Which 8800?

[Allen]

Damn this latest generation of graphics cards has me really confused...

OK, so looking at the GeForce 8800 series of cards, I think from best to worse they go:

GeForce 8800 Ultra
GeForce 8800 GTX
GeForce 8800 GTS
GeForce 8800 GT
GeForce 8800 GS

Is that right? OK, so checking the prices they seem to wildly differ, but basically I'm looking for the best card possible within a £100 budget. From doing a quick check this seems to be the 8800GT with prices varying between £80 to £130. Just wondered if anyone has any insight as which would be the best version to get?

Looking for a PCI-E card to fit in my ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0. What worries me is the speed of this slot as mentioned on the ASRock website as "x4 mode" but these cards seem to need a PCI-E x16 slot, does that mean it won't be compatible? If so, what x4 cards are out there, if any?

Cheers,

Allen

[TAKTAK]

for £100 you wont get a ultra or GTX, or GTS (unless your lucky/willing to splash out a little more)

out of the other two, the gt is better

as such: HERE

[Thorsson]

Paying the extra for 8800Ultra or GTX makes sense in only limited circumstances. The 8800GTS is only noticeably better than the GT on 24"+ monitors. The GT is considerably better than the GS. I would get a factory OC one if it was only a few £s more for the guaranteed OC, but it's not worth paying much more as they are easy to OC yourself using Rivatuner.

[Allen]

Heh, well I don't have a fancy large LCD, I'm still using my trusty old 19" CRT at 1600x1200 @ 100Hz and it still looks beautiful... but the GPU I have is letting games down a little.

Thanks for the advice so far.

[staffsMike]

If you could stretch to an 8800GTS 512mb, that will do very well at your resolution. You should easily find an 8800GT for £100 though and that would be the best compromise for the price.

If the slot is the same physical size as a 16x card then a 16x will work but will be throttled back obviously so you lose a fair bit of bandwidth. 8x is generally enough for even the modern cards but I fear you will start to lose performance with a 4x slot.

[Blitzen]

Paying the extra for 8800Ultra or GTX makes sense in only limited circumstances. The 8800GTS is only noticeably better than the GT on 24"+ monitors. The GT is considerably better than the GS. I would get a factory OC one if it was only a few £s more for the guaranteed OC, but it's not worth paying much more as they are easy to OC yourself using Rivatuner.

Whereas the GTX is only better than the GTS on a 24" monitor or higher

[EarlGrey]

For around £100 you want to get a 512Mb 8800GT. There are deals available to get one for £100, though most are priced a little higher. Don't get a 256Mb card, it doesn't perform as well as you might hope. If you have trouble getting one in your price bracket, then the 9600GT is almost as fast (the same speed in some games) and can be had for less than £100.
These two cards represent the best value purchases at the moment

And don't worry about the 4x PCIe, they are all compatible, but in theory the 4x will be slightly slower than a 16x slot. In practise I'm not sure if you can tell the difference... though I'm sure someone is bound to disagree

[Andeh13]

i bought a 8800GTS a few months ago to go with my new Samsung 24" and iv loved the card ever since. It chugs alone quite happily with HL2 (portal & TF2) at 1600 x 1400 and it didnt have too many problems with crysis & bioshock with some of the eye candy turned up a bit!

Might be over kill for a smaller screen though, so depending on what size screen you've got id say a GT or GTS.

ps; make sure you get the 512mb cards and not the 320/640mb ones, they are the older models!

Hope it helps!

[shadowmaster]

You could consider waiting for the next gen nvidia and ati cards to come out next month. They might be worth buying or at least they should push the price of the nvidia 8800 cards down.

[Blitzen]

For around £100 you want to get a 512Mb 8800GT. There are deals available to get one for £100, though most are priced a little higher. Don't get a 256Mb card, it doesn't perform as well as you might hope. If you have trouble getting one in your price bracket, then the 9600GT is almost as fast (the same speed in some games) and can be had for less than £100.
These two cards represent the best value purchases at the moment

And don't worry about the 4x PCIe, they are all compatible, but in theory the 4x will be slightly slower than a 16x slot. In practise I'm not sure if you can tell the difference... though I'm sure someone is bound to disagree

Sorry but the 9600gt isnt nearly as fast as the 8800GT/GTS.

Those cards, in particular the 8800GTS, are comfortably faster than the 9600GT.

[Thorsson]

The problem is that many reviews put factory OC 9600s up against vanilla 8800GTs (and some even used 256Mb varities). The underlying hardware is ~30% slower. TBH it probably depends on what you play, and at what resolutions, just how much slower it is in practice.

At Scan prices for 9600GT range from £88.70 to £154.52 and the 512Mb 8800GT from £115.14 to £203.12, and that probably fairly reflects the average difference in performance at 1680x1050. The 9600GT is probably the better buy at 1280x1024. Of course if you are buying it for a specific game then check out reviews to see if that has been tested (just make sure you look at clocks, memory, etc. on cards tested).

[Allen]

You could consider waiting for the next gen nvidia and ati cards to come out next month. They might be worth buying or at least they should push the price of the nvidia 8800 cards down.

That might be a good idea, thanks! I wasn't aware of impending releases from both companies.

[Allen]

OK, thanks for all the responses so far. I think I will wait for the new releases next month and then look for a nice and cheap 8800GT 512MB card.

[sammytomjohn]

my 9600gt scores 10000 in 3dmarks sum1 just bought a 512mb xfx £75 includin postage on fleabay brand new