Nvidia drops new GEFORCE 8800 GTS 512 MB

by Ross Miller on Dec 11th 2007 4:44PM

Having already released a new, (sort of) budget-priced GeForce 8800 GT less than two months ago, Nvidia has just launched today a higher-end 8800 GTS 512 MB for the $299 to $349 price range. According to the press release (via GamesIndustry.biz), the card "offers 25% more graphics processing power than NVIDIA products previously offered at the same price point."

Our friends at Engadget have made the rest of the technospeak easier to understand: 65-nm technology, twin dual-link DVI ports, DirectX 10 support, smooth playback of H.264, VC-1, WMV and MPEG-2 HD and SD movies, and more. Sure, it'll set you back the cost of an Xbox 360 console, but you might be able to raise the graphics settings on Crysis up to a mind-blowing medium.

Source

Tags: geforce, geforce-8800, geforce-8800-gts, nvidia, PC

Reader Comments (71)

I reckon you get more bang for your buck with the 8800GT 512mb, such an awesome card for the price (the EVGA supperclocked was around £190 for me)

Yeah, I paid $235 for an XFX 8800GT, seems like a pretty solid deal for a card with very good performance. The 8800GT is really the most amazing thing I've seen recently regarding video cards - I don't think I've ever seen a card with better price to performance. It's truly a high-end card with a very affordable price. The closest I can think of was when the Radeon 9800 Pro was still high end and dropped around $220 or so.

I absolutely loved my Radeon 9800 Pro and was very happy with the purchase for a long time, so hopefully I'll feel the same about my 8800GT when it shows up in the mail.

@ DWells55

I'm still rockin' the 9800. It's aged well, but I think its time for an upgrade. This may be just what I need.

"Medium" is right...that game taxes worse than the IRS. I have a 8800GTS 256MB...waiting for the 9800 before I upgrade.

my GT 512mb runs crysis on high. I'm on XP Pro so I tried the config file editing to unlock some of the highest settings and it ran cool and dandy too. note this isnt on 1680x1050, my res is 1280x1024 (or is it 1280x960? one of those). But yes I agree, wait for the 9-series.

I can run high as well, as long as I'm in DirectX 9 mode...I like the DX10 effects, though, and right now "Medium" is the ceiling for me!

When is the 9 series due out? I'm looking to upgrade my seriously out-of-date PC in the next couple of months... probably January.

No news on the 9 series...so sad :o(

Even worse is the fact that ATI keeps releasing video cards that suck @SS, so NVidia has no reason to rush new items to the market...or reduce their prices. AMD merging with ATI was one of the worst business decisions ever IMO.

Vid, I'm currently saving up before building my next beast machine. I'm looking at $2000 cap to spend but a custom built machine creates a beast with such money.

I have a year-old 8800 GTS 640MB and I can max out Crysis and get a 30-40 FPS framerate. *Gasp* That's higher than most semi-demanding console games run at!

The 8800 GT can max it with even better performance, for only $250. Crysis is only a problem if you're trying to run it at a ridiculously high-resolution.

Aaron, I hope you realize you can enable all of the very high stuff-- with better performance-- in XP. Tweakguides.com FTW.

The fact that everyone is trying to run Crysis in Vista-- which is still a terrible operating system-- is probably part of why everyone thinks it's such a beast performance wise. Sure it is, if you're trying to run it with a handicapped computer =P XP is still made of win.

You're right, but I can't run DirectX 10, which is really what I want for lighting effects, etc.

What resolution do you play on Jeff?

Lol Aaron, you're missing my point. You can run all of those lighting effects (sunshafts FTW), parallax occlusion mapping, etc, IN DX9. Check out tweakguides.com.

I play in 1152x864 because I have a small monitor and higher resolutions don't offer much of an improvement in terms of image quality. Just to mess with stuff, I've played with settings and I can hit 1600 x 1200 without reducing my image quality TOO noticeably-- like most PC games, it's all about tweaking. I'm getting a 1680 x 1050 widescreen monitor soon, so I was getting some config files set up for that res =)

waiting for the 9800 ultra tri-sli set up. hopes it supports hmdi 1.3 and not just dvi, would like to use on a rear projection tv for a htpc. wondering if anyone here has the hdmi based video cards and do they have to deal with adjusting for overscan like with dvi to hdmi? i would think native hdmi support might be better. but dunno.

I know the ATI cards have HDMI outputs on them, at least the 2XXX HD series does, which is all their new cards. Just check the specs over at newegg or something. That's the one thing I wish nvidia had with the 8800GT's, but oh well. Seems like ATI is going for the multimedia mid range market big time.

