Cheap deal on Geforce 6800

branney

[Originally posted this as a question, but now I am sharing the answers I got:]



I normally spend just over £100 on a graphics card each year, and sell the old one for around £60-70.

Last year, I went with an ATI Radeon for the best performance/price ratio in my price range.

This year, for that price range, most review sites are stating that the NVidia GeForce is once again the best buy for your money (it keeps swapping between the 2 companies).

Nvidia have a 6200 (low end), 6600 (mid range), and 6800 (high end). The 6600 and 6800 can also be bought in 'GT' form for slightly higher performance.

The one that is hotly-backed right now is the 6600GT (now only £120 on Ebuyer). However, someone told me where I can get a special on the standard 6800, which has comparable (about 10% higher) performance to the 6600GT, for a price cheaper than the 6600GT!! For those looking at ATI Radeons, the performance is comparable to a Radeon X800Pro.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Leadtek_SALE.html

This site is selling a Geforce 6800 for just £111 including VAT. I have just ordered one (unfortunately the delivery is quite expensive at £8).

This site has been around for a while, though I have never used them before. When I called them this afternoon, they took a while to answer the phone, but I wasn't placed in a queue. They were very helpful, and managed to answer all of my questions. Also, the Leadtek brand is a good one, which always gets good marks in the reviews.

Another reason I chose the GeForce over my current Radeon is that I have 2 monitors, and want to be able to stretch the screen over both of them in games. The Radeon will only allow you to stretch your windows desktop, but not games.

Hope this is useful to someone!
Here are some specs; memory speeds depend on which brand you get:

6600, 8 rendering pipelines, 128MB of 128-bit RAM at 550MHz
6600GT, 8 rendering pipelines, 128MB of 128-bit RAM at 900-1000MHz
6800, 12 rendering pipelines, 128MB of 256-bit RAM at 700MHz
6800GT, 16 rendering pipelines, 256MB of 256-bit RAM at 900-1000MHz

You may wonder why the 6800 has memory which is slower than the 6600GT (I did). Because the 6800's memory is 256 bits wide, it can transfer twice as much info when at the same speed. Effectively you are looking at a higher overall speed when you take that into account, and there are the extra pipelines too.

I have probably gone into too much detail, but since I have done all the groundwork, I though I should share this fantastic deal with others!

wolfman

Yeah I posted this in the "Grab it while you can" forum.

I've bought a 6800GT myself. Put it in only a few hours ago. It's working fine. I can achieve much better resolution/detail than with my 9700 Pro.

The 6800 is a good choice, and slightly overclockable. I'd go for the 6800GT if you can afford it though. It can overclock to a 6800 Ultra no problem.

branney

wolfman wrote:

Yeah I posted this in the "Grab it while you can" forum.

I've bought a 6800GT myself. Put it in only a few hours ago. It's working fine. I can achieve much better resolution/detail than with my 9700 Pro.

The 6800 is a good choice, and slightly overclockable. I'd go for the 6800GT if you can afford it though. It can overclock to a 6800 Ultra no problem.

i was going to as it's £170, but my favourite games are simulations, so i think my CPU will end up being the limiting factor. no point spending more than £120 on an AGP card, i think. next time i will have to upgrade the whole lot!

the point of the standard 6800 is that (apart from not having the faster memory) it is actually the same chip as the 6800GT.

i am planning to try and unlock the extra pipelines for a total of 16! they can be done individually too, so all i need to do is tick each one individually in the software, and try a game to see if any dodgy artifacts show up.

