so was the GTS a G92 or the older generation? i'm trying to understand why the GT is doing better for you. i'm looking around at video cards again because i'm finding my 8600GTS can't do quite as much as i'd like with morrowind (i'm using several graphics enhancers).

from what i read, the GTS 512 should do a bit better than the GT 512. though, to be fair, i only see a single GTS clocked up to 700 (at $460!), whereas i'm finding several GT's at that speed.

edit:

so i'm shop-browsing around. the gigabyte card you got is about $280 on newegg (btw i saw your review ). the GTS's seem to retail for about that range if they're not super-OC'ed, but come with a double-wide stock cooler instead of the aftermarket zalman. the best-rated VGA cooler on newegg is a $30 zalman, and that might give me the cooling i need to OC a GTS to above 700 (BFG has one at 700, but it costs like $450!). of course if i'm gonna OC myself, there's another $20 spent on unlocking the options. so i'm looking at spending $50 more and OCing myself if i got for a GTS. some of the reviews i read also noted that the GTS does a bit better at higher resolutions, and considering i like to run at 1920x1200 when possible, that's a noteworthy difference for me.

my big dilemma is whether i want to spend a bit more and do a bit more work for what could turn out to be marginal gains. so that gigabyte card has been put on my watch list (one final perk of getting a gigabyte VGA would be the matching PCB color... )

i wouldn't call myself married to newegg, but i do use them as a touchstone, so to speak. i figure their prices are reflective of what deals i can find on a per-product basis.

Some of these vendors are pretty shady and I've been through a few of them. It's hard to find online vendors as reliable as Newegg. I don't mind that I'm not getting the best price possible. I'm willing to pay a little extra knowing that the item is properly represented and will ship promptly. If there's a problem, I can RMA it with little fuss. Too often I've tried to save a few dollars and ended up spending twice as much in the process.


The GT is the newest revision chip. It's built on a smaller process and has a higher core speed. The GTS has 96 stream processors and the GT has 112 (the GTX has 128). One of the reasons I got such a performance increase is that my old GTS was an early model with a 500 MHz core clock. The new card has a 700MHz core clock. In my experience, the core clock has a fairly linear effect on performance and going from 500 to 700MHz is a pretty big jump.


The only overclock I'm running is on the host clock which gives me an increased FSB, memory bus, and CPU core frequency. The PCIe bus is stock. I generally don't overclock the GPU core. Makers tend to run them on the edge anyway and the risk of stability problems and shortened lifetime isn't worth it to me.

Generally speaking, I like that the GT is single wide. The Gigabyte card is even more light and compact. The Zalman cooler works better than the monsterous cooler they put on on the GTS/GTX to boot. Those double wide cards are just way too big. They can be a real pain to fit. The first motherboard I tried with the GTS didn't work because the card covered the SATA ports. The second one had a lock on the PCIe x16 slot that was inaccessible due to the width of the card. I think it's pretty ridiculous that makers are putting out cards and boards that are not physically compatible. It's like a left hand, right hand situation.

I got a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (512 MB) in May last year for about $100.US funds!! it does OK on 3d but 2d unfilled shapes it does very poor !!! APG 8X Just in case some one ask !!!

AT that time i was building a duel core amd PC and bought 2 PCIE
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (512 MB) also but never got the PC up because of 2 bad MotherBoards in a row !! by the time i sent both back and a life issue i ran out of funds so the duel core PC is still not done.Yes a (SLI MotherBoard !!)

But Yes there are better Video cards out there now !!!   

The new GTS didn't have much of a supply problem like the GT did. There's nothing really new about the G92, it's just a die-shrink and slight refresh of the old cards. nvidia doesn't have anything really new in the pipeline right now, ATI isn't pushing them very hard. Even the upcoming 9000 series is just more rehashed\renamed 8800s.

Well, my bad then. The GT card I bought does have have a 700 MHz core clock. Comparing list prices on the eVGA web site, the 700MHz GT goes for $300, the 700MHz GTS goes for $370. So the GT is a less expensive card and I don't think the performance difference is all that big. I'd like to avoid those bulky double wide cards anyway. Like I mentioned before, the new card gave me a 20% increase in benchmark performance over the old GTS which is huge AFAIC. I feel like it was an excellent investment.

I just updated to a ATI Sapphire HD3850 on my new system. I ran
the new video card for maybe 20 minutes ... an it had a melt down ...

I had to get a RMA number and send it back. I sent if back and they where
going to send me a replacement, but that part number was discontinued.

Right now I'm using my spare Nvidia 7600 card .. I plan on getting a
Asus or try a new Sapphire again. Most likely it's going to be a HD 3870 X2,
what try still up in the air ..

