8600GT SLI Comparison

[Shiz]

Sorry all this isn't results, I would just be interested to know, which cards out of the following would you like to see compared to an SLId pair of 8600GTs:

8800GTX OC Liquid from MSI
Sapphire x1900XT
Con3D x1950 Pro
Leadtek 6600GT

Results should be up tomorrow.

 

[Slinky1989]

the 8800 would be the top choice for me, but after that the x1900xt.

I'd really only want to see one 8600 against an x1950pro as I expect they are about the same in terms of performance in dx9.

 

[Shiz]

Pretty much . I have to bench the 8800 anyway so might go with that. Anyone else got any thoughts?

 

[Cartho]

In Oblivion and Rainbow 6 Vegas, and with NO ANTI ALIASING enabled, the 8600 GTS scored slightly higher than an X1950 PRO

With Anti Aliasing the 8600 GTS falls back behind the X1950 PRO

In FEAR the 8600 GTS is poor, only scoring 27 FPS at 1280 X 1024

It is basically a bit better than the X1950 PRO in very new, shader intensive games, and without Anti Aliasing.
Anti Aliasing seems to be the thing which brings it to its knees

 

[jaykay]

well aa requires high bandwidth as your basically creating a larger picture is resizing it down

 

[willhub]

well aa requires high bandwidth as your basically creating a larger picture is resizing it down

It shouldent bring it to its knees like, with the 8800series in some games AA/AF dont drop freame rate as much as previous cards and it should be the ssame with the 8600GTS...

 

[snowdog]

It shouldent bring it to its knees like, with the 8800series in some games AA/AF dont drop freame rate as much as previous cards and it should be the ssame with the 8600GTS...

As Cartho said: you need as much ram bandwith as possible:

8600GT(S) has 128 bit ram

8800gts has 320 bit ram, gives it a huuuuuuge advantage in ram bandith, thus reducing AA slowdown in games

 

[Cartho]

no it has a 128 bit bus, and 256 MB of RAM
This translates into a total of 32 GB/s of bandwidth.
Considering the 7900 GT has 44 GB/s it is not very impressive.
It is a good bit faster than a 7600 GT though - which only has 22 GB/s

 

[DJKahuna]

well aa requires high bandwidth as your basically creating a larger picture is resizing it down

That's one way of doing it, another way is 'ghosting' where there are multiple images, that are perhaps 1 pixel larger than the previous and they gradually fade the edges out on each layer by taking the levels of AA, and then dividing the brightness and contrast by 255 (roughly how it's done). The main reason for the slowdown is mainly because the buffer isn't big enough. Try this: Enable triple buffering and a high level of AA. Note the average FPS. Now disable triple buffering and see what happens. With it enabled, you should see a slight increase because you're allowing another frame to be stored in memory ready to be processed.

It's also because all the individual layers have to be synched up together on a frame-by-frame basis.

Also, the amount of ram isn't as important as how fast the ram is. For example, a 512mb X1600 wouldn't stand a chance against, say a 256mb 7900. The 7900 simply has much more bandwidth (which is mainly down to the core and memory speeds).

Also, i'd like to see it against the 8800GTX, purely and simply because the same drivers can be used.