Why is my 7900 GTO clocked faster than the 8800 ?

My 7900 GTO has a core clock of 650 mhz. The typical 8800
at NewEgg is clocked around 576 mhz. My card right now, as
old as it is, still sells for over $200. The 8800 GTS is about
$250 at CompUSA website. That tells me the 8800 will go
under $200 after Christmas. Is there any reason to buy it
then ?

Also, I notice that the cards with very large memory ..
like over 700 megs ... are even slower. Is there an optimum
memory size on these new cards ? Is that on-card ram
used for anything other than display ? Are there on-card
calculations being done, or is it just for higher monitor
resolutions ?

And then there is the issue of whether a game is
cpu ( or dual cpu ) intensive .. or do the newer games
benefit from the faster cards ? If a game is mostly
pushing the cpu, and the card is merely driving the
display, don't we reach a point where card speed
is meaningless ? For example, my box is an X2
4600. If I put an 8800 super card in that box, would
it improve anything under WinXP ? It almost sounds
like the big deal is Dx10 in Vista ... and a Dx10
game card.

johns

"johns" wrote in message
...
My 7900 GTO has a core clock of 650 mhz. The typical 8800
at NewEgg is clocked around 576 mhz. My card right now, as
old as it is, still sells for over $200. The 8800 GTS is about
$250 at CompUSA website. That tells me the 8800 will go
under $200 after Christmas. Is there any reason to buy it
then ?

Well, I used to have a 9800 Pro that was clocked a lot lower GPU/Memory wise
that a 9600XT. But it' had double the pipelines and a 256bit memory bus,
while the 9600XT was 128bit. It had almost double the performance in games.
It's not about sheer Mhz, but numbers of pipelines, shaders and GPU
architecture as well as memory bus width. An 8800GTX GPU runs at
575Mhz....but there's way more to it than this.

I'm sure there is, but I remember clearly that
the 9800 Pro gave much deeper colors and
finer detail than almost any card since. I think
the only reason the faster cards became
acceptable is that LCD screens are somewhat
grainy anyway, so upping the speed and
outputting lower quality video can't be seen.
And then came the overclocking to up the
FPS needed by newer action games loaded
with on-screen characters and active environs.
More pipelines gave us that, but did it give
more than merely a faster display? I notice
that the 8800 owners are not seeing a great
improvement in Crysis over my 7900 GTO
.... other than Dx10 in Vista. Is this a ploy
to sell Vista to gamers ? And what are we
getting ?

johns

johns wrote:

My 7900 GTO has a core clock of 650 mhz. The typical 8800
at NewEgg is clocked around 576 mhz. My card right now, as
old as it is, still sells for over $200. The 8800 GTS is about
$250 at CompUSA website. That tells me the 8800 will go
under $200 after Christmas. Is there any reason to buy it
then ?

Only you can say if that card meets your needs and your budget.


Also, I notice that the cards with very large memory ..
like over 700 megs ... are even slower. Is there an optimum
memory size on these new cards ?

No, and your premise is false! Cards with more video ram are not, as a
rule, slower than cards with less, all other things similar. There are
natural "powers of 2" points of convention.

Is that on-card ram
used for anything other than display ? Are there on-card
calculations being done, or is it just for higher monitor
resolutions ?

You can do anything you want with the GPU subsystem if you follow the
SDK, even if it won't be done well. There are many "off label" ideas for
GPUs in use now, google is your friend.

Nearly everything ends up in video ram somehow, all manners of results
of calculations, FSAA, texture filterings, the frame buffer, stencil
shadows, z-buffering, you name it. Surprisingly modest games can eat up
a large amount of video ram.


And then there is the issue of whether a game is
cpu ( or dual cpu ) intensive .. or do the newer games
benefit from the faster cards ? If a game is mostly
pushing the cpu, and the card is merely driving the
display, don't we reach a point where card speed
is meaningless ? For example, my box is an X2
4600. If I put an 8800 super card in that box, would
it improve anything under WinXP ? It almost sounds
like the big deal is Dx10 in Vista ... and a Dx10
game card.

johns

This is why we read review sites that benchmark games and answer these
broad topics specifically, since you can't predict game performance
until you actually bench it, no matter who says otherwise, even the
developers can only guess within certain "performance buckets" of how
any given machine class will respond.

Budem zdorovy!

"johns" wrote in message
...

And then there is the issue of whether a game is
cpu ( or dual cpu ) intensive .. or do the newer games
benefit from the faster cards ? If a game is mostly
pushing the cpu, and the card is merely driving the
display, don't we reach a point where card speed
is meaningless ? For example, my box is an X2
4600. If I put an 8800 super card in that box, would
it improve anything under WinXP ? It almost sounds
like the big deal is Dx10 in Vista ... and a Dx10
game card.

johns

Well I had a ATI x1950 pro card in my machine and yesterday I put a XFX 8800
GT in this machine and the desktop is now much sharper and colours much
nicer on the desktop than it was with the ATI card. As for game performance
this 8800 leaves the ati card in the dust.