9800GTX 1GB Performance Preview?

[chizow]

Was digging around a bit for some hints about a possible 9800GTX with 1GB RAM or GDDR4 and came across the Palit 8800GTS 1GB Sonic. I guess this card kinda flew under the radar as it was released just before the 9800GTX. It has similar clockspeeds to the Asus TOP models with 730MHz core and memory clocks just slightly slower than the 9800GTX at 2100MHz.

Some previous 8800GT 1GB reviews showed that the extra RAM on the 8800GT was largely wasted, whether it was because the slower core or not enough bandwidth. The Palit GTS greatly increases core clocks and exceeds the 9800GTX and closes the gap with memory speed to within 100MHz. It also adds 512MB of VRAM which is where the 9800GTX tended to drop off against the older 8800GTX and Ultra parts at higher resolutions.

Unfortunately the review focuses on the super high resolution of 2560 so that differences are very small and its hard to see any true benefit of 1GB over 512MB. I think overall though the Palit part's performance is disappointing as there is very little difference between the Sonic and the presumably stock GTS (650-675MHz core, 512MB RAM), at 2560 at least. For my part, this just further confirms VRAM and bandwidth isn't as big of a bottleneck on G92 as # of ROPs.

 

[Throckmorton]

Check out this review: http://en.expreview.com/2007/1...-you-need%ef%bc%9f/16/

Some games perform differently with 1gb. That was enough to convince me to order an EVGA 1gb 8800GT from Newegg. I'm going to experiment with as many games as possible with different resolutions etc.

 

[chizow]

Hmm ya that chart was one of the reviews that made me think 1GB wasn't worth it on a GT. There are some differences yes, but for the most part the resolutions and settings where there were significant differences between 512 and 1gb were already borderline unplayable. Like 54% difference in WiC 1920 4xAA doesn't mean much when you're talking 13 and 20 FPS.

Did you get that AKIMBO EVGA version? Should be able to see some nice results if you're able to overclock it, otherwise the 600MHz stock speeds don't seem too appealing to me.

 

[Tempered81]

your subtopic says it all:

we need:
more tmus
more rops
more core speed (1ghz+)
more memory bus (384 / 512mb)
more vmem (1gb, 2gb - but only with bandwidth)
lower mem latencies (.4-.6ns GDDR4/5)

(IMO this core is capable of all these in due time & @ 55nm)

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: chizow
Hmm ya that chart was one of the reviews that made me think 1GB wasn't worth it on a GT. There are some differences yes, but for the most part the resolutions and settings where there were significant differences between 512 and 1gb were already borderline unplayable. Like 54% difference in WiC 1920 4xAA doesn't mean much when you're talking 13 and 20 FPS.

Did you get that AKIMBO EVGA version? Should be able to see some nice results if you're able to overclock it, otherwise the 600MHz stock speeds don't seem too appealing to me.

Not worried about the clocks. I do know that some of my games, BF2 and 2142, use more than 512mb at 1920x1200 4xAA.

My thought is that benchmarks don't show the difference between 512 and 1024mb, because a texture swap stutter doesn't cause much decrease in average framerate, yet a stutter is VERY noticeable while playing. I'm going to make a list of games and the memory they use and post it up.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: chizow
Hmm ya that chart was one of the reviews that made me think 1GB wasn't worth it on a GT. There are some differences yes, but for the most part the resolutions and settings where there were significant differences between 512 and 1gb were already borderline unplayable. Like 54% difference in WiC 1920 4xAA doesn't mean much when you're talking 13 and 20 FPS.

Did you get that AKIMBO EVGA version? Should be able to see some nice results if you're able to overclock it, otherwise the 600MHz stock speeds don't seem too appealing to me.

Not worried about the clocks. I do know that some of my games, BF2 and 2142, use more than 512mb at 1920x1200 4xAA.

My thought is that benchmarks don't show the difference between 512 and 1024mb, because a texture swap stutter doesn't cause much decrease in average framerate, yet a stutter is VERY noticeable while playing. I'm going to make a list of games and the memory they use and post it up.

Ah yes, very true about the stuttering as its something I'm sensitive to as well. I do miss XP in that regards as the new video stack in Vista broke RT's ability to monitor vRAM usage. Problem is this stutter is *very* subjective in the sense it doesn't show up in any testing well. I've even tried to accurately capture it in FRAPs which is difficult since FRAPs will usually vsync to lower FPS in demanding titles, resulting in choppier recording and gameplay. Also if you're using XP, maybe run Process Explorer and keep an eye on system RAM usage and hard faults. And if you use 174.74 drivers maybe see if changing the number of pre-rendered frames impacts vRAM or system RAM at all. In any case, I'll be looking forward to your memory usage results and conclusions.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: chizow
Hmm ya that chart was one of the reviews that made me think 1GB wasn't worth it on a GT. There are some differences yes, but for the most part the resolutions and settings where there were significant differences between 512 and 1gb were already borderline unplayable. Like 54% difference in WiC 1920 4xAA doesn't mean much when you're talking 13 and 20 FPS.

