Video Card Difference

jesusfreak · Post by **jesusfreak** » 2006-03-17 02:47pm

I was wondering what the difference between the GeForce 6800GS and GT was? The GS is way cheaper than the GT, yet seems better (based on specs). Can you enlighten me?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-17 03:10pm

This is clearly a job for...Hardware lover!

/Ahem, just keeping the Superhero trend on this forum ongoing.

The 6800GS is a 12 pipe design, with 425mhz core speed and 1ghz memory.
The 6800GT is a 16 pipe design, with 350mhz core and 1hz memory.

Overall, they preform nearly equally acording to Anandtech.com and beyond3d.com, with the 6800GT leading by a few FPS(nowhere over 10) once you add in Anti-Aliasing and AF. The difference is pronounced mainly in games such as HL2(GS leads here), FEAR(GT here),Quake4(GS). Also, the GS is apprently very overclockable, but unlike the GT, the preformance benefit is rather small.

Considering the GS is cheaper by quite a bit, I suggest going for the GS.

jesusfreak · Post by **jesusfreak** » 2006-03-17 03:20pm

I already did, because it was was cheaper. I was wondering the difference was after the fact. Also, isnt the GS really new, I mean, as in its release date, not GPU technology.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-17 03:29pm

jesusfreak wrote:I already did, because it was was cheaper. I was wondering the difference was after the fact. Also, isnt the GS really new, I mean, as in its release date, not GPU technology.

Its not new in either of those. The GS is an evolutionary part out of the 6800 line(NV40), on a smaller size. It was released last October-November to compete with ATis holiday offering, the X800GTO(if I recall correctly).

Oline61 · Post by **Oline61** » 2006-03-17 07:01pm

No chance of unlocking the 4 other pipes on the GS with Rivatuner is there? I remember most of the AGP 6800's could be unlocked to 16 pipes and then OCed to hell. I haven't gotten my hands on any PCI-E 6800xx's yet.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-18 03:53am

Oline61 wrote:No chance of unlocking the 4 other pipes on the GS with Rivatuner is there? I remember most of the AGP 6800's could be unlocked to 16 pipes and then OCed to hell. I haven't gotten my hands on any PCI-E 6800xx's yet.

Look around the internet for that, but I heavily suggest against unlocking pipes.

Dendrobius · Post by **Dendrobius** » 2006-03-18 10:01pm

6800GT AGP version is built on the NV40 core (same as 6800GT/Ultra), can be unlocked.

6800GT PCI-e version is built on the NV42 core. No pipes available to unlock.

It's that simple.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-19 12:21am

Dendrobius wrote:6800GT AGP version is built on the NV40 core (same as 6800GT/Ultra), can be unlocked.

6800GT PCI-e version is built on the NV42 core. No pipes available to unlock.

It's that simple.

Sure you're writing what you think you're writing?

Dendrobius · Post by **Dendrobius** » 2006-03-19 02:00am

Brain fart time!

6800GS, 6800GS! Still, you get the idea. 6800GS PCI-e = no unlocking as it's designed with 12 pipes only, 6800GS AGP is basically a remarked and hardware masked GT/Ultra. The pain in the ass is, 6800GS PCI-e has full Purevideo support as it's a NV42, the AGP version does NOT as it's a NV40 core.

Too many varieties of 6800...let's see, 6800LE, 6800XT, 6800, 6800GS, 6800GT, 6800Ultra. And then you get things like this, where the AGP and PCI-e versions are completely different beasties.

For the days when it was Ti4200, 4400, 4600 and that's it.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2006-03-19 03:30pm

I've got the 6800GS from eVGA and I absolutely love it. Had it for a couple of months now (after my forced upgrade).

Went from:

AMD Athlon XP 2800+
512MB PC2700 DDR
PNY Geforce4 Ti4600 128MB AGP 4x
Leadtek K7NCR18-D Pro (with the nVidia nForce2 Soundstorm audio codec!)
Fortron Source 350W PS

to:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1GB PC3200 DDR
eVGA Geforce 6800GS 256MB PCI-E
Asus A8N5X
Fortron Source 450W ATX12V v2.0 (scored this one for dirt cheap!)

$680.37 once s/h and sales tax was figured in. (yes, I had to pay sales tax since newegg has taken up root somewhere in TN....damn them!)

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-03-19 11:22pm

Dendrobius wrote:For the days when it was Ti4200, 4400, 4600 and that's it.

In my days, it was either Geforce 3 or Geforce 3!

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-03-20 02:39am

Yeah, it's getting a bit redicoulous. It seems that the manufacturers themselves can't keep it straight anymore. Yesterday I was checking out some cards with my cousin and we came upon two ATI's X1600 XTs made by Sapphire. One is a FR model, the other a LR. But absolutly nowhere that we looked (Sapphire, ATI, a few reviews) is the difference explained. Other then a ~10$ difference in price.

The alphabet soups are starting to become a little bit too dense. If one of the manufacturers went back to some sort of a sane, easy to understand system, I think they could easily pick up some sales from the other side.

Dendrobius · Post by **Dendrobius** » 2006-03-20 03:35am

Well, strictly speaking, I'd rather the days of the mighty Matrox Millenium II paired with an Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1 card. Choice? We don't need no stinking choice when you've got the fastest solution out there! (Nvidia 128ZX was just no competition back then, neither was the Rendition Verite)

Or when it was TNT2 Ultra vs Matrox G400Max vs Voodoo3. Competitors and clearly differentiated choice is good. Six varieties of the same bloody chip (6800 series now), with another three or four different chips hanging around as well (6600 series, 7800/7900 series, 6200 series) just does not bloody work.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-03-20 04:21am

I for one am glad we don't have to fuck around with Glide anymore.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-03-20 07:07am

Of course. However a more resonable naming policy wouldn't be that difficult to implement. Both of the main manufacturers are using a number in the thousands for models, so why not really use it? Instead of a X1600 Pro, XT, and regular, all with subflavors, why not have a X1500, X1550, X1555, X1600, etc.. Or something like that that gives you the relative performance of a model compared to other models of the same manufacturer at a glance.

Instead I'm supposed to know that XT is better then Pro which is better then regular, not counting the subflavors. And this is just one manufacturer (I'm not using nVidia for my examples because their GS,GT,GTX submodel scheme is even worse).