The Cards
We've talked about the 6800 GS before, but just to review, the 6800 GS is very similar in design to the 6800 GT, except that it has four fewer pipelines, and a higher core clock (425MHz as opposed to 350MHz). Basically, the 6800 GS offers nearly identical performance to the 6800 GT at a lower cost. With the 6800 GS, NVIDIA plans to phase out the 6800 GT and let the GS take its place as the next NVIDIA card below the 7800 GT.
Leadtek WinFast PX6800 GS Extreme
The first card that we'll be looking at is by Leadtek, and it's called the Leadtek WinFast PX6800 GS Extreme. The "Extreme" in the title refers to the fact that this card comes out of the box with a factory overclock. While the reference 6800 GS comes with a core clock of 425MHz and memory clock of 1.0GHz, Leadtek's Extreme 6800 GS's core and memory clocks are set at 485MHz and 1.1GHz, giving it a small boost in performance over the standard GS.
The Leadtek 6800 GS has a sleek look, with a glossy black cover on the heat sink and the WinFast logo centered in italics. Other than the sticker, the card looks the same as NVIDIA's reference 6800 GS. Also, an important thing to note is that the PX6800 GS Extreme comes bundled with games: Prince of Persia, Warrior Within, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. These games, as well as the factory overclock, make this card one of the nicer 6800 GSs for sale right now at about $213.
PNY GeForce 6800 GS Overclocked
Our next card is the GeForce 6800 GS Overclocked by PNY Technologies. PNY is a respected graphics card manufacturer and their 6800 GS looks to be of good quality. This GS also features a factory overclock, but it's slightly different with a core clock of 470MHz, and a memory clock of 1.1GHz.
The design of the card itself looks basically the same as the Leadtek and reference 6800 GS, with the exception of the cool blue and black design on the sticker with the cyborg head sticking out just underneath the Verto logo. The box has a similar design, with the increasingly disturbing cyborg head with its insides exposed poking out of a black lake, just underneath the PNY and Verto logos. Note that there are no games included with this card's software bundle.
EverTop GeForce 6800 GS
The next 6800 GS that we have is somewhat unique by a company called EverTop. EverTop is a Korean company and currently these 6800 GSs are only available for sale in Korea and Hong Kong. We've included the card in this review regardless of the fact that it's not available in the US at this time, in part because of the fact that it may become available here in the US sometime in the future (especially if there is interest), and also because AnandTech is a global site, and we're interested in testing parts from any country.
As you can see, the card looks a bit different from the other 6800 GSs that we have for this review. The card looks somewhat stripped down, with a very unique looking fan/heat sink combo. The HSF design is by Zalman who are well known for their quality cooling solutions. If anything else, this card looks like it could be the most easily damaged of the three, as the HSF seems particularly delicate. EverTop seems proud of it though, as the box allows a clear view of the front of the card (weird HSF and all) through a see-through plastic oval on the face of the box. The EverTop 6800 GS is the only one of these four cards that does not come with a factory overclock.
EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS
The last card that we'll be looking at in this review is by EVGA, a company that we've had lots of good experience with here at AnandTech. They have consistently provided users with quality parts, impressive factory-overclocks, and an excellent warranty policy. Their card is the EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS.
The EVGA 6800 GS sports the more conventional design of the PNY and Leadtek GSs, again with the exception of the sticker on the HSF. It has a glossy black cover, with some dark and bright green highlights and the NVIDIA GeForce logo on the front, as well as the EVGA logo printed twice around the center of the fan. The EVGA 6800 GS does come factory overclocked (450MHz/1.05GHz), but it doesn't come with any games bundled. Now, let's look at how these four cards overclocked.
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Wellsoul2 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Ditto..it would be more of a comparison to includethe 800XL, 800GTO2 , even the 850XT which is selling
for $215 some places.
No need to do the article over, maybe just include
the old graphs for comparison.
I'm kind of unhappy that you pay over $200 for a new
video board and can't even run it with AA/AF/HDR
at a decent framerate in new games.
bob661 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Some of you guys are just rocks. The article was a 6800GS comparison NOT a comparison of video cards in the $200 price range. As a matter of fact, the title of the article says ... The NVIDIA 6800 GS Closer Look: EVGA, Leadtek, PNY, and Evertop!!! Go figure!!!BenJeremy - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
The latest RivaTuner allows you to unlock pipelines (I think it's 3 more, one vertex and 2 pixel) on the GS. I would love to see the benchmarks on that, particularly combined with the overclocking.I did have a small problem with thew GPU overclock in Half Life 2, with "flashing" textures. Not sure what was going on, but defaulting the GPU cleared it up, and I haven't messed around with it to see what sort of overclocking I can get without seeing the problem. Otherwise, I'm happy with the GS, particularly with the ability to unlock pipelines.