Did you get that AKIMBO EVGA version? Should be able to see some nice results if you're able to overclock it, otherwise the 600MHz stock speeds don't seem too appealing to me.

Not worried about the clocks. I do know that some of my games, BF2 and 2142, use more than 512mb at 1920x1200 4xAA.

My thought is that benchmarks don't show the difference between 512 and 1024mb, because a texture swap stutter doesn't cause much decrease in average framerate, yet a stutter is VERY noticeable while playing. I'm going to make a list of games and the memory they use and post it up.

Ah yes, very true about the stuttering as its something I'm sensitive to as well. I do miss XP in that regards as the new video stack in Vista broke RT's ability to monitor vRAM usage. Problem is this stutter is *very* subjective in the sense it doesn't show up in any testing well. I've even tried to accurately capture it in FRAPs which is difficult since FRAPs will usually vsync to lower FPS in demanding titles, resulting in choppier recording and gameplay. Also if you're using XP, maybe run Process Explorer and keep an eye on system RAM usage and hard faults. And if you use 174.74 drivers maybe see if changing the number of pre-rendered frames impacts vRAM or system RAM at all. In any case, I'll be looking forward to your memory usage results and conclusions.

Sweet, if someone is looking foward to it, the extra cost will be worth it.

I actually don't think there is an effect on framerate. In WoW, sometimes I get stutter, yet framerate stays over 80.

 

[Denithor]

I think this review is what you guys are looking for.

xbitlabs

And the only problem with those superclocked 1GB cards is the price tag, even higher than the 9800GTX.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
your subtopic says it all:

we need:
more tmus
more rops
more core speed (1ghz+)
more memory bus (384 / 512mb)
more vmem (1gb, 2gb - but only with bandwidth)
lower mem latencies (.4-.6ns GDDR4/5)

(IMO this core is capable of all these in due time & @ 55nm)

We need More! Bigger! Stuff!

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Denithor
I think this review is what you guys are looking for.

xbitlabs

And the only problem with those superclocked 1GB cards is the price tag, even higher than the 9800GTX.

For a legitimate test, they should have clocked the 1gb and 512mb cards to the same speeds.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: jaredpace
your subtopic says it all:

we need:
more tmus
more rops
more core speed (1ghz+)
more memory bus (384 / 512mb)
more vmem (1gb, 2gb - but only with bandwidth)
lower mem latencies (.4-.6ns GDDR4/5)

(IMO this core is capable of all these in due time & @ 55nm)

We need More! Bigger! Stuff!

haha

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Denithor
I think this review is what you guys are looking for.

xbitlabs

And the only problem with those superclocked 1GB cards is the price tag, even higher than the 9800GTX.

Hmm yes that's much better than the LR review, but ya I would've liked to have seen clock-to-clock comparisons and a direct comparison to the 9800GTX. Still, some interesting results from that review when you compare some of the parts like the 650MHz 1GB GT to the 650MHz 512MB GTS etc. Overall though I think it shows similar to that Expreview link, that there isn't much improvement in terms of avg FPS with more RAM. But as Throckmorton mentioned that doesn't always indicate the quality of gameplay as framebuffer can have an impact on smoothness of gameplay.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Denithor
I think this review is what you guys are looking for.

xbitlabs

And the only problem with those superclocked 1GB cards is the price tag, even higher than the 9800GTX.

Hmm yes that's much better than the LR review, but ya I would've liked to have seen clock-to-clock comparisons and a direct comparison to the 9800GTX. Still, some interesting results from that review when you compare some of the parts like the 650MHz 1GB GT to the 650MHz 512MB GTS etc. Overall though I think it shows similar to that Expreview link, that there isn't much improvement in terms of avg FPS with more RAM. But as Throckmorton mentioned that doesn't always indicate the quality of gameplay as framebuffer can have an impact on smoothness of gameplay.

Didn't notice the 1024 GT and the 512 GTS were the same clocks. Hmm, that's a somewhat useful comparison.


I should get my 8800GT 1gb today. I still have an 8800GTS that I will return to Fry's.

