Cheap New GeForce 8800 GT Challenges $400 Cards 402
J. Dzhugashvili writes "What would you say to a video card that performs like a $400 GeForce 8800 GTS for $200-250? Say hello to the GeForce 8800 GT. The Tech Report has tested the new mid-range wonder in Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Team Fortress 2, and BioShock. It found that the card keeps up with its $400 big brother overall while drawing significantly less power and — here's the kicker — generating slightly less noise."
$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to impress me? Show me a $50-100 video card that can perform as well as a $200. $50 falls into something I call 'cheap'.
Kicker (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously, the fan is making the noise, not the chip.
I bet you could probably find a 8800GTX with some high-end silent cooling rig.
Who the heck is buying these cards? (Score:2, Insightful)
Even at 'only' $250, it's that or a Wii. And the Wii is a stable platform, whereas your cutting edge premium card is going to look overpriced and behind the curve tomorrow - ask all the people who just ordered $400 8800 GTS cards how that feels.
Come on, own up: who's buying these console-priced cards, and why?
Re:Help me understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Help me understand. (Score:3, Insightful)
do you really think that the 8800gtx will still be nvidia's top-of-the-line card come Christmas?
Re:Who the heck is buying these cards? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who the heck is buying these cards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, own up: who's buying these console-priced cards, and why?
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
The same complaint you've just made can be made for -all- computer components. The high-end ($400) stuff -is- insanely expensive, and only for the true die-hard hobbyists. The hobbyist ($200) stuff is for those that want to enjoy the sport, but can't afford to throw their money away. And the cheap stuff ($100) is for those that don't really care and the low-end stuff is good enough.
If you're not a gamer, you have -no- reason to buy a card at all. The onboard video is more than good enough. (I use an onboard Intel GMA 3000 on my Kubuntu box and it runs Compiz better than my ATI at work.)
Re:Who the heck is buying these cards? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, Wii is a nice little console, but it looked behind the curve in its launch date, and it looks behind the curve today. I don't understand why fanboys have to troll everything; we are comparing PC video cards here, why are you talking about the Wii?
A year ago I bought this laptop with a GeForce 7900 and have been playing Oblivion, Bioshock and Team Fortress 2, this games wouls never run on the Wii; it looks great, have high FPS, and it's one year old. You are just trolling.
Can you Luddites find a new site please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit hating just because you can't afford the newest toys. If someone can and if that's what they want, then great. You should be happy because guess what? That's where the Wii graphics come from. Lower end graphics come from higher end graphics. It costs a lot of money to develop new technology like this, and the high end is where the development cost gets reimbursed. You get the cheap, good graphics in the Wii precisely because ATi has done so much high end development and it has filtered down.
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
It may seem simple, and is not a "sport" in the sense that it doesn't require physical stamina, however in the pro leagues it does require a significant amount of time to train. How do you train with a video game? Getting the timing of a weapon down just right in CS...knowing EXACTLY what units to use and where to use them depending on the type of attack/types of units your opponent is using...you get the idea. Basically, it requires you to know the game better than the people that made it. Not only that, but you must have the dexterity in your fingers to be able to control as well as possible (it is also not uncommon for pro gamers to play some form of instrument that requires dexterity, such as Saxophone or Guitar.)
Try playing SSBM or CS:S against someone who regularly plays in tournaments and trains on a daily basis...see how long you last.
And while you are laughing at them for being nerds, they are making a shitload of money for doing what essentially amounts to playing games for a living.
And (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
I spend 250 dollars for a night out at a nice restaurant with my wife, especially if a nice bottle of wine is included.
Wh wouldn't I spend this on a one time purchase that will provide hours and hours of entertainment for up to 1.5 years?
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:3, Insightful)
They do their job, and in return they can pay their bills, put a roof over their head, and put food in the pantry...
Isn't that why you work?
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Help me understand. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who the heck is buying these cards? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's basically two kinds of people who buy $400 graphics cards. People who have so much money it's chump change, and people for whom PC gaming is their big hobby. For either of those groups, it's really not that much money. Think about it. The best gaming rig in the world still won't top $10K (and that's going REALLY off-the-wall extreme) which is peanuts compared to some hobbies. And you can build a really good gaming rig that has pretty much all of the best-of-the-best including a $400 graphics card for $2,500 which is on the low end of what most people spend on their hobby in a year these days.
And then there's the rest of us who like PC gaming for various reasons - some perhaps because it's "more extreme" than console gaming, but mostly just because we want to play games not available on consoles or because we vastly prefer the control systems available for PC. We're the ones who wait to buy a new graphics card until it's like the third generation back and selling for $75, but still quite capable of playing all the latest and greatest PC games (albeit in some cases not quite at maximum settings, which by the way still look nicer than console games). We're the group who build our gaming rig for a tidy $500 (or less), which is right around the price of some consoles these days. And our PCs not only play many games consoles cannot, they also do nifty things like open web browsers and word processors in 1 or 2 seconds instead of 20 and such.
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Money, nerds whatever. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tiger Woods doesn't hit 300+ yard tee shots because he was simply walking a fairway for 72 holes a day. He also doesn't make the majority of his money off of the game/sport of golf.
Likewise, professional gamers do train for their "sport" and, if they are lucky, they earn most of their money from endorsements.
Re:Help me understand. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you realize what the alternative is?
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone has something they enjoy doing in life. A person whose life revolves around Video Games is no better or worse than an athlete, sports nut or some slob that lives in a bar.
We all are slowly walking to our death and I'll be damned if I don't do what I find fun - and fuck you for passing judgment on me.
