GeForce 8800 GTS -- Worth it?

I'm considering buying a GeForce 8800 GTS next week and I'm really just wondering... Is it really worth it right now? From the benchmarks I've seen, it doesn't provide a HUGE difference in current DX9 games and we've yet to see how it performs in DX10 games though I expect it to perform a lot better. The only reason I want one is for Crysis... Originally, during Crysis' debut back in some previous E3, it was running on a Quad 7800 GTX system unoptimized. The next E3, it was running on an SLI 7900 GTX system. Then, recently at CES... It was running at full settings on a single 8800 GTX even at high resolutions, (I don't remember how high and I currently can't look it up --I'm at work), and the game was still in a Pre-Alpha state.

So... My question is: Should I buy a 8800 GTS right now, (to hold myself over... Again), or should I wait for the next volley of DX10 cards/R600/the actual release of Crysis?

 

You could wait for the R600, is GTS beats every card out ther except for the GTX, the GTX has loads better performance over the GTS, i am saving for a GTS, its a good buy, in the summer just buy another GTS and go SLi, 2 GTS's are almost as good as 1 GTX i think.

 

Doesn't anybody have any doubt about the first generation of DX10 cards that are available?

I mean, if I had the option to upgrade I'd wait a while until DX10 becomes more standard and there are more models to choose from.

Quad SLI users had to wait a long time too, Nvidia's previous call to greatness didn't have any official drivers for a long period of time after it's release.

Owners of DX10 cards are still waiting for their cards to be used at their full potential, and when owners of current DX10 hardware actually do get the chance to do so there will probably be better hardware available at that time.

I remember the 6800 series being the first card having HDR support, when games with HDR support came out more and more, the 6800 series performed horribly on some of the more populair games of that time, unless you were lucky enough to have an SLI system.

But that's just my take on this though, don't get your panties up in a bunch over an opinion.

Greetings,

Marcus_X

 

The 8800 series of cards wont perform bad in DX10 games, they have shown demos of the cards rendering DX10 stuff, sure there will be better cards, such as the R600, but the 8800 series will perform good, and could last up to 2 years i rekon. The cards had SM3.0, this is what enabled them to have HDR, SM3.0 does more than just HDR, allthough it dont seem to do much but the 6800 could run some games fine that had HDR.

 

The R600 is supposibly a better card so around early feburary we should see some results, I think it's worth waiting to be prepaired in case they turn out to be easily superior. If nothing else it will lower the prices of the 8000 range. And as far the GTX goes it's not twice as fast as the GT, not by any means from what I've seen. Spec wise it's about a 1/3rd better at the most and as far as real world performance goes I'm not even sure if it's that much. But there's a lot of differing tests out there so I could be wrong. Either way I think it's worth waiting a little longer I'm afraid.

 

From the benchmarks i have seen, it might not be twice as fast, was in some things though, but it was a large amount better than the 8800GTS.

I have seen around NVNews, people with overclocked GTX's can run most games on all max settings and something like 1900 x 1600 res or something silly like that, were the GTS struggles with that and can run most games at max at around 1600 x 1200.

I will be waiting untill the R600 is released, as i am hoping it will drop the GTX cards to around £291 which i am thinking of buying a GTS for, but if the GTX's get pushed down, then i will go for one of them.

 

An Intel Kentsfield with an 8800GTS/X was brought to a crawl by Flight Sim X.

 

If thats true, i am no longer going to buy an 8800 series card....

I just looked at the screenshots, the only thing about the graphics that is good about Flight Sim X is the heli's and Planes, all the terain aint that detailed, must be because of the large areas that it crawls, more CPU limited than GPU?

Some people thing that the game wont be laggy on 8800 series when its in DX10.

Seems like its just laggy and buggy like Rainbow Six Vegas, which i can belive, the graphics aint that good... i think an 8800 will handle it well after some patches and DX10.

Some have also said its written for DX10, and its been made compatible with DX9 though, and this is also causing performance issues, i dont know if this is true but it wouldent be surprising, an 8800GTX should be able to run that game at maximum settings and high res at smooth FPS.

I am convineced it will run good enough on an 8800GTX/GTX when its in DX10, 40-50FPS at max, its only demo out at the moment anyway.

 

As a serious simmer I can tell you that under XP/DX9 NO processor is able to run FSX at max, plus it supports neither dual core nor quad core, so no use trying a Kentsfield... the best would be the X6800 but only by 2-3 frames at high settings...
IMHO there's a serious bug with FSX or MS have messed it up for good by designing FSX for single core...
As for the GPU, FS isn't demanding at all... all you'll notice is the difference between DX9 and DX10 (when it comes out...), so an 8800GTS will do fine! If you don't believe me, ask these guys: Just Flight Forums

 

I do belive you, infact what you have said is basically what other people have been seeing, i am still set on a 8800GTS then

 

Yep, good idea... it must be awsome!

 

Unless you're dead set on maxing FlightSimX then yeah get that GTS, like people will tell you FSX is a buggy as hell and about as poorly optimized as could be imagined. Once they get around to adding DX 10 suppot its possible that they'll have worked out a few kinks and will add muliticore support and do some optimization so mere motals can run it on higher settings.
I don't see the point in getting a card like the GTX right now just so you can run games at 2048x1600 or whatever so for most every one the GTS is just fine. Crysis with DX 10 support will determine how well the card can handle the new API but I would imagine it should do just fine concidering the game's DX 10 roots and origional test hardware.

 

I think even with my CPU, and an 8800GTS, i will be able to max Flight Simulator X when its proberbly been done for DX10.

 

You really should. Flight Sims aren't meant to be that demanding. It's a big improvement over 2004 as far as I can tell but there's not way it should run this poorly. I'm thinking the GTS will be just fine for anything else, I'm not sure to what extent if any Unreal Tounrmament 2007 will utilize DX 10 but that will probably be one of the stongest ways to test out the new hardware.

 

Yea, i am expecting an 8800GTS to run ut2k7 at maximum settings, should deffenitly be possible if its gonna be DX9, imagine how good the next UT will be!

 

One thing, as all simmers know and as you've mentioned it Exfoliate FSX doesn't support multicore, it uses only one core and 20% of the other one (in dual core CPUs) that's the source of all our problems ( for the uninformed ones :O ), so if they enabled multicore it'd be mostly solved!
Now my question is that: to what extent is it possible to do that? I've heard that it's impossible and that we'll have to wait till the next FS
Can someone shed some light on the change in software architecture and multiprocessing? (I'm no software code expert...)

 

My main concern is the fact that FSX doesn't take full advantage of dual cores...worse are quads... so I'd really love to know whether it's possible at all for MS to make it multiprocessing...

 

Its not just so slow and laggy because it only makes use of single core, it needs to be properly written for DX9 aswell.

 

I really can't be sure either but I'm pretty certain they could fairly easily allow mulitcore support by offloading certain tasks to other cores or allocation resources differently among the available cores for better performance. Apparently FSX was a pretty slapdash version in some regards as some of the components are pretty legacy, for instance you can still import and use a lot of 2004's files and planes for instance and they work flawlessly making me wonder just how updated this version is.

 

well even the default aircraft are more detailed... some systems have been completely redone etc... so only the simple add ons will work and yet not all of them, but those serious add ons such as the PMDG QOTS, PSS 777, LDS 767 won't work ...
so it's quite different from FS 2004; I noticed it when getting into FSX from FS 9... well even the default aircraft are more detailed... some systems have been completely redone etc... so only the simple add ons will work and yet not all of them, but those serious add ons such as the PMDG QOTS, PSS 777, LDS 767 won't work ...
so it's quite different from FS 2004; I noticed it when getting into FSX from FS 9...