If anyone has suggestions for benchmarks I can download and run to compare the two, please share. I also have Crysis, Oblivion, BF2, BF2142, TF2, and HL2/ep1/ep2 so if there are any settings you want tested let me know. My res is 1920x1200.

 

[AzN]

On a 8800gt 512mb is plenty. It just doesn't have the horse power to play those games that are bottnecked by vram in high resolutions with AA.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: Azn
On a 8800gt 512mb is plenty. It just doesn't have the horse power to play those games that are bottnecked by vram in high resolutions with AA.

I don't really understand the idea of a bottleneck and having enough horsepower. Either you fill up the 512mb with textures etc, or you don't. If you fill it up, and there are more textures etc, they go in system RAM, and the PCIE bus is the bottleneck. Resolution and AA only comes into play because a higher res and AA increase framebuffer size, pushing other things out of the memory.

But it's like filling up your RAM and having to use swap file. How much computing power you have is irrelevant.



And also, people always call video card memory a frame buffer but it's not.

Definitions
http://www.google.com/search?q...tartIndex=&startPage=1

The final digital storage area for the image shown by a computer display. Software causes an image to appear onscreen by loading it into the frame ...
www.w3.org/TR/PNG-Glossary.html


Memory that stores one or more frames of video information for display on a screen.
developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeviceManagers/pci_srvcs/pci_cards_drivers/PCI_BOOK.25a.html

An area of RAM used to store the pixel data for a single screen image, or frame.
www.playstationpro2.com/dictionary.html

 

[superunknown98]

The reason people say a card doesnt have enough horsepower for a given memory size has more to do with fillrate, memory bandwidth, and shading power. Sure an AMD 2600pro 1GB might have enough memory to store 2560x1920 textures and, but it doesnt have enough fillrate or shading units to give a playable framerate in todays games. So why spend the extra money on the model with 1GB of memory?

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: superunknown98
The reason people say a card doesnt have enough horsepower for a given memory size has more to do with fillrate, memory bandwidth, and shading power. Sure an AMD 2600pro 1GB might have enough memory to store 2560x1920 textures and, but it doesnt have enough fillrate or shading units to give a playable framerate in todays games. So why spend the extra money on the model with 1GB of memory?

That was kind of my point.

 

[Throckmorton]

I installed my 8800GT 1gb. So far I've run the Crysis benchmark, and I was getting 26fps average, but I cut it short to look up the phone number to text-vote on Lewis Black's show. According to Rivatuner, usage went up to about 450mb.


And btw, the Akimbo cooler is much quieter than the 8800GTS dual slot cooler. The blower seems like a more efficient design, with bigger blades.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: superunknown98
The reason people say a card doesnt have enough horsepower for a given memory size has more to do with fillrate, memory bandwidth, and shading power. Sure an AMD 2600pro 1GB might have enough memory to store 2560x1920 textures and, but it doesnt have enough fillrate or shading units to give a playable framerate in todays games. So why spend the extra money on the model with 1GB of memory?

That was kind of my point.

Might be worth it if you were going for SLI perhaps? Running at 1080p with AA, AF, HDR enabled might fill up a frame buffer of 1GB.

 

[Throckmorton]

Does anyone know where I can get the Qarl's texture mod for Oblivion? I don't think the torrent works.

I'm going to try the HL2 Fakefactory Cinematic mod and see how much VRAM it uses.

 

[taltamir]

1. That review in the original post is for an 8800GTS G92. not the 9800GTX. Those are two different cards. (yes, they are SIMILAR, but nonetheless different)
2. I really want to see a review where SLI is tested on the 512MB vs 1GB model. That is the only case where I can see the 1GB coming into play.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: taltamir
1. That review in the original post is for an 8800GTS G92. not the 9800GTX. Those are two different cards. (yes, they are SIMILAR, but nonetheless different)
2. I really want to see a review where SLI is tested on the 512MB vs 1GB model. That is the only case where I can see the 1GB coming into play.

I don't think they are different in any way that matters

 

[MTDEW]

Originally posted by: taltamir
1. That review in the original post is for an 8800GTS G92. not the 9800GTX. Those are two different cards. (yes, they are SIMILAR, but nonetheless different)
2. I really want to see a review where SLI is tested on the 512MB vs 1GB model. That is the only case where I can see the 1GB coming into play.

Bumpin this because i'd like to see an sli comparison also, so if anyone sees one, please post a link here.

 

[Tempered81]

I just saw a 8800gtx sli vs. 9800gtx sli review at expreview.

they are practically equal on almost all benches...

hahah

 

[Throckmorton]

With Qarl's texture mod and some terrain LOD stuff, Oblivion will use more more than 500mb. I just need to find the 4096 color maps for terrain.