I'm looking for a Geforce 6800 and the PNY card looks to be the easiest for me to get locally. If anyone here has one, what do you think of it? Is this a reliable brand? The reviews on PNY seem fine as far as I can tell. Another possibility is to get the eVGA 6800 through newegg.com when it comes back in stock, but this may be a weekend impulse purchase in anticipation of HL2.
Also - Does anyone have a 6800 and wish they had gone for the 6800GT? I play games at 1024x768 and don't crank the AA/AF, so according to benchmarks the 6800 is rather close to the GT at those levels. My rig is a P4 2.66, 533 FSB, 1 GB PC2700 RAM, along with my faithful ti4200 whose days are numbered.
Thanks for any opinions, especially on the PNY brand 6800.
When the sun goes out, we'll have eight minutes to live.
Im kinda in the same boat as freezer but ive only got 256mb pc800 rambus with a ti4600. Im on a serious budget but I may have it ok'ed with my better half to upgrade. Would the 6600 be a better option or should i stray towards the 6800?
For some reason, Im a huge nvidia fanboy so thats what Im looking at exclusively (sp). Should I consider any other options? Ive found out the more information i can get the easier it is for me to pursuade my wife into letting me spend the money.
acidflesh, if you are on a serious budget, you may want to wait for the 6600GT to come out in the AGP version, which should be about $200. Also, you really need to bump up your RAM to at least 512M (or preferably 1 GB).
When the sun goes out, we'll have eight minutes to live.
I was trying to decide between the 6800GT and the X800 Pro. After reading the reviews and such, I think I'm gonna go for the 6800GT myself. I am currently running a ATI 9800 right now, and it is absolutely flawless, but I think I'm gonna need a little more.
I found the huge savings on the Dell LCD's a couple of weeks ago, and jumped in and bought a 2001FP and connot believe how georgeous it is. The native resoultion is 1600 x 1200, and I am in heaven. I am even running SW Galaxies JTL at the native resolution, and cannot tell the difference in performance from my old 17" Trinitron. I figure with HL2 coming, I'm gonna need a little more card to get the same performance.
The one thing that sold me on the NVIDIA over ATI this time was the Pixel Shader 3.0 in the 6800GT. I have owned all the GeForce cards from the GF1 thru the Ti4600, but when it came time to upgrade, I went ATI and loved it. ATI seems to have a better noticeable image quality on some of the last generation cards, but that doesn't seem to be the case now. If it is, the difference isn't nearly as noticeable as it was in the last generation of cards.
If you decide to grab the GT, let us know how it goes for ya.
"Some people never find it, some only pretend; but me, I just want to live happily ever after every now and then."
I've got a PNY 6800GT. Had it a few months and no problems so far. There are a few advantages to the GT: 16 vs 12 pipelines, 256MB vs 128MB and the ablility to overclock to Ultra speeds. The memory to me is the most important difference. I've seen benchmarks of Doom3 and Halflife2 showing a big drop in performance for 128MB cards as the res goes up. At 1024x768 no AA/AF it probably wouldn't make much difference but if you're getting a 6800 why would you not do at least AA/AF? I run mine at 4xAA/16xAF at 1280x01024 almost all the time. I can run Call of Duty at 1600x1200 maxed and still get about 60fps.
Yeah, I am tempted to go for the GT for the extra pipes and RAM, but my brain keeps insisting that $400 is just a crazy amount to spend on a video card. On the other hand, the marginal cost is only $100, which is relatively cheap for the extra future-proofing provided by the GT vs the plain 6800. And I hate to spend $$$ upgrading to a new 6800 that still has the same amount of RAM that my ti4200 128M does.
Decisions, decisions. Sigh.
Hmm, and lookie here, newegg.com has the eVGA 6800 GT in stock with free Doom 3 for $399 + $5 shipping...
When the sun goes out, we'll have eight minutes to live.
If you're ok with overclocking you can also think about it as getting a 6800 Ultra for $400 instead of $500+. Most are easily overclocking to Ultra speeds. Mine is stable at 395Mhz core, 1.15Ghz memory, 5Mhz short of the Ultra on core speed and 500Mhz faster on memory. My friend has one that does 420Mhz stable (an early BFG with the stock NVidia cooler if anyone's interested, they seem to overclock better than the dual fan cooler).
No arguement though, it is a big chunk of money either way.
Well, I cracked. I got up this morning and the evga 6800GT/Doom3 deal was still in stock on newegg, so I took the plunge. (My birthday is in a few days so that helped justify it.) I should be able to do the upgrade this weekend and see how she flies with D3 and HL2.
Thanks all.
When the sun goes out, we'll have eight minutes to live.
Freezer-TPF- wrote:Well, I cracked. I got up this morning and the evga 6800GT/Doom3 deal was still in stock on newegg, so I took the plunge. (My birthday is in a few days so that helped justify it.) I should be able to do the upgrade this weekend and see how she flies with D3 and HL2.
Thanks all.
For some reason I had the urge to look at video cards and I'm glad I found your thread Freezer. I'd be upgrading from a 5900FX to a 6800GT. I like my 5900 but I guess I just feel restless for some reason. shrug
On that note, time to start a thread about the Gigabyte 6800 GT...
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If cost is a factor, Bestbuy is running a special on the BFG 6800 OC, which is an overclocked 6800. THey are offering the card plus HAlf Life2 and Far Cry for $249 after $105 rebate. However, over at fatwallet, the say that BEstbuy is also taking an extra 10% off the price automatically when it rings up (bringing it down to $225 after rebate). Here is the link to the Fatwallet thread LINK.
