Any news on 9800GTX?

[Brenjen]

Originally Posted by Torps

Anyone have new information on Nvidia's 9800GTS and 9800GTX? The info which I had is obsolete, release date of early/mid Nov, that time frame has passed. Some websites say
1st Quarter 08, others say by Christmas. Anybody with good info? If you have not read up on the 9800, it is 3X faster then the 8800 Ultra, So yah thats why I haven't let the temptation of a 8800 series get to me.

The next card out will almost always smoke the current card & you've got to take the leap some time. I bought my eVGA 7950 GX2 & used their step-up program; a lot of people where concerned about 8800's being on the horizon & DX 10. I jumped on the 7950 dual core/dual card DX 9 & I haven't lost a seconds sleep over it because by the time the DX 10 games are the majority on the market my DX 9 card will be in need of replacement. The same goes with every other card since the first one & up until the last one, if you continue to look at the horizon for the next best thing you'll never settle on anything. Imagine how bad it'd be if you knew what was in development to replace tyhe 9800 series? :rotfl:

You just have to draw the line somewhere. Buy the eVGA vanilla 8800 within 90 days of the release of a better card & you can use the step up program to get a better one (unless they came to their senses & stopped that program) overclock the vanilla card to the speeds of the expensive cards until then & you've lost nothing in waiting & if you burn it up eVGA will replace it (their warranty covers overclocking).

[Torps]

Originally Posted by Brenjen

The next card out will almost always smoke the current card & you've got to take the leap some time. I bought my eVGA 7950 GX2 & used their step-up program; a lot of people where concerned about 8800's being on the horizon & DX 10. I jumped on the 7950 dual core/dual card DX 9 & I haven't lost a seconds sleep over it because by the time the DX 10 games are the majority on the market my DX 9 card will be in need of replacement. The same goes with every other card since the first one & up until the last one, if you continue to look at the horizon for the next best thing you'll never settle on anything. Imagine how bad it'd be if you knew what was in development to replace tyhe 9800 series? :rotfl:

You just have to draw the line somewhere. Buy the eVGA vanilla 8800 within 90 days of the release of a better card & you can use the step up program to get a better one (unless they came to their senses & stopped that program) overclock the vanilla card to the speeds of the expensive cards until then & you've lost nothing in waiting & if you burn it up eVGA will replace it (their warranty covers overclocking).

I definately agree with what your saying. I will wait till the 9800 comes out and that will be were I stop for 2-3 years, which I usually do anyway. This year there were giant leaps, DX10.1, DDR3, FSB 1600 (Penryn), PCI-E X16 v2.0 and the giant leap in performance with the 8800 coming out and not supporting DX 10.1 it kindaput us gamers in a bad posiition. So I do not want to buy a card know that does not support DX10.1 and have to buy it a year later because a game I want uses it. Yah at this point the 9800 is overkill. Honestly I dont think there will be a game out for atleast 1 more year that would make the 9800 struggle. I been using ATI cards for 6 years straight, and I am disappointed in there progress, so mad props to NVidia. We all got dragged on a wild ride this year with all these latest developments. One thing that bugs me is I do not get the awesome affects with ATI when it comes to the ROW mod, another reason to switch to NVidia.

[Doolittle81]

Originally Posted by Torps

I definately agree with what your saying. I will wait till the 9800 comes out and that will be were I stop for 2-3 years, which I usually do anyway. This year there were giant leaps, DX10.1, DDR3, FSB 1600 (Penryn), PCI-E X16 v2.0 and the giant leap in performance with the 8800 coming out and not supporting DX 10.1 it kindaput us gamers in a bad posiition. So I do not want to buy a card know that does not support DX10.1 and have to buy it a year later because a game I want uses it...

There's been a "sky is falling" response by many 8800 series card owners to the mention of DX10.1
DX10.1 will not make any DX10 capable card obsolete. Here is just one of several analyses of the significance (or lack thereof) of the 10.1 development:

The release of DirectX 10.1, an API layer that will be rolled out with Windows Vista Service Pack 1, is quickly approaching. When asked about the advantages of picking up a DirectX 10 graphics adaptor today, versus waiting for NVIDIA or AMD DirectX 10.1 products, Microsoft's senior global director of Microsoft games on Windows, Kevin Unangst, replied: "DX10.1 is an incremental update that won’t affect any games or gamers in the near future."

Microsoft isn't the only developer downplaying DirectX 10.1: "We pride ourselves on being the first to adopt any important new technology that can improve our games so you would expect us to get with DX10.1 right away but we've looked at it and there's just nothing in it important enough to make it needed. So we have no plans to use it at all, not even in the future," said Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek.

NVIDIA also has a response for AMD's DirectX 10.1 support, a feature of AMD's new HD 3800 series that the company has been rather vocal about. NVIDIA's corporate roadmap details plans to include DirectX 10.1 in its ninth-generation GPU architecture, codenamed D9. However, the first D9 processors will not debut until next year and the company describes DirectX 10.1 as "a minor extension of DirectX10 that makes a few optional features in DirectX 10 mandatory."

In my opinion, a 9800 series card will not be necessary for any foreseeable 'Game' or Sim. ...[Edited deletion]...

