How is the 8600GTS DX10 256MB PCI-e16x

[Genesis15]

I was thinking eigther the Nvidia 8600GTS or X1950GT or PRO , the x1950 is only dx9 and supposidly marches 10fps more in games.. but how well will the 8600gts run dx10 games, and how much better will it run games like crysis?

 

[Syntax Error]

An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

 

[RavenGuard]

Expect to run games like Crysis and Supreme Commander on Low settings with some frame rate issues using a 8600gts

 

[AzN]

Funny 8600gts edges out 1950 pro in Crysis and run medium settings 1280x800 without much issues. Has no problem playing Supreme Commander at the highest settings.

They are about equal in performance. Either card will give you about same experience. 1950pro does well in older games with FSAA. 8600gts does well in newer games with shader heavy games.

 

[bryanW1995]

spend the few extra $$ and get a 3850.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

 

[Denithor]

Don't bother with the 8600GTS.

Just get the Radeon HD 3850 for $185.

It easily destroys the weak 8600GTS and beats the previous generation 7950GT and x1950xtx so it will obviously be considerably stronger than the x1950gt.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

I think you've definitely mistaken. 8600gts has fillrate very close to 8800gts. With a 256bit bus it would be fast as 3850 if not faster.

8800gts fillrate 12000 Mtexels/s
8600gts has a fillrate of 10800 Mtexels/s but it's being hampered by it's 128bit memory bus to about 7600 Mtexels/s tested here.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Don't bother with the 8600GTS.

Just get the Radeon HD 3850 for $185.

It easily destroys the weak 8600GTS and beats the previous generation 7950GT and x1950xtx so it will obviously be considerably stronger than the x1950gt.

No doubt 3850 is faster but it still cost more. You can easily pickup a 8600gts or 1950pro for $110 although it might be open box.

For the low end of spectrum you can't beat 1950pro or 8600gts. budget midrange would 3850.

Then we have 8800gts and 3870.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

I think you've definitely mistaken. 8600gts has fillrate very close to 8800gts. With a 256bit bus it would be fast as 3850 if not faster.

8800gts fillrate 12000 Mtexels/s
8600gts has a fillrate of 10800 Mtexels/s but it's being hampered by it's 128bit memory bus to about 7600 Mtexels/s tested here.

I still dont think it would make much difference. The 8800GTS murders the 8600GTS in shader operations. it has nearly three times the shader operations and consequently has about three times the performance. a 256bit bus would do little to reduce that.

 

[j0j081]

all of the cards faster than a regular 8600gt need bigger than a 300 watt power supply though right? trying to figure out the best card for my friend's hp.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: j0j081
all of the cards faster than a regular 8600gt need bigger than a 300 watt power supply though right? trying to figure out the best card for my friend's hp.

well then you will probably need to stick with the 8600gt. he could maybe get away with an 8600gts depending on the rest of his specs. I have had an 8600gt in my HP for nearly 8 months with no issues at all.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

I think you've definitely mistaken. 8600gts has fillrate very close to 8800gts. With a 256bit bus it would be fast as 3850 if not faster.

8800gts fillrate 12000 Mtexels/s
8600gts has a fillrate of 10800 Mtexels/s but it's being hampered by it's 128bit memory bus to about 7600 Mtexels/s tested here.

I still dont think it would make much difference. The 8800GTS murders the 8600GTS in shader operations. it has nearly three times the shader operations and consequently has about three times the performance. a 256bit bus would do little to reduce that.

In the real world fillrate and bandwidth drive games not shader. Shader would be useless without it.

8600gts has 32SP yet it is clocked much higher than 8800gts SP clocks. It actually has 1/2 the shader operations per second. It might not beat 8800gts but your original statement of being not giving better performance have definitely mistaken. The 8600gts is being tied down by it bandwidth.

3850 has 16tmu as well but 16 rops. Rops only help you out in single texturing situations or much higher resolutions. 8600gts would perform fast as 3850 if it did have 256bit memory bus.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

I think you've definitely mistaken. 8600gts has fillrate very close to 8800gts. With a 256bit bus it would be fast as 3850 if not faster.