ATI cards have displayport as well. Displayport is much better than HDMI. Hoepfully we wee HDMI go away soon.

Crysis runs great on my new 8800GT, best goddamn bang for the buck. Running it on high settings no AA. 250 bucks if you're lucky, but demand is so high they are going for around 300 if not sold out. Good to see nvidia still catering to the high end though, especially since ATI has really abandoned anything over the medium end market. Sad really, this is the first time I've bought Nvidia since the Geforce 3 Vanillas came out...and I'm glad.

yo have you tried running 4xAA? runs great for me. I guess CPU will help, Q6600 over here.

same here, Q6600, I love this thing, I just built my rig over the weekend. I've been so used to not using AA with my X1950 that I didn't even try it. I'm gonna give it a try. Our combination rocks for sure :P

Crysis laughs at my 8800GT 512MB SLI configuration (1080x1920). Oh well, maybe next year.

Don't do Vista. And if you have to, select "Play DX9"

If laugh, you mean runs horribly, there's something wrong with your PC.

That's a very low resolution, that one GT 512 would crush -_-

My 8800GTX runs Crysis almost perfectly at very high. Some lag when using a minigun...
This is good news though, but then again, the price will drop further when the 9000 series is introduced next year..

From an ex-LAN partier to a console only gamer all I can say to you people who still spend at least $300/year upgrading your PC is:

Suckers.

While I can still kick much more ass with a mouse and keyboard over controller on FPS games... its really not worth the financial cost to upgrade my PC, sit at a desk chair for hours on end and be less than 2 feet away from a PC monitor / LCD screen.

For those of you who have your PC hooked up in your living rooms... I already deem you coolest of the cool so no need to post.

Fuck you. 'nuff said.

im no yearly upgrader, since im posting to ya on a pentium 4 with 512 Mb ram and nvida gforce 4 4200 ti card lol 128Mb 120 GB harddrive. i can play hl2 fine though. fear not so much crysis lmfao hell nah. had this pc since 2001

I don't know what you're talking about. I upgrade my rig maybe once every four years, and that's enough to play anything on max settings save for the top-of-the-line stuff like Crysis. And I probably spend about $300-$400 doing it which, oh would you look at that, is about the same as a console.

Dammit... why the fuck does someone always have the stir the PC vs Console debate? Each has good reasons for exisiting... I don't even consider them direct competitors.

what a douche bag, go troll your console wars fanny boy bullshit and fuck off. Didn't you know? This news bit is rated AO, not available on console.

Because some people are trolling douchebags?

I agree with D dogg, though I wouldn't have started a post here stating my opinion. Sorry, I've played the upgrade game for ~15 years, and I just don't want to anymore. People who claim upgrading can be done for cheap must have better hardware suppliers than I've found in Canada. Mom & Pop stores will no longer let you buy OEM equipment on the cheap without a system like they used to. Best Buy & Future Shop have horrible prices on PC hardware. Websites that offer excellent deals either don't sell to Canada or kill you with shipping, customs etc. Consoles just offer me more fun for my dollar. However, I fully support everyone's right to purchase what they feel is best for them. PCs gave me many years of fun, and perhaps in the future they will again.

Well lets put things in perspective. Gamer A buys an Xbox 360 for $350 dollars, assuming we are using today's prices. Over four years, he buys 20 games at $60 each, $1550 (total). Add in four years of Live, and that brings it to $1750 (I don't care if you can get them for cheaper, if you assume that PC's need to be upgraded yearly, I assume Gamer A is is uneducated consumer).

Now, Gamer B, who believes it is time to upgrade his computer, decides to take the ~$400 he would spend on a new computer and build a gaming rig. He buys one of these shiny new 8800 GTS for $350, a Q6600 for $275, gets a decent motherboard for $130 and gets 2 gigs of ram for $40. He buys a harddrive for $70, a DVD drive for $30, and a case for $30. This brings him to $925, and if he was unfortunate enough to buy everything at different websites, about $40 for shipping. $965, $565 more than he would have normally spent. Add in a monitor for $200. Now then, if he buys 20 games, it would cost him $1000. Total, he would spend $2165, but has $400 that would have went to a computer if he bought a game console instead. So, he really only spent $1765, $15 dollars more than Gamer A. Not too bad considering he gets mods, and can use a mouse and keyboard (not factored into price because he probably had them, but if not, another $100). Now if Gamers A and B bought more games, Gamer B would end up paying less.

I apologize for the rant, but I am bored, and I dislike ignorance.