I run SH4 perfectly smoothly with all graphic options max'ed out and I feel quite confident that my 8800GTX will [Edited]serve me well in my Games/Sims of choice for at least the next 18 months...and I've already had the card for seven months...that's a long lifetime in terms of Computer components: two years! If necessary, I can also easily SLI my Rig with an additional 8800GTX (at a much cheaper purchase price than my first one).

My Rig:
ASUS P5N32-E SLI, 680i
Dual core E6700 Cpu (Mobo upgradeable to Quad-Core)
2GB OCZ PC2 8800 (1100Mhz) RAM (Mobo upgradeable to 4Gb)
BFG 8800GTX Graphics card (Mobo upgradable to two 8800 cards in SLI configuration)
Audigy2 ZS
4 Seagate 400GB hard drives in a 0+1 RAID array
Plextor PX-800A
Samsung 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor 1920X1200 native
Windows VISTA 32bit

[quitefrankly]

Originally Posted by Doolittle81

There are no games/sims yet released (other than Crysis)that require, let alone stress, the 8800 cards.

That is not true. Just because you haven't played them, doesn't mean they don't exist.. I have played atleast 4 or 5 games that stress my 8800GTX, and that is at a resolution of "only" 1680x1050. Had I have bought a bigger screen, it would only be worse.

Originally Posted by Doolittle81

In my opinion, a 9800 series card will not be necessary for any foreseeable 'Game' or Sim.

I wish! If you look at the games due in the next year alone, there are some that will make our 8800's cry.

Originally Posted by Doolittle81

I run SH4 perfectly smoothly with all graphic operions max'ed out and I feel quite confident that my 8800GTX will be able to run Max'ed out graphics in any Game/Sim for at least the next 18 months...

Wow, dream on. If you are talking about running games at 800x600, then you may be right. But at normal resolutions, there are already games that slaughter this graphics card. Just buy something like FSX for example. Use high quality settings on that, and watch your frame rate plummet into the single digits.

[Doolittle81]

I certainly didn't mean to be offensive in sharing my 'opinion', however ill-founded it might have seemed to you...You've certainly put me in my place. I've edited my original post accordingly, so as not to confuse others.


Note that my original intent was to comment only upon the DX10.1 matter, as being of no consequence. I included fairly authoritative research/quotes regarding DX10.1 vis-a-vis current DX10-capable cards (8800 series).

My ill-advised additional assertion/opinion regarding the necessity (lack thereof) for a 9XXXX series card was, indeed, driven by my personal interest in a relatively few Simulations/Games, primarily SH4 [not yet 'upgraded' with any DX10 features] and the forthcoming "Storm of War: Battle of Britain" Flight Sim. I should have been more specific. (Incidentally, I had downloaded the Crysis demo, designed for DX10, and found it 'pretty' but of no interest whatsoever as I'm not into any FPS Games...still, for the few minutes I tried it out, it seemed to run quite well. Of course, I am not one to get into the "Mine is bigger than yours" debates about frame rates, etc.

[quitefrankly]

That is fair and well done. I wasn't offended or anything, but its important people know what is capable with these kinds of things, because they are just so expensive. I bought this card a year ago when it first released and was hugely expensive. So I wish it would last for years at full settings, but I'm not going to be that fortunate

You are probably right to be happy with your 8800GTX with the games you have on your own personal radar though. The card does a great job with most games.

Its just that occasionally there are exceptions, and they really bring the card to its knees, which is such a shame. I am generally happy with my 8800GTX though, but it is a real shame to see how it struggles in some games. Luckily I am happy for now, because it plays most things well (or well enough), but I might get more and more peaved with its performance throughout 2008. Depends on the games really and whether I am interested in playing them or not. But one for example, called Alan Wake, I am very keen to play, but I am expecting my once mighty PC to just melt when that game is released :p I'm also going to wait a while until I play Crysis, because although it was 20fps when I first played it, it spikes down to 11fps in parts, and that is not playable at those speeds. So rather than lower the quality settings, I am just going to wait for the patch and hope that brings some improvements. =)

[Doolittle81]

Overall Game performance is based upon the combination of Graphics card and CPU capabilities, along with other factors of one's Rig. In my case, I have a near state-of-the-art PC, upgradeable in key areas when I feel it necessary...specifically Quad-core, Doubling of RAM, and going SLI.
P5N32-E SLI, 680i
Dual core E6700 Cpu (Mobo upgradeable to Quad-Core)
2GB OCZ PC2 8800 (1100Mhz) RAM (Mobo upgradeable to 4Gb)
BFG 8800GTX Graphics card (Mobo upgradable to two 8800 cards in SLI configuration)

One question I have is how does one specifically identify the cause of a reduction in FPS as being the "fault" of the Graphics card rather than other aspects of the PC, such as CPU, etc?

Meanwhile, as I understand it, some Games are (and others will be) designed to take advantage of SLI...if that were the case, then is it not possible that two 8800's could serve fairly favorably iin comparison to a single 9800 series card? I intend to double my RAM in the next few weeks just for the heck of it (VISTA eats up a lot of RAM), though I've actually experienced no problems that I am aware of due to lack of RAM. Again, in my case I see nothing coming down the road of interest to me which will necessitate upgrading further, graphics card-wise...with the possible exception being the SOW:BofB flight sim, which is being designed for OGL, not DX10....In thqt regard, the latest version of OGL (3.0) under development is being cited as simply requiring a DX10-capable card.


All in all, I remain quite optimistic for the future (18 months) of my Rig with the 8800 card(s).