8800GT hits store shelves!

[Yellowhello]

Originally Posted by polobunny

Read the reviews though. Apparently the core gets quite hot... I think it's only a matter of time before we see 8800GT with a revised cooling or a lot of RMAs.

Yeah... Or lots of competition in the aftermarket GPU cooling ring.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

Yeah... Or lots of competition in the aftermarket GPU cooling ring.

I'm personally not a fan of after market GPU coolers. Not because I don't think they perform well or anything, but mostly because people shouldn't need to modify their products (and most of the time technically void their warranty) to make them work properly.
Buying an after market cooler for your graphic card is all nice when you have the knowledge and you don't mind voiding your warranty, but for the commoner that just want to buy a product that will work that's rarely a viable solution.

All in all though, the 8800GT looks like a very promising product, agressively priced enough to even compete with the older 8800 series card.
I'm still waiting for ATI... So far i'm rather deceived. Neither AMD or ATI have been churning out products able to compete with Intel or Nvidia in the high performance section.
Maybe AMD should invest in Intel, then they'd have enough money to come back with something hot. Aww I shouldn't say that, I'm such a meanie. :P


Edit: Dang... Just went thru my wholesaler e-shop. $232 for the Asus 8800GT. I almost clicked add 1 to cart. :P

[Quakindude]

EVGA video cards will not have voided warranties if you replace the stock cooler with an after market solution. As long as you don't physically damage the card in the process, the warranty is still honored.

After market coolers for video cards makes as much sense as after market coolers for CPU's. They are aimed at a niche market of enthusiasts who overclock and squeeze their hardware for higher performance. If you're going to overclock, going with an after market cooler is a no brainer.

[gvblake22]

WOW, they're totally sold out already! This one pretty sweet card for the money. But I agree with screwballl, I'm gonna wait for ATI's DX10.1 cards before making any swift decisions... My X1950Pro is hitting it's limits now that I have this damn 1920x1200 screen!

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

EVGA video cards will not have voided warranties if you replace the stock cooler with an after market solution. As long as you don't physically damage the card in the process, the warranty is still honored.

After market coolers for video cards makes as much sense as after market coolers for CPU's. They are aimed at a niche market of enthusiasts who overclock and squeeze their hardware for higher performance. If you're going to overclock, going with an after market cooler is a no brainer.

Originally Posted by polobunny

Not because I don't think they perform well or anything, but mostly because people shouldn't need to modify their products (and most of the time technically void their warranty) to make them work properly.

;D

Indeed, that's what after market coolers are for. But the fact is so far the 8800GT while being on a 65nm process runs incredibly hot while playing, probably due to the minimalist one slot cooler. Hopefully this card doesn't turn in a RMA fiasco like the OC'ed 7900s.

Originally Posted by gvblake22

WOW, they're totally sold out already! This one pretty sweet card for the money. But I agree with screwballl, I'm gonna wait for ATI's DX10.1 cards before making any swift decisions... My X1950Pro is hitting it's limits now that I have this damn 1920x1200 screen!

Bah I thought my X1900XT would fail on me when I got my 24incher but there's so little difference between a 2x AA and 4x AA at this resolution that it's still doing fine. Frankly, I've seen that the biggest framerate drop is caused by shadows in games. Putting them to low or medium depending on the games normally saves my ass. :P

[Yellowhello]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

WOW, they're totally sold out already!

Holy sh*t they are! They weren't sold out when I posted the link... Damn they went fast!:burnout:

[polobunny]

They're sold out at my wholesaler too. I know I can bribe my seller though so he somehow forgets to put one in someone else order... :P

[Stormcrow]

60°C load is the temp I've heard, which is about as high as an Ultra. The GT outperforms the current 640mb GTS and is usually on par with the GTX in most situations. It also shouldn't be as screwy driver-wise since it uses standard amounts of bus and RAM instead of that 320, 640 crap. It also has 112 shaders instead of the 96 shaders found in the current GTS, but the new batch of GTS's will be shipping with 112 as well. For those that haven't followed the news around it.

I got my 8800GTS because:

1: Only had a FX 5500 for 3 years, and wanted to get one of the high end flagship cards. This was the 8800GTS at the time, the 2900XT didn't come out for a few months and didn't quite stand up to it anyway.

2. Wasn't too concerned about DX10 then, but the G80's rock in DX9 games. I can play Far Cry above Very Low 800x600 now! That, and I can max STALKER, SupCom, World in Conflict, Bioshock, and still get awesome to decent framerates.

3. Not all depressed over paying 400 for a card thats now beat by one at 250, thats fine. I've been enjoying all those games for the months I've had it now, and a difference of 3-5 FPS isn't anything I would get worked up over. While the single slot cooler is nice, I'd just put a dual slot aftermarket on it anyway.

4. Unless the DX10.1 cards bring some revolutionary change to the playing field, my GTS is good to go for about 2 years.

[polobunny]

I've seen reviews saying aroud 70C for the core temp of the 8800GT, some going even in the 80's. *shrugs*
Frankly, it's very rarely worth to wait. It's buy now or never on the computer world. At most wait a week.

[JazzyJake]

meh, eVGA will do a KO edition with an awesome cooler, i'm hoping