NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT: The Only Card That Matters
by Derek Wilson on October 29, 2007 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
$199 or $249?
For this launch, we have been given a $50 price range for 8800 GT. NVIDIA told us that there will be no $200 8800 GT parts available at launch, but they should come along after prices settle down a bit. Initially, we thought that the 256MB parts would be $200 and the 512MB parts $250. It turns out that we were mistaken.
Not only that, but we can expect the stock clocked 512MB 8800 GT to hit $200 at the low end. The 256MB part, which won't show up until the end of November, will hit prices below $200. Upon hearing Ujesh Desai, NVIDIA's General Manager of Desktop GPUs, explain this incredible projection, my internal monologue was somehow rerouted to my mouth and I happened to exclaim (with all too much enthusiasm) "you're crazy!" As an aside, we at AnandTech try very hard to maintain a high level of professionalism in all our dealings with industry players. Such a response is quite out of character for any of our editors. Regardless, I continued on to say that it seems NVIDIA has started taking notes from local commercials we all see about the deep discount auto dealers who are slashing prices on everything. Apparently I was the second person that day to react that way to the information.
Honestly, depending on how quickly the 512MB 8800 GT falls to $200, this launch could truly be revolutionary. As Jen-Hsun asked the crowd of journalists at NVIDIA's recent Editor's Day: "Do you remember the Ti-4200?" And we really could see a product to rival the impact of that one here today. But even at $250, the 8800 GT is an incredible buy, and if it takes until after the holiday season for prices to come down to $200, we won't be surprised. When the 256MB part hits the scene, we will certainly be interested in seeing where price and performance shake out, and whatever AMD has up its sleeves could also prove interesting and change the landscape as well. NVIDIA has been fairly accurate in giving us pricing we can expect to see on the street, and we really hope that trend continues.
Of course, since this is an NVIDIA GPU, we can also expect overclocked versions from almost every company building a card based on G92. These will definitely come with a price premium, but we are really hoping to see the price range eventually settle into a baseline of $200 with overclocked cards topping out at $250. But we will have to wait and see what happens, and even if the price never falls that much the 512MB 8800 GT is a very good value. There's no way to lose with this one.
For this launch, we have been given a $50 price range for 8800 GT. NVIDIA told us that there will be no $200 8800 GT parts available at launch, but they should come along after prices settle down a bit. Initially, we thought that the 256MB parts would be $200 and the 512MB parts $250. It turns out that we were mistaken.
Not only that, but we can expect the stock clocked 512MB 8800 GT to hit $200 at the low end. The 256MB part, which won't show up until the end of November, will hit prices below $200. Upon hearing Ujesh Desai, NVIDIA's General Manager of Desktop GPUs, explain this incredible projection, my internal monologue was somehow rerouted to my mouth and I happened to exclaim (with all too much enthusiasm) "you're crazy!" As an aside, we at AnandTech try very hard to maintain a high level of professionalism in all our dealings with industry players. Such a response is quite out of character for any of our editors. Regardless, I continued on to say that it seems NVIDIA has started taking notes from local commercials we all see about the deep discount auto dealers who are slashing prices on everything. Apparently I was the second person that day to react that way to the information.
Honestly, depending on how quickly the 512MB 8800 GT falls to $200, this launch could truly be revolutionary. As Jen-Hsun asked the crowd of journalists at NVIDIA's recent Editor's Day: "Do you remember the Ti-4200?" And we really could see a product to rival the impact of that one here today. But even at $250, the 8800 GT is an incredible buy, and if it takes until after the holiday season for prices to come down to $200, we won't be surprised. When the 256MB part hits the scene, we will certainly be interested in seeing where price and performance shake out, and whatever AMD has up its sleeves could also prove interesting and change the landscape as well. NVIDIA has been fairly accurate in giving us pricing we can expect to see on the street, and we really hope that trend continues.
Of course, since this is an NVIDIA GPU, we can also expect overclocked versions from almost every company building a card based on G92. These will definitely come with a price premium, but we are really hoping to see the price range eventually settle into a baseline of $200 with overclocked cards topping out at $250. But we will have to wait and see what happens, and even if the price never falls that much the 512MB 8800 GT is a very good value. There's no way to lose with this one.
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Spacecomber - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
TestEateryOfPiza - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
What kind of G92 variants can we expect by Christmas 07?Or Summer 08?
mpc7488 - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
ardOCP is reporting that nVidia is increasing the 8800GTS stream processors to 112.Spacecomber - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
Testing ;-)Spacecomber - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
It appears that it was the bracketed h that was hiding all subsequent text. It needed a bracketed /h to close that "feature".mpc7488 - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
Haha - thanks. I guess if anyone wants the explanation of the stream processors they can highlight the 'hidden message'.mpc7488 - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
I'm not sure why the first post lost my text unless it was the bracket I used around the H - but HardOCP is reporting that nVidia is changing the 8800GTS 640 MB to have 112 stream processors.mpc7488 - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
Great article Derek - I think you can tell you're mildly excited about this product :)Is there a reason that you didn't do any tests with anti-aliasing? I would assume that this would show more deviation between the 8800GTX and the 8800GT?
chizow - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
Nice job as usual Derek!Just wondering though, if you were able to test the cards at the same clock speeds. The GT by default has @100MHz advantage on the core over the GTS, which is a common reason the GTS falls so far behind in head to head testing. I expect the GT to have more OC'ing headroom than the GTS anyways, but it would be nice to see an apples to apples comparison to reveal the impact of some of the architecture changes from G80 to G92. Of note, the GT has fewer ROPs and a smaller memory bus but gains 1:1 address/filter units and 16 more stream processors.
Also, I saw an early review that showed massive performance gains when the shader processor was overclocked on the GT; much bigger gains than significant increases to the core/memory clocks. Similar testing with the GTS/GTX don't yield anywhere near that much performance gain when the shader core clock is bumped up.
Lastly, any idea when the G92 8800GTS refresh is going to be released? With a 640MB GTS this seems more of a lateral move to an 8800GT, although a refreshed GTS with 128SP and all the other enhancements of the G92 should undoubtedly be faster than the GTX...and maybe even the Ultra once overclocked.
Hulk - Monday, October 29, 2007 - link
I'm looking to build a HTPC and this would be a great card if it does video decoding?