Also, I need a new LCD monitor too ...

Hey, has ne one heard of a new windows OS coming in 09?

ouch... one point of observation coming out of my monitor experience... i've got a Dell 24" widescreen running regularly at 1920x1200. people mistake it for a TV if they don't notice my desktop (far less likely with the new one and its many LEDs). however, i'm finding it difficult to run 3D first person games at this resolution with my current 8600GTS 512MB. morrowind is doing okay with all the mod'ed bells and whistles, but i'd like to turn them up a bit higher. i can either step down to 1680x1050, or step up to a better card.

that said, i think it'll be totally worth it to buy a better card if i can play at 1920x1200. it almost feels like cheating to have that much viewable area, and movies look absolutely great in widescreen. i would actually recommend a Dell monitor based on personal experience. mine at home works wonderfully; no dead pixels, lots of connection options, USB extention ports (4 USB + two multiple media card readers built in). they make a smaller version and now a larger 27" version if you really want to go for broke (well, if you really want to go for broke, get a widescreen HDTV )

edit: oh yeah my cheapie Dell monitor at work is still going--considering it's 6 years old, get's 8 hours of use 5 days a week, and is only starting to have a bit of image ghosting, i think that's a pretty strong testement. just don't ever buy anything else from Dell.



i've already got this set up ahead of time. one of the students i manage mentioned a while back he wants to upgrade his video card. so i told him i'd re-sell this one for 80% of then-current market value. the 8600's are going for about $180 still; i'll offer $150 and see if he bites at that number.



oh yeah, to be sure i'm still a little ambivalent. i'll probably go for the GTS version, just for the extra stream processors, but from what i've read on every review site, people are saying both cards are an equally great value. both cards are also equally overclockable. i've read of people getting 750+ MHz.

i've also read that the 9800's are coming out in the next week or two. they'll basically be two G92 cores and PCBs smashed into a double-wide card but sharing a PCI bus. not quite as elegant as ATI's double-core solution. the pricing would have to be really good for me to consider this option, but it should at least help shave a few bucks off the cost of other cards.



and i'll still be using XP for as long as i can  they'll still need 6 months to iron out the problems of this new OS, if this is indeed destined to happen.

no no. this student is going to buy my 8600GTS for, hopefully $150, though i'd be willing to go as low as $120. he plays GC2 so i hope he doesn't read that and i will buy a new 8800GT or GTS 512. the GT model that CraigHB purchased is actually quite appealing to me:

1) no mail-in rebate, so no waiting six months for money i might possibly get back;
2) standard PCB size, and the color will match my gigabyte MB
3) zalman cooler, which will remove my temptation to spend another $35-50 on an after-market cooler
4) it's already been OC'ed to 700 MHz, so i won't have to void a warrenty and spend hours fiddling with controls to find a good spot to OC my card (and spend another $20 to get NVware).

i think the gigabyte card is a better purchase for me. it'll save me time, energy and money, and it'll be a big boost over an 8600 regardless.

on another note, a new-ish HSF caught my eye recently, the XIGMATEK HDT-S1283. it's not pretty, and it doesn't look to be all that revolutionary, but it's got exceptionally strong reviews from frostytech and benchmarkreviews. what separates it from other similar designs (and other brands entirely, AFAIK), is the fact that its heatpipes come into direct contact with the CPU die, rather than absorbing head through a base plate. at $37, it looks like a great buy.

that, and a sound card, and i'll be done purchasing major components for at least a while. i'd still like to do a RAID support (again, when i bought the stuff for this PC, i lacked the foresight to get either XP pro or a MoBo with an ICH9R southbridge). if i knew i could re-sell my current MoBo for an acceptable price, i wouldn't be as hesitent to upgrade. they don't exactly seem to be hot sellers on ebay.

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you know, i read that somewhere random and wondered about it a bit. i didn't see too much about it, and so i didn't think about it much. at least nTune is free

i wonder if they did that to keep the fan from drawing too much power? would there be any problem running the VGA fan (stock or after market) through a manual controller off primary power?

mmm @ Idle my 7600 GS runs 60C when testing it hit 79C   

I personally think that is to hot !!!

It's hard to say from my own experience, but given the option, I'll take the higher core speed if it's not too much more. It does make a big difference in benchmark scores and that has to count for something. But generally, I don't pay the premium for higher clock speeds either. For example, when I bought my CPU, there was a big price jump going from the 2.66 to the 3.0 GHz. I bought the cheaper one. It runs well overclocked to 3.2 GHz (which I think is amazing) and I don't have a problem overclocking it myself, but for the GPU, I'd rather have a factory overclock.