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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superkdogg - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
This article was good and informative if a consumer is only looking @ 6800GS cards. Now, if they were smart they would consider the 7800GT for more money, and the 6600GT to save money. If they were not opposed to supporting the red team, they could look at the x800gto2 and it's unlockable quad and overclocking that part too. They could also look at the x1600's and the entire x850/800 pro series would not be far from this price range.It's nice to have information available. It's even better when reviewers pull it together for consumers rather than consumers having to do the legwork.
bob661 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Sounds like instant gratification syndrome to me. What wrong with doing the legwork yourself? Especially when it's already been done. Why should AT have to do redo test because of lazy readers, like yourself?andrep74 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
One obvious area of testing that was overlooked, and would have been somewhat simple, was to do some CPU scaling: while using the fastest CPU available does remove the CPU from the equation, the fact that these cards are midrange means that people who buy the card will most likely have midrange CPUs, also. Perhaps two or three speeds at "midrange" CPU speeds like 3200, 3500, 3700 would have shed light on the effects of CPU on performance. Interpolation requires at least two to three points of analysis.superkdogg - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
You're calling me lazy? Hmm. My wife, kids and two jobs don't think so. Well, maybe my wife sometimes.Seriously though. Read my comment. What's the first sentence? Yep, you're right I do say that the article is useful for people who are only interested in the 6800GS. My point is that most consumers would want to compare the 6800GS with other cards in a similar price range and since AT serves consumers, it is probably in the best interest of everybody to focus on a wider segment of the population.
This sort of article was very useful in the days of the MX400's and the GeForce GTS's. Back then, there was only one viable card per price point (ATI's first real card was the 8500's to be honest) and manufacturers didn't just regurgitate the reference design. However, since now there are innumerable cards that could possibly meet an end user's needs, the fact that all decisions are in some way based on relative value, and the fact that most if not all manufacturers use the reference design exclusively, this article's relevance is somewhat limited.
My point is not that the article was poorly written, that it was slanted against ATI, that it was dishonest, or that it does not provide what it says it will. None of those things are true. What I was writing about was whether or not this article needed to be written at all and if it would have been more useful to review more than one graphics card. If you eliminate chance and the fact that one manufacturer uses a Zalman heatsink, and figure in that the GTO is just thrown in for comparison, this is essentially a one-card review, but takes the same amount of time to compile data and write as a 4-5 card review would.
Would it not be more useful to have one widely available 6800GS, a X800 Pro, a 6600GT, a 7800GT, a x800XL, and a x800 GTO (especially the GTO2 and show unlocking), rather than the article as written? I think that it would, and I don't think that you can build an argument that it wouldn't. BTW, don't bother flaming me because I'm through with this since you can't read and understand my first sentence and resort to name calling in titling your response.
superkdogg - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
But, what I wrote was "Why not write a full-blown midrange comparison?" That is what my title was and that is what I meant and said.My meaning is that there is no point in singling out a 600GS roundup anymore than there is a NForce4 roundup or any other part based on 4 different colors of the reference design. I was stating that it is much more useful to compare different cards than tell us again that overclocks are about the same and that this will vary based on your setup and your particular card.
As far as instant gratification. "Hello, I am the internet. I am here to fulfill your thirst for knowledge. But I won't because it might happen too fast." Umm, don't think so. The whole point of the internet is to have the knowledge at our fingertips. Otherwise why would we read this stuff. Why not better compile the knowledge into a more readily usable form? That was and is my question. Read my comment. I don't rip them for writing a 6800GS roundup. I wonder why the assumption is that knowing the difference between brands is more important than knowing what cards are available in the price range.
Spoelie - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
If I had one comment I'd say the x1600xt would have been a better choice as a competitor for the 6800gs.However, it pains me to see how the comments always start out with people 'angry' because the review didn't contain the information for their own particular situation. A review can NOT cover every particular base, it is a decision made at the start what to cover. If you think you can do better, write your own article, if not then yes, you will have to do your own legwork. Do not always expect people to figure things out for you.
If the article was named "Vidcard midrange comparison" you'd have reason to complain, now the article does what it set out to do.
This comment is directed to everyone having replied up till now, not anyone in particular.
Bull Dog - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Oh right and the X1600XT costs some $40 LESS than the 6800GS. And appropriately, doesn't perform quite as good.deathwalker - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
This review has missed the mark by failing to include the "AGP" versions of the 6800GS. Test results for the AGP version are important not only because there is still a very large contigent of gamers still using APG graphics supported motherboards but also because the clocking is very different on the AGP versions vs. the PCIe version. Dissapointing that AT had there tunnel vision visors on for this exersize.bob661 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
AGP is dead which is why it wasn't tested. This IS an enthusiast site not a J6P site.Patrese - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I'd like to see the AGP 6800GS tested anyway. As Anandtech is a worldwide website (as it was said in the article), they should be aware that in less developed countries AGP is still a big deal, even for new computers. Here in Brazil, buying a Semprom 3100+ with Palermo core and putting it to work at 2.5GHz on air is becoming a national sport [sort of :)], and most of them are AGP based systems. It's not cutting edge technology, but still is enthusiast stuff!I'm not a cry-baby though, as I found the review really good (Zalman kicks the stock cooler's a**!). They may test the AGP version on other occasion. It's just a reply for those who think AGP is already dead and gone, specially in this price range.