The NVIDIA 6800 GS Closer Look: EVGA, Leadtek, PNY, and Evertop
by Josh Venning on January 27, 2006 8:53 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
General Overview
There's no denying that there are a lot of different graphics cards out there from which to choose. We know how confusing it can be when trying to figure out how a particular card compares to another or what card would be best suited for a particular gaming setup. There are cards by both ATI and NVIDIA - two companies that often take different approaches to graphics hardware design, and each company offering a wide range of performance in their cards. What's more, many cards are made to compete with each other, and perform so closely to one another as to be nearly indistinguishable performance-wise. This fact, as well as the fact that prices for all of these parts are subject to a fluctuating market and can change significantly from day to day, can indeed make things confusing.
It is because of this that we've decided to give a brief overview of some cards available by both NVIDIA and ATI, as well as a rundown of how each family of cards (and many of their variants) fit into a kind of performance-spectrum of cards, ranking from lowest to highest performance. This is by no means an extensive list of cards and their place on an exact performance scale, but more of a guideline to help visualize the kinds of graphics solutions available and their performance right now. Many will already be very familiar with these parts and where they stand, but hopefully, this will give other people a better understanding. *Note: on ATI's side, we are focusing on the X1000 series, as they represent the newer generation for ATI and take advantage of newer technology (i.e. Shader model 3, etc.).
On the extreme low end of things, you have cards like NVIDIA's 6200 and some of ATI's older cards like the X300. These cards run in the $50 to $75 price range, and are generally suitable for your grandparents or businesses where some basic hardware acceleration is needed. The opposite end of the spectrum is the ultra-high end cards like ATI's X1800 XT and NVIDIA's 7800 GTX 512. These cards are mostly only affordable to a small percentage of people, and offer more gaming power than what any application would actually require (without the special monitors required to display very high resolutions). Everything available in-between shows a little more flexibility. For instance, you can pay anywhere between $100 and $200 for an X1300 card depending on the clock speeds and memory layout. X1600 parts can go for between $130 and $300 depending on which of the four configurations you are looking at (there is a low and high speed grade, each available with either 256MB or 512MB).
With prices and products overlapping as we show here, it's tough to always know what cards are really worth their price and which aren't. The problem is a little bit more pronounced with ATI cards, as older generation chips like the R480 packaged into a neat little X800 GTO is still an excellent deal. We also have more naming variety on the NVIDIA side and there is less of a chance of buying two vastly different performing parts with the same name.
Of course, different types of gamers will require parts with different levels of performance. For instance, someone who plays strategy games like Civ 4 or Warcraft 3 won't need as powerful a graphics card as someone who likes to play pretty twitch shooters like F.E.A.R. or Battlefield 2. Likewise, a gamer's budget will greatly affect the best choice of card for that person, so the goal is to find a good compromise between good performance and a decent price. The 6800 GS just happens to fit very well into this "sweet spot" of graphics cards, which will be a good choice for the average gamer. At around $200, the price for this card is very reasonable given the performance that it provides. For this article, we will also be looking at the X800 GTO as it is still the best competitive value offered by ATI at the price point for which we are aiming. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at the different 6800 GSs that we have.
There's no denying that there are a lot of different graphics cards out there from which to choose. We know how confusing it can be when trying to figure out how a particular card compares to another or what card would be best suited for a particular gaming setup. There are cards by both ATI and NVIDIA - two companies that often take different approaches to graphics hardware design, and each company offering a wide range of performance in their cards. What's more, many cards are made to compete with each other, and perform so closely to one another as to be nearly indistinguishable performance-wise. This fact, as well as the fact that prices for all of these parts are subject to a fluctuating market and can change significantly from day to day, can indeed make things confusing.
It is because of this that we've decided to give a brief overview of some cards available by both NVIDIA and ATI, as well as a rundown of how each family of cards (and many of their variants) fit into a kind of performance-spectrum of cards, ranking from lowest to highest performance. This is by no means an extensive list of cards and their place on an exact performance scale, but more of a guideline to help visualize the kinds of graphics solutions available and their performance right now. Many will already be very familiar with these parts and where they stand, but hopefully, this will give other people a better understanding. *Note: on ATI's side, we are focusing on the X1000 series, as they represent the newer generation for ATI and take advantage of newer technology (i.e. Shader model 3, etc.).
On the extreme low end of things, you have cards like NVIDIA's 6200 and some of ATI's older cards like the X300. These cards run in the $50 to $75 price range, and are generally suitable for your grandparents or businesses where some basic hardware acceleration is needed. The opposite end of the spectrum is the ultra-high end cards like ATI's X1800 XT and NVIDIA's 7800 GTX 512. These cards are mostly only affordable to a small percentage of people, and offer more gaming power than what any application would actually require (without the special monitors required to display very high resolutions). Everything available in-between shows a little more flexibility. For instance, you can pay anywhere between $100 and $200 for an X1300 card depending on the clock speeds and memory layout. X1600 parts can go for between $130 and $300 depending on which of the four configurations you are looking at (there is a low and high speed grade, each available with either 256MB or 512MB).
With prices and products overlapping as we show here, it's tough to always know what cards are really worth their price and which aren't. The problem is a little bit more pronounced with ATI cards, as older generation chips like the R480 packaged into a neat little X800 GTO is still an excellent deal. We also have more naming variety on the NVIDIA side and there is less of a chance of buying two vastly different performing parts with the same name.
