphics card, if the card is very short then you're probably safe, only way to check will be to try it.