Which graphics card out of 9600GT and 8800GT?

Breegle · Apr 20, 2008

Hey guys,

I know this question has been overdone but with the varying prices I'm wondering if the answer's changed. I'm going to be getting one of these two:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/nova...specpage.html?NOV-96GT

http://www.novatech.co.uk/nova...specpage.jsp?NOV-88GT5

I'd like to spend as little as possible, but I'm willing to get the 8800GT if it'll mean I don't have to upgrade for a while longer. I'd be playing at 1280x1024 and I'd be willing to compromise on some graphical features as long as I get playable frame rates whilst looking relatively good. Also my power supply is a 550W with two 12V rails at 17A each.

Cheers,
Breegle

Lithan · Apr 20, 2008

@ your res, I can't think of a situation where the 8800gt would really help ya out all that much. Even @ crysis 8800gt is only ~ 2fps more @ that res. The 9600gt will run quieter, cooler and costs less. I'd go with it... unless ya can get an 8800gt with upgraded cooling for the same price as the one you linked. I would avoid 8800gt stock cooler like the plague.

Canterwood · Apr 20, 2008

I think the 8800GT is worth the extra few quid, and when nvidia finally pull their finger outta their a$$es and release current 8800 series drivers then performance should increase over the 9600GT.

Lithan · Apr 20, 2008

There's a beta out now I think... I cracked the 174's onto my 8800gt. max fps went up slightly avg went down, and I got errors in some games, so I went back to 169's.

DLing the beta now, I'll let yall know.

Dream Operator · Apr 20, 2008

Lithan · Apr 20, 2008

Ok 8800gt 169 vs 174's

Crysis

35.24fps avg vs 35.75 fps avg

bioshock

87.133 fps avg vs 96.683 fps avg (Only game that showed a major difference)

COH
54.6fps avg vs 54.1 fps avg (169's slightly faster)

HGL
48.43 vs 47.317 (again 169's slightly faster)

HL2
106.433 vs 106.133 (again 169's slightly faster)

Really the only game that showed any difference larger than the probable margin of error is Bioshock. I was actually surprised how much of a boost it got... of course both Bioshock and COH are limited by Vsync... I disabled it for bioshock and left it on for COH... so it's very likely COH could show just as much a difference in 169's favor with it disabled... either way, it's irrelevent. I dont think many would take 90fps sans vsync over 60fps with it.

Seems this huge performance boost nvidia was hiding from 8000 owners to trick people into buying 9000's never existed... at least according to my testing.

Breegle · Apr 21, 2008

Thanks for the information and the thread links. In the end I decided to go with the 8800GT since I was able to find one only £10 more than a stock 9600GT and cheaper than OC'd 9600GTs, and from what I can gather, stock 8800GT = OC'd 9600GT. I've heard bad things about the stock 8800GT fan but frankly if it breaks, it's a faulty card and I send it back which I have no problem with. I also made this decision based on the fact that I reckon when the time comes, an 8800GT will sell for more on eBay.

Out of curiousity, why do people perceive the HD 3870 as competing in this mid-range catagory? As far as I can tell it's because it comes close to both the 9600GT and 8800GT in terms of performance, but "comes close" in this case means worse than both, especially in tests involving anti-aliasing, and I haven't found one cheaper than the cheapest 9600GT I can find. What's going on here?

error8 · Apr 21, 2008

Originally posted by: Breegle
Thanks for the information and the thread links. In the end I decided to go with the 8800GT since I was able to find one only £10 more than a stock 9600GT and cheaper than OC'd 9600GTs, and from what I can gather, stock 8800GT = OC'd 9600GT. I've heard bad things about the stock 8800GT fan but frankly if it breaks, it's a faulty card and I send it back which I have no problem with.

Out of curiousity, why do people perceive the HD 3870 as competing in this mid-range catagory? As far as I can tell it's because it comes close to both the 9600GT and 8800GT in terms of performance, but "comes close" in this case means worse than both, especially in tests involving anti-aliasing, and I haven't found one cheaper than the cheapest 9600GT I can find. What's going on here?

3870 is on par with 9600 GT. Is 2% slower on average when using AA and 2% faster when no AA is involved. If I had to choose between a 9600 GT and a 3870 I would get the 3870 but only if it was cheaper or at the same price with the 9600 GT. As you've already stated, the biggest problem with this ATI card is being priced quite bad for the performance it has, being more expensive then the 9600 GT in most cases.

Lithan · Apr 21, 2008

3870 is perceived as competing with the 8800gt because performance is quite close in most games, even among cards with very different capabilities. In a lot of benches 9600gt is competitive with 8800gtx despite being nowhere close to the card... just because a lot of benches are still used that really dont tell us anything. This let's people ummm... creatively interpret benchmark results to define their card as stronger or more powerful in xyz hypothetical situation because it only gets it's ass whooped in modern games and/or at reasonable resolutions/settings.

Yeah 3870's run as well as or a little better than 9600gt without AA... but they lose a lot of performance when you turn on AA. 9600gt's dont in most cases. And I run Max AA in every game I play right now, so it's silly to suggest to me that the 3870's better than 9600gt. And the 8800gt is faster still. There's really no comparison between 3870 and 8800gt, it's settled, the gt's the faster card.

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Which graphics card out of 9600GT and 8800GT?

Breegle

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Lithan

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Canterwood

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Lithan

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Dream Operator

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Lithan

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Breegle

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error8

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Lithan

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