Ordeith
Ordeith
Dec 11th 2007
5:07PM

ATI cards have displayport as well. Displayport is much better than HDMI. Hoepfully we wee HDMI go away soon.

*********

ya for pc but im not using it on a pc, i plan on gettinga 70+ inch rear projection hdtv in the summer. so hdmi 1.3 would be where im headed.

The 8800 GT is still the best bang for the buck, as it actually outperforms the new GTS in many areas, and when the GTS wins, it wins by 1 or 2 FPS (literally).

With the 8800 GT, it's possible to build a gaming rig that can max Crysis for well under $1000. And hell, it's possible to get one built for you for around $1300, if you go for the Systemax systems on tigerdirect.

I dunno how many people know about this, but this is a constantly updated ranking of every video card, ever:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/67909965/m/706006538831

Very useful for making purchasing decisions.

yeah, tomshardware has one as well that's a bit more "user friendly".

updated monthly all in a chart :)

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/03/best_graphics_card/page6.html#summary

i have a mac for work, like video film editing. the pc would just be used for gaming and ripping my movies bluray hdddvd and dvd to.

Weak. I just finished a new rig with an eVGA 8800GTS SSC edition. It came with Crysis though, so I can't complain.

Ouch. Any particular reason you went with the GTS instead of the GT?

@Jeff:

It came with Crysis, that was my only real reason. The price was good too, $364 at newegg.com. Going to buy a second in a few months. Only crappy part about running SLI is that you have to use two identical cards, but I wouldn't mind a second copy of Crysis...

Sweet. Let me just buy this baby and plug it right into my 360...oh wait, I only game on consoles now, where I don't need to pay absurd amounts to upgrade EVERY SIX MONTHS.

have fun with modless games and clumsy thumbsticks. You're obviously not an enthusiast rather a casual, so in god's great words, fuck off troll.

Actually, I'm quite happy under my bridge. Why don't you come down and maybe we can talk about it, sweety.

You're an idiot, why would I want to hang out with a troll? Updating every 6 months? That's a sign of living under a bridge all right. Why post in a PC post other than be a douche.

They dropped it?! They'd better pick it up!

I expected it to be much more expensive than that when I saw the headline. That's not so bad. If I hadn't only recently rebuilt my PC I would consider getting this card, but my stuff is too new to replace already.

And, just my general response to the "ZOMG YOU HAVE TO UPGRADE EVERY 2 MINUTES OR ELSE UR COMPUTR DIEZ"-- not true at all.

PC games are created in such a way that you usually have settings which range from low to high. Low corresponds to older hardware, and high to newer hardware. Simple, right? But it seems many people miss this point. Sure, nothing on the market can max Crysis while playing at Cinematic-sized resolution, but a gaming rig from 3 years ago can definitely play it on low. How awesome would it be if you could play Halo 3 on your Xbox 1 at 480p instead of 640p?

I know that my 8800 GTS from last year will have to start playing games on medium settings in a year or so, and then low settings a year or two after that. I could continue playing longer than that with very low settings, lower resolutions, etc.

Either way, that's about 5 years per video-card before things get unplayable. And if you held out that long, odds are your next upgrade-- to get you back up to playing things on high-- will cost you under $200-- and that's for using a videocard for about the length of a console generation.

PC gaming is only expensive if you need to have all the bells and whistles. It can be extremely, extremely cheap-- especially since you already have a computer, as you're reading this site, which probably would only need a $200 upgrade in order to play most PC games.

Those PC gamers who buy new videocards every 6 months are the one's who pay for innovation; without them, nvidia and ATI would innovate much more slowly-- and consoles would suffer as a result. PC gamers tend to respect consoles, so please give us the same fucking respect.

THANK YOU. I couldn't handle the whining any longer.

I tend to squeeze five or six years out of all my PC hardware unless I find something amazing for an absolute steal. The only reason I rebuilt was the excuse of my northbridge getting toasted. Could justify new parts for just about everything with a motherboard upgrade.

I think most of the whining from console only gamers comes from the huge news about big PC games like Crysis, especially after that great looking '06 demo, where the graphics are the next big thing.

Slightly off topic, I wish I could find the link again. There's a way to tweak Crysis to above the max settings the game's UI provides and really have it looking like the previously mentioned '06 demo. Its very impressive to see in action. I think gametrailers has user submitted video of it.

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Nvidia drops new GEFORCE 8800 GTS 512 MB

Reader Comments (71)

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 4:52PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 5:04PM DWells55 said

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 7:50PM Professor Chaos said

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