Of course, different types of gamers will require parts with different levels of performance. For instance, someone who plays strategy games like Civ 4 or Warcraft 3 won't need as powerful a graphics card as someone who likes to play pretty twitch shooters like F.E.A.R. or Battlefield 2. Likewise, a gamer's budget will greatly affect the best choice of card for that person, so the goal is to find a good compromise between good performance and a decent price. The 6800 GS just happens to fit very well into this "sweet spot" of graphics cards, which will be a good choice for the average gamer. At around $200, the price for this card is very reasonable given the performance that it provides. For this article, we will also be looking at the X800 GTO as it is still the best competitive value offered by ATI at the price point for which we are aiming. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at the different 6800 GSs that we have.
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DerekWilson - Sunday, January 29, 2006 - link
Sometimes people are shocked by this, but there are people out there who are buying new computers these days. Not everyone is in the market for an upgrade. Of course, we care about the upgraders as well, but everything needs to be in its place.I have a feeling there's something on the horizon that will make all the agp lovers happy. But that's all I'm gonna say about that.
Omega215D - Saturday, January 28, 2006 - link
The 6800 GS for AGP isn't much more than the PCIe versions and I'm curious to see if performance was similar just like the 6600GT. And to all those that just throw AGP to the curb: I still run an A64 3200+ on an MSI nForce 3 platform. Why am I going to replace it with a nForce 4 mobo when socket M2 is basically around the corner? Remember, I would have to pay $100 more to get a PCIe mobo with the GS which would cost more than just getting the AGP version.mino - Saturday, January 28, 2006 - link
when something generates a lot of heat it does NOT mean it is hot. An vice versa.Actually the amount of heat is clearly visible on power consumption graphs.
The "heat" graph actually measures the efficiency of cooling solution, not the heat produced.
Otherwise APG version seriously lacking as many have allready pointed out.
Larso - Sunday, January 29, 2006 - link
Yeah. I particularly stumbled over this sentence on page 9:"We also wanted to see how much heat these cards generated"
- right after the nice power consumption graph that showed exactly the same power usage, and thus they must produce exactly the same amount of heat. No way around thermodynamics.
The sentence should have read something like: We also wanted to see how hot these cards ran. (which is how well the cooling solution is able to remove the heat)
Tarx - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I have the eVGA 6800GS. What I didn't expect was just how LOUD it was.In 2D, originally used RivaTuner to turn down the fan to a minimum (was barely tolerable), but had to keep the loud mode for 3D. In the end bought the ArticCooler NV 5 Rev 3 without even knowing if it fits (it was either that or return the card). The AC isn't silent by any means, but much quieter and as a bonus a cooler solution. It however takes up a second slot (exhausts hot air behind the case - another nice bonus)
Even with the card being cooler by the AC, the OC seems to be limited to the low 500s for the GPU.
The mem on my card seems to be an exception, with no artifacts even at 1300 (650 DDR).
Zak - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I would like to see how this card does DVD amd HD acceleration, for HTPC use, non gaming. I want to replace the noisy 6600GT and this could be the right card.Zak
bldckstark - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Great article AT thanks for doing the job I want to, but can't, do. You guys are a great part of the tech business and are doing the public a service, free of charge to your users. I can't ever complain about that and thank you. BUT,Early in the article you mention that the X1300 or the 6200 card would be plenty of power to run grannie's computer for $50 - $75. Why does the recommendation for this type of computer keep increasing? Not that long ago everyone was saying an MX200 was plenty for Mom, now we have to the latest GPU family to run Outlook? Most Intel MB reviews state that the IGP is fine for Aunt Virginia and it is free (basically). I just wonder where the cutoff is on 5th generation spreadsheet graphics rendering. Until there is some increase in graphics complexity in MS Office I can't see the need to buy anything other than an IGP board for the purposes mentioned.
Yes, I have heard that Vista is gonna smoke the cheap cards, so maybe now is the time to increase the minimum power standard, but will it keep increasing from there? If a card can run Aero at release does the GPU recommendation ever need to be changed until Aero does?
If I am wrong please let me know so I can track the necessary changes in the future. Uncle Delbert needs a new box so he can find out what all this Pr0n stuff is, he's been hearing about at the Sunday meetin'.
Just trying to embarrass myself on a highly public forum, you may officially start laughing at my views now.
BLuDeCKSTARK
Josh Venning - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
This is a good point, actually. The kind of card that would be "good enough" for granny is a very subjective thing, and depends greatly on the person's needs. People who just used the computer to write in offive or use spreadsheets probably don't need a graphics card at all. That said, as software advances, better hardware acceleration will probably be required, but it need not be confined to the $50 to $75 price range.DerekWilson - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I basically feel the same way Josh does ... In fact, I was going to write a nice quick blurb like that, but it turned into a crazy rant that I posted in the forums.http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">Rant here ... check it out
I can get a bit long winded sometimes. Mostly I'll just delete the intended comment and walk away, but I think I'll start making forum posts in the future.
Thanks,
Derek Wilson
unclebud - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
"AGP is dead which is why it wasn't tested."then why aren't they giving them away free then? fraud fraud fraud on nvidia i tell everybody
the title didn't say only "The NVIDIA 6800 GS [PCI-Express] Closer Look: EVGA, Leadtek, PNY, and Evertop"
thanks to the authors of the article though