LoneWolf15 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
that no website seems to ever put the Radeon X800XL up against the 6800GS as a baseline competitor. I just checked Pricewatch, and Radeon X800XL cards can currently be had for $199-250, the exact same price point as the 6800GS (at least according to your price-links for the PNY model on the page I was looking at). If I was looking to purchase the 6800GS or an equivalent, why would I look at a Radeon X800GTO when the X800XL with four more pipelines is available at a similar price to the 6800GS? Makes no sense to me.WooDaddy - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Ok...Reading the article was fine until I started to see the trend of Evertop. The second I saw the picture of the HSF, I knew something was up. Who in their right mind would deviate from the reference design that Nvidia hast dictated!?! Evertop, that's who.
It was like a nightmare reading this article. Evertop at stock clock at the bottom. Evertop at overclock at the top. Same on BF2. Same on Farcry. Splinter Cell... Lowest power draw at load. Lowest temp at load (UNDER 60 C). WHY WON'T IT JUST STOP!!?!! Who do they think they are?! What's up with this punk Korean company?!? And to make matters worse, I bet that they sell for less than $190!
Well, that's all fine and dandy. At least they're not in the US. If we can do anything about it, they won't be.
Signed,
eVGA - First to release the 6800GS.
Seriously though. Thanks a lot Josh... You just made us Americans pissed off that we can't get the Evertop card. I just picked up a 6600 GT Leadtek (based on the AT review) and now I find out there's a card that's probably 50% better and only $50 more (possibly)... Geez. Let us know when a retailer starts selling that here. Or... I can take that card off your hands. Meet me in the FS forums ;)
Good job on the article :)
WooDaddy - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
(eVGA speaking)Oh damn.. 5dB lower on the noise too...
That's it. Time to either sabotage Evertop or raid the AT labs. There's gotta be an NDA they're breaking somewhere.
Maybe? No? Doggonit...
Evertop is the winnar, I guess...
Josh Venning - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Yes we were very impressed with EverTop, especially since the HSF on their card threw us off a bit at first. (we thought it looked a bit silly) It's a great 6800 GS and hopefully if there is enough demand here in the states we might be seeing some for sale here eventually. We'll just have to wait and see.Zoomer - Friday, February 3, 2006 - link
Why are you so surprised? One look and I can tell hat's the zalman VF700Cu. It's a aftermarket cooler selling for $30. Of course its good.The evertop card is a bargain, considering that you'll need at least the VF700AlCu or similar to keep your sanity. Throwing away a perfectly good (but noisy and underperforming) nvidia stock heatsink that you paid for isn't efficient.
nullpointerus - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I don't think it's that the Zalman HSF is so good but rather that the stock HSFs are so incredibly bad. I put in my eVGA 6800 GS with the stock cooler for a few days - HUGE problem. The noise was absolutely terrible! It was simply too much to take, so I installed an Artic Cooling HSF and was immediately impressed by the quietness.Anyway, kudos to EverTop for choosing a Zalman HSF! I hope more companies follow suit.
gman003 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Alright now is it me or are all of the AnandTech posters here 12 years old and crying about what is specifically meant to be a 6800GS roundup?First of all, if you guys want a varied video card comparison, go look at one. This isn't one of them. It's a "6800GS CLOSER LOOK"!
Secondly, the ATI card was merely used as a reference so you could see the differences in games with Anti-Aliasing turned on and off between the two companies. It isn't necessarily meant to be compared to the "Red Team", just merely used as a reference point.
The point of the article is to show you bo-zos out there that the 6800GS is a great price/performance card and which card will perform the best when overclocked. Everyone that buys one of these cards buys it because of the price/performance ratio, not how it compares to a 7800GT(which is getting closer to a good price/performace ratio but that is besides the point) or a X800 GTO.
The writer picked out great cards and gives a great overview of how these cards will overclock and what you will expect of them.
So please, no more cry-baby posts on here. If you keep posting, I will have to come OWN you on Quake 4 on my eVGA 6800GS card. Thanks.