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
Test Setup/Overclocking
The test setup that we used is designed to focus the stress of the game tests on the GPU. We therefore use very high end components in our test system in order to determine the maximum impact that a graphics card could have on a game. We also disable sound for testing and disable as many background tasks as possible. Since the 6800 GS is a mid-range part, we would expect people who purchase the card to be running a more mid-range system altogether. Performance may end up actually being a little lower in the real world, but for analysis purposes, it's easier to pinpoint the advantages of a specific part (if any) when you eliminate (or at least minimize) other bottlenecks that could be a factor in performance.
NVIDIA nForce 4 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 2.8 GHz Processor
2 GB OCZ 3:3:2:8 DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
User-overclocking is an important part of our testing, and it gives us an idea of how well these cards overclock above their factory settings. It's interesting to see that sometimes a card with a high factory overclock won't necessarily overclock as high as another lower clocked card of the same type. This can be useful information for those who prefer to overclock their own cards. At the same time, factory overclocked parts can be more attractive to users who just want to plug in the part and forget it (or who don't want to worry about voiding any warranties). In any case, here's what we ended up with when we overclocked these 6800 GS offerings.
So, we can see that the slowest card out of the box actually overclocks higher than any other card that we tested here. All of the cards do see a pretty decent speed bump over the stock 6800 GS, though.
The test setup that we used is designed to focus the stress of the game tests on the GPU. We therefore use very high end components in our test system in order to determine the maximum impact that a graphics card could have on a game. We also disable sound for testing and disable as many background tasks as possible. Since the 6800 GS is a mid-range part, we would expect people who purchase the card to be running a more mid-range system altogether. Performance may end up actually being a little lower in the real world, but for analysis purposes, it's easier to pinpoint the advantages of a specific part (if any) when you eliminate (or at least minimize) other bottlenecks that could be a factor in performance.
NVIDIA nForce 4 motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 2.8 GHz Processor
2 GB OCZ 3:3:2:8 DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
User-overclocking is an important part of our testing, and it gives us an idea of how well these cards overclock above their factory settings. It's interesting to see that sometimes a card with a high factory overclock won't necessarily overclock as high as another lower clocked card of the same type. This can be useful information for those who prefer to overclock their own cards. At the same time, factory overclocked parts can be more attractive to users who just want to plug in the part and forget it (or who don't want to worry about voiding any warranties). In any case, here's what we ended up with when we overclocked these 6800 GS offerings.
| Graphics Card | Factory Speed | Overclocked |
| Leadtek WinFast PX6800 GS Extreme | 485/1.1 | 520/1.15 |
| PNY GeForce 6800 GS Overclocked | 470/1.1 | 490/1.15 |
| EverTop GeForce 6800 GS | 425/1.0 | 525/1.2 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS | 450/1.05 | 510/1.15 |
So, we can see that the slowest card out of the box actually overclocks higher than any other card that we tested here. All of the cards do see a pretty decent speed bump over the stock 6800 GS, though.
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bob661 - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I don't see why anyone would still be buying an AGP card when the prices differences between AGP and PCIe are negligible. And why buy a card like the 6800GS for an older board when the video is going to be bottlenecked by the old CPU?superkdogg - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Bob, umm, I don't know how to tell you this, but any Athlon64 socket 939 has AGP motherboards available for it. Bottlenecked by "old" CPU's..... And the price differences are more than negligible. PCI-e is significantly cheaper, actually.The problem is that for Intel users, most will need new memory and everybody will need a new motherboard.
Spacecomber - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I'm running a 6800GT with an Athlon XP clocked at 2.3GHz, and they are a good match for each other. Why should I upgrade a whole system when a better video card is enough to let me keep up with my gaming needs (mostly BF2 these days). The 6800GS is priced about right and the performance is about right for use in systems with the rough equivalent of a Pentium 3.0 GHz processor. And, the range of AGP cards still available is getting narrower; so, the interest in those that are still being made is sharper.Spacecomber - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
I didn't really find benchmarks that just compared 6800GS cards to other 6800GS cards that helpful. As a buyer I'm going to probably pick the 6800GS card that is selling for the best price or has the best warranty or some other such feature, if I decide that a 6800GS is the right card for me. In order to do that, I need to see how this card compares to the competition, both from other nvidia cards and from ATI's cards.Ideally, these comparisons should also include SLI tests. Does the lack of pipelines come into play when running in SLI mode or not, compared to a 6800GT, for example?
When you write these reviews, you guys need to be asking yourselves the questions that a Anandtech readers, as consumers, will be asking.
nullpointerus - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
Didn't the previous 6800 GS article do just what you wanted? I think I even picked the 6800 GS based on that article.Hacp - Friday, January 27, 2006 - link
How about showing the results of an overclocked gto? These things overclock pretty well, and should get to x850 pro speeds.