8800gts fillrate 12000 Mtexels/s
8600gts has a fillrate of 10800 Mtexels/s but it's being hampered by it's 128bit memory bus to about 7600 Mtexels/s tested here.

I still dont think it would make much difference. The 8800GTS murders the 8600GTS in shader operations. it has nearly three times the shader operations and consequently has about three times the performance. a 256bit bus would do little to reduce that.

In the real world fillrate and bandwidth drive games not shader. Shader would be useless without it.

8600gts has 32SP yet it is clocked much higher than 8800gts SP clocks. It actually has 1/2 the shader operations per second. It might not beat 8800gts but your original statement of being not giving better performance have definitely mistaken. The 8600gts is being tied down by it bandwidth.

3850 has 16tmu as well but 16 rops. Rops only help you out in single texturing situations or much higher resolutions. 8600gts would perform fast as 3850 if it did have 256bit memory bus.

I completely disagree and the 3850 is a different architecture. Also look at the 3870 with a 256bit bus that beats(performance is equal clock for clock) the 512bit 2900xt. Thats proof that extra memory bus width doesnt help if the rest of the specs of the card arent strong. In other words the architecture of the 2900/3850/3870 isnt strong enough for the bus width to be the bottleneck just as the 128bit bus width is not the main performance issue for the 8600gts.

If the 8600gts had 64 SP instead of 32 then its performance would double just like going from the 8500gt to the 8600gt. Increasing the memory bus width wouldnt have nearly as much impact if at all. Of course if the 8600gts actually had 64 SP then having more bus width would actually be beneficial. Its clearly the rest of the card that is MOSTLY responsible for its lousy performance.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

I think you've definitely mistaken. 8600gts has fillrate very close to 8800gts. With a 256bit bus it would be fast as 3850 if not faster.

8800gts fillrate 12000 Mtexels/s
8600gts has a fillrate of 10800 Mtexels/s but it's being hampered by it's 128bit memory bus to about 7600 Mtexels/s tested here.

I still dont think it would make much difference. The 8800GTS murders the 8600GTS in shader operations. it has nearly three times the shader operations and consequently has about three times the performance. a 256bit bus would do little to reduce that.

In the real world fillrate and bandwidth drive games not shader. Shader would be useless without it.

8600gts has 32SP yet it is clocked much higher than 8800gts SP clocks. It actually has 1/2 the shader operations per second. It might not beat 8800gts but your original statement of being not giving better performance have definitely mistaken. The 8600gts is being tied down by it bandwidth.

3850 has 16tmu as well but 16 rops. Rops only help you out in single texturing situations or much higher resolutions. 8600gts would perform fast as 3850 if it did have 256bit memory bus.

I completely disagree and the 3850 is a completely different architecture. Also look at the 3870 with a 256bit bus that beats(performance is equal clock for clock) the 512bit 2900xt. thats proof that extra memory bus width doesnt help if the rest of the specs of the card arent strong. In other words the architecture of the 2900/3850/3870 isnt strong enough for the bus width to be the bottleneck just as the 128bit bus width not the main performance issue for the 8600gts.

If the 8600gts had 64sp instead of 32 then its performance would double just like going from the 8500gt to the 8600gt. increasing the memory bus width wouldnt have nearly as much impact. its clearly the rest of the card that is MOSTLY responsible for its lousy performance.

I'm sorry but that 2900xt memory bandwidth was useless. Memory bandwidth is useless without texture fillrate.

You talk of SP like it dictates performance. Let me tell you something fillrate is king, second comes bandwidth, than shaders.

The reason why 8800gt does so well because it has major improved texturing abilities. Not because it has extra 16SP clocks over 8800gts. It has enough fillrate to kill the gtx but it is still hampered by memory bandwidth.

Did you not see the link I gave you? 8600gts is definitely being held back by memory bandwdith since it's theoretical fillrate is 10800 not 7600. It needs memory bandwdith to saturate that fill rate.

Never mind you can go on. I'm wasting my breath.

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Syntax Error
An 8600 won't be very good at high resolutions or with a lot of AA and AF on due to its 128-bit memory bandwidth. You're much better off with the x1950 if you wanted to game in high resolutions, despite it being DX10 incompatible; I wouldn't fret about a card not being able to run DX10 anyways, visual differences are marginal, at best.