Signed
Gamer
Re:price != quality (Score:3, Insightful)
The Anantech review [anandtech.com] details things much, much better (unsurprisingly).
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Help me understand. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sports vs. Games (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the reason that this card is causing so much commotion is because a lot of people have been paying $500 or more for the top end cards during the last year or so. Why in the world would someone pay so much? As someone else commented, it's a matter of personal preference. In my personal situation, I don't own any consoles or play console games unless I'm at a friend's house. I do, however, frequently play PC games (on linux and xp, anyway; don't really game on the macbook). Aside from shooting things, I find it interesting to watch and experience the ways in which our games approach reality (visually and physics-wise) as hardware and software progress. For someone with that interest, having 60+ FPS at whatever resolution you're capable of displaying is important.
To give you an idea of what software these days is demanding and what the hardware can handle, I present my current rig. Nvidia 7800GT (purchased about 2 years ago on ebay in the $285-300 range), 2 gigs of DDR1 corsair, and an amd x2 4200 running at around 2.6ghz. The 7800Gt was launched 8/11/05, the ram (3500LL pro) was around october 2005 from what i can gather, and the cpu i think was from somewhere around May 2005 (i was a late buyer, but i didn't want to buy a whole new motherboard just yet). Anyway, I say all that to say that this stuff is not brand new, but it isn't ancient either. It is capable of running almost anything on the source engine very smoothly at my current 1920x1080 resolution, but not with everything turned up to max levels. Even at medium details, it cannot run the UT3 demo smoothly at 1280x1024, forget anything higher. Same story with Bioshock and the Crysis demo.
So, in preparation for UT3's launch, I intended to build a new rig. But there are some big things happening with CPUs and GPUs that make building right now a poor idea. The first issue was that rumors were flying around about the G92 and have been for some time. It was generally believed that they would release the next GPU sometime in november (and there were many different rumors, some saying that it would be a 9800 top end card with a teraflop throughput and others stating that it was going to be a midrange card between the then-current top end 8800GTX and ultras and the lower end geforce8 series). This release has solved that question. It was indeed a mid-range card solution, but the performance at $200 - $250 was far better than expected. This morning there were none available at newegg, and a few were on backorder at zipzoomfly. Now there are some at newegg, and I suspect it will take about a weak for the prices to solidify until after thanksgiving, at which point they'll probably drop some. Anyone who had been reading anything about nvidia would have been foolish to buy a GTX or ultra within the last couple of months, and that is the very reason I did not even consider it. The second issue is that ATI is probably going to release their next GPU in the next couple of weeks. Of course no one knows for sure what that will be, but the smart bet right now is that it will try to compete with the 8800GT in the same performance/price range. We'll see there. My purchases before were always default NVIDIA because their linux support was so much better. However, ATI/AMD has recently made large strides to change that, so it has influenced me to wait before deciding this time. The third issue is that both AMD and Intel are scheduled to release their new CPUs this quarter. So all of these issues have made it a good choice to wait. Now that this GPU is out, a lot of people who would have been enticed to
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Though I think 'professional gaming' is silly, there are lots of 'sports' that are not particularly athletic, and/or are more about use of certain specialized equipment than about innate physical characteristics. So that's not really a legitimate criticism.
There are almost purely athletic sports (running, perhaps, the most pure), and there are very skill-based sports (fishing, shooting, bowling, bocce, etc.), and of course a whole lot in between. Playing video games probably sets a new standard for sedentary sports, and in doing so says some unflattering things about our society, but there's nothing about it that inherently makes it 'not a sport' as a result.
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
$200? Where? (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for the return of the midrange. Midrange being the $150 card. Today's $150 card ie the 8600gts is a joke for DX10 and the newest games. No wonder the PC gaming industry is in the shitter and losing out to consoles. You need to spend almost $300 on a video card just to stay current.
When fast new systems with Dual Core cpus, 1GB of memory, and 19" LCDs, cost $500-$600 who in their right mind thinks spending $250 on a gpu isn't a ripoff?
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$200-250 is NOT cheap! (Score:3, Insightful)
Entertainment and advertising have value to someone, not necessarily you or I, but much of the money moving through these sectors is coming from someone who does.
Also, not everyone can do something mentally or spiritually rewarding. Not everyone can be special. Shit, if anyone could make a living doing what they really wanted to do, our economy would consist of just one massive porn industry. But there's only so much room to be filled. Somebody has to lose, not all those kids will grow up to be a doctor, some of them will have to push the brooms, pump the gas, and flip the burgers for the doctor. They can all try to be a doctor, but there isn't room for all of them.
Usefulness and Art are subjective measures from disputable value systems. A poor artist may have a real fulfilling job, but he could end up fucking his family over by wasting his lucrative job as a stock broker/movie star/CPA. Heck, sometimes a job is just a job, and is just the stepping stone to a happy home life filled with whatever that person wants to fill it with. It'd be neat if everyone could have a job they loved, just like it'd be neat if everyone was rich and well-fed, but unfortunately that's not the case.
Re:Money, nerds whatever. (Score:3, Insightful)
Many women I have spoken to who peddle flesh for a living know that they call the shots, and quite a few of them make a very respectable living.
Now, I feel bad for women who feel that they have no choice but to prostitute themselves, but I do not pity them. It's not the oldest profession for no reason. Women have been doing it for thousands of years, and making money doing it.
Yes, they can be exploited, and that is a true tragedy. but I do not Pity them. When it comes to sex, the females truly have power.