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Nvidia Launches New Affordable GPU
mikemuch writes "Today Nvidia unveiled a new low-cost, high-power graphics processor SKU. ExtremeTech's Jason Cross has done all the benchmarking, and concludes ' This makes for an impressive bargain and a huge step up from the generic GeForce 6800. The big question: How will this fare against ATI's similarly priced X1000 series card, the Radeon X1600 XT?'"
We are often asked "Which video card should I buy?" We always answer with "well how much do you want to spend?" The inevitable reply is that everyone wants to run all the latest graphics-heavy games at high resolutions with all the features enabled, but they only want to spend $100 to $150 to do so. Sorry to say, but that's just not going to happen. The real sweet spot for graphics is in the $250 to $300 price range.
I cannot express how frustrating this is. People, please do not spend more than $150 on video card. This is just insane. I guess we do need people like this to keep the graphics market hot by paying $300 for a card. I just hope game manufactures don't think that their games should require $300 cards.
Granted this is a rough approximation, but it seems that GPUs are destined to waste all the power [watts] modern CPUs are saving.
I wish video card makers would be more CLEAR when they decide on names for their cards.
We are one step away from having "Nvidia Model 8912347892389110".
For lay men like myself who buy a new video card every few years, it is hard knowing what is what in the video card market since the names are very confusing i.e. 6800 GS vs. X800XL vs. 6800 GT.
Discuss.
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Nvidia is really the only way to go for 3D in linux. If you really only need 2D, I've heard good things about the old Matrox cards, but good luck finding one.
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$250 makes for "a new low-cost, high-power graphics processor"?
There are lots of other reviews out there, too. Looks like the 6800GS kicks the X1600 where it hurts. Over and over and over again.
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Is there a technolgical reason why multiple GPUs can't be put on a card? I freely admit I know very little about graphics cards but it seems like it might be a cheap way to make a very powerful card. I seem to remember there was a card with two processors on that failed dismally because basically twice the price. What about a card with 4 or 8 cheap processors? Ok the power consumption would be silly but as long as it could be throttled so that when not playing a game only 1 GPU was used it might work. Just thought I'd share that with you all :o)
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$250 is a new breakthrough in affordability?
I was naively waiting to read about a $100 gpu that performed well enough to play today's games at lcd resolutions.
When you can build a very fast system with everything sans gpu for $400-$500 spending more than half the system cost on a single component sounds fucking stupid.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Why do this I wondered? The problem was in government contracts. After you'd paid back the design costs addition computers could be pumped out at a cheaper price while still both making a profit and remaining competitive. The fly in this ointment is that the government, who often bought quantities of the earlier models where cost was not the first concern (when has cost ever been a concern to governments spending tax money?). I was told that the government contracts stipulated that if you ever lower the price on something you've sold them you have to rebate them the entire difference on every system delivered. Of course that would bankrupt any company, so they resorted to this rather transparent subterfuge.
Perhaps some form of that's what's happening here as well.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Yeah, Extremetech is after all a big tech publishers attempt at a tech enthusiast site. If you are in the $250-$300 range then you should spend $33 extra bucks and go with this evga 7800GT. It is worth the extra chunk of change. Not only will it be much faster than the cards that Extremetech recommends, but it also uses less power than the 6800GT, and therefor puts off less heat. That is a no brainer in my book.
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I think this shows everything thats wrong with the tech review industry. They Adver-review cards pretty much only for kids to drool over and feel bad about their existing card that works just fine on pretty much every game they play; and 'Enthusiasts" IE, one born every minute.
Instead of working as a consumer reports type site, where If i want to buy a good graphics card for my ~700-1100 dollar computer (Not my 4 grand alienware) I would be digging through archaic reviews from a few years ago with test results on old drivers.
Wow, this just in, a 700 dollar card dual SLI card can play games at resolutions larger than my monitor can handle, at colour depths the human eye can't discern, at a framerate so fast the human eye doesnt pick it up, on a game that probably wasn't made to take advantage of the card, and with an actual visual performance increase I can barely notice. But the good news is I smoke em when I run a benchmark utility.
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The AC is correct. The fastest, last AGP card from ATI was the X850 XT PE. If you want anything faster or new, it's only offered in PCI-E. To be frank, this pisses me off. There is a whole market with people running fast CPUs and DDR 3200 memory that do NOT want to swap out their motherboard. I cannot imagine why in the hell the current crop of video chipset cannot handle the bandwidth provided by AGP 8x. I mean, clearly there is a market for AGP cards.
I'm sorry, but I will not swap out my CPU and motherboard just so I can install faster cards only available in PCI-E.
Life is not for the lazy.
I bought a 6600 PCI-E for 179$. Why did I buy a 6600 PCI-E for 179$?
... But if that's what it takes to make the game "fun" we're obviously not playing the same games.
... you need a few moments of education :-)
It was the cheapest "non-crap" PCI-E from nvidia I could find. And you know what? It plays Far Cry, Thief3, Battlefield2 and the others JUST fine.
This bullshit article about "needing a 6800GT to enjoy the games" is just that. Bullshit. Sure the game may look shinier at 1600x1200 with 200fps and a billion texels/sec or whatever
Point is this article is all about selling the latest bullshit cards you don't need. A 6600 will do you just fine if you're an average gamer [e.g. you have REAL work to do the rest of the day], it can play games at 1024 and 1280 reasonable well [very well at the former].
If you're on a budget and you think you need to spend 250$ USD [keep in mind 179$ I'm talking about is Canadian not USD] to enjoy games
This is just a press release disguised on a 30 page article [chalk full of ads no less] to sell the latest and greatest...
Tom
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GeForce 6800 GT - $266, according to PriceGrabber.
The cheaper model has 12 instead of 16 pixel shaders, and 5 instead of 6 vertex shaders. They probably use the same chip. The benchmarks are close. $17 cheaper. Big deal.
In terms of price/performance, Via is probably the leader. They've just introduced some new S3 Chrome boards that are roughly comparable to the GEForce 6800 line, but are priced around $150. That technology will probably be in Via's motherboard chipsets soon, at an even lower price.