The 8600 sucking has very little to do with 128bit memory. The main reason it sucks is because it only has 32 SP, 8 ROPs, and 16 TMUs. If the only thing you improved was the bus width to 256-bit the card would perform almost exactly the same. The 8600 series doesnt have the raw power to run modern games above 1024x768 or 1280x1024 so a bigger bus width would do almost nothing for it.

I think you've definitely mistaken. 8600gts has fillrate very close to 8800gts. With a 256bit bus it would be fast as 3850 if not faster.

8800gts fillrate 12000 Mtexels/s
8600gts has a fillrate of 10800 Mtexels/s but it's being hampered by it's 128bit memory bus to about 7600 Mtexels/s tested here.

I still dont think it would make much difference. The 8800GTS murders the 8600GTS in shader operations. it has nearly three times the shader operations and consequently has about three times the performance. a 256bit bus would do little to reduce that.

In the real world fillrate and bandwidth drive games not shader. Shader would be useless without it.

8600gts has 32SP yet it is clocked much higher than 8800gts SP clocks. It actually has 1/2 the shader operations per second. It might not beat 8800gts but your original statement of being not giving better performance have definitely mistaken. The 8600gts is being tied down by it bandwidth.

3850 has 16tmu as well but 16 rops. Rops only help you out in single texturing situations or much higher resolutions. 8600gts would perform fast as 3850 if it did have 256bit memory bus.

I completely disagree and the 3850 is a completely different architecture. Also look at the 3870 with a 256bit bus that beats(performance is equal clock for clock) the 512bit 2900xt. thats proof that extra memory bus width doesnt help if the rest of the specs of the card arent strong. In other words the architecture of the 2900/3850/3870 isnt strong enough for the bus width to be the bottleneck just as the 128bit bus width not the main performance issue for the 8600gts.

If the 8600gts had 64sp instead of 32 then its performance would double just like going from the 8500gt to the 8600gt. increasing the memory bus width wouldnt have nearly as much impact. its clearly the rest of the card that is MOSTLY responsible for its lousy performance.

I'm sorry but that 2900xt memory bandwidth was useless. Memory bandwidth is useless without texture fillrate.

You talk of SP like it dictates performance. Let me tell you something fillrate is king, second comes bandwidth, than shaders.

The reason why 8800gt does so well because it has major improved texturing abilities. Not because it has extra 16SP clocks over 8800gts. It has enough fillrate to kill the gtx but it is still hampered by memory bandwidth.

Did you not see the link I gave you? 8600gts is definitely being held back by memory bandwdith since it's theoretical fillrate is 10800 not 7600. It needs memory bandwdith to saturate that fill rate.

Never mind you can go on. I'm wasting my breath.

yes you are wasting your breath because Im not going to agree with you. your out of your mind if you think bus width is more important than sp on low end cards. its a fact that the 8600gt is TWICE as fast(and sometimes more because of its higher core clock) as the 8500gt and they both use 128bit bus width but the 8600gt has 32 SP compared to the 16 SP of the 8500gt.

is the 8500gt twice as fast as the 8400gs?...um no and the only real difference is the bus width since they both have 16SP. the 8500gt and 8400gs are almost dead even at playable settings. SP have a much bigger impact on performance than bus width on the low end cards like the 8600gt/gts.

 

[AzN]

I'm wasting my breath because you lack any real knowledge how 3d works.


marvelous211 wrote :

Fact is 8800gt has superior texturing abilities. About triple the performance of 3870. Fillrate still drives games. Not shader.



Finally someone who gets it ! :hello:

Also add to that the different ways of handling AA resolve and you can easily see the areas of weakness.
Sometimes it's not as pronounced because of other choke points evening out things a bit, but overall those two areas are the biggest sore point, with the texture power being the main one and the AA being the second. If they had managed to improve the TMU number or design it would've greatly boosted performance, and unfortunately at this point going back to the old style of AA makes little sense if the direction is shader based.

I'm still mildly surprised that they didn't use some of the extra die space to improve their texture situation, but there was probably other factors involved, like time/money or the proximity of the R700 (no use in putting costly/risky effort into the HD3800 if it at all delays the R700).

http://www.tomshardware.com/fo...page-246437_33_80.html

 

[AzN]

SP might dictate performance in the future but currently it's fillrate.

 

[AzN]

If SP drives games why is it that 3870 can do more shader operations per second than 8800gt can't beat it?

8800gt=168000 Operations/sec
3870=248000 Operations/sec

Something for Toyota to think about~

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Azn
If SP drives games why is it that 3870 can do more shader operations per second than 8800gt can't beat it?

8800gt=168000 Operations/sec
3870=248000 Operations/sec

Something for Toyota to think about~

you obviously cant comprehend what I am saying. Im saying at this point in time on low end cards that SP is more important than having a 256-bit bus. Did you completely ignore the 8600gt to 8500gt along with the 8500gt to 8400gs comparisons. It shows that SP not bus width had a huge impact on performance. On the next round of lower end cards such as the 9600gt then yes having a 128bit bus width will kill performance but as for the 8600gts that not its MAIN performance hurdle.

 

[chewietobbacca]

A 3850 might run fine on the 300W PSU depending on what the rest of the system your friend runs on. Specs would be helpful

And Azn, games today are very shader intensive, so more SP's tends to matter more than the bus. Going from 512 to 256 didn't hurt the 3870 at all from the 2900XT - maybe for the 8800GT it did (at high res) but only at high res (vs. the GTX and Ultra). And anyways, the 8600GTS does not have a 256-bit bus so the point is moot - the 3850 is the faster card period.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: toyota

Originally posted by: Azn
If SP drives games why is it that 3870 can do more shader operations per second than 8800gt can't beat it?

8800gt=168000 Operations/sec
3870=248000 Operations/sec

Something for Toyota to think about~

you obviously cant comprehend what I am saying. Im saying at this point in time on low end cards that SP is more important than having a 256-bit bus. Did you completely ignore the 8600gt to 8500gt along with the 8500gt to 8400gs comparisons. It shows that SP not bus width had a huge impact on performance. On the next round of lower end cards such as the 9600gt then yes having a 128bit bus width will kill performance but as for the 8600gts that not its MAIN performance hurdle.

I comprehend it alright but you clearly can't comprehend a card like 8600gts is being held back by its bandwidth.

1950xtx=31200 Shader Operations/sec
8600gts=46400 Shader Operations/sec

Which card performs faster?

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: chewietobbacca
A 3850 might run fine on the 300W PSU depending on what the rest of the system your friend runs on. Specs would be helpful

And Azn, games today are very shader intensive, so more SP's tends to matter more than the bus. Going from 512 to 256 didn't hurt the 3870 at all from the 2900XT - maybe for the 8800GT it did (at high res) but only at high res (vs. the GTX and Ultra). And anyways, the 8600GTS does not have a 256-bit bus so the point is moot - the 3850 is the faster card period.

Yes shaders do quite bit of part in games like Oblivion and Crysis but without fill rate or bandwidth SP is useless.

Usually it's the combination of fillrate, bandwidth, and SP. Once a game is given enough Shaders it needs fillrate rate and bandwidth which commands performance.

Clearly 3870 can do more with it's 320 SP but it's still can't beat 8800gt in most of the games out today. 8800gt has massive texture fillrate about 3x of 3870 which commands it's lead. Not SP shaders. If 8800gt had 512bit memory architecture it would kill 8800ultra.

Same thing can be said about the new 8800gts with 128 SP shaders coming out on Dec. 11th. It has 128 SP shaders that are clocked much higher than original 8800gtx but it still can't beat 8800gtx because it's being held back by it's bandwidth to saturate the massive fillrate rate it has over 8800gtx.

 

[j0j081]

Originally posted by: chewietobbacca
A 3850 might run fine on the 300W PSU depending on what the rest of the system your friend runs on. Specs would be helpful

I believe its a Q6600, 3 GB Ram, 2 hdds, and a tv tuner card (which could be removed to save power). I found this chart which makes it look like a system with a 3850 would only use 302 watts at full load and that has a faster processor.

http://www.extremetech.com/art.../0,1697,2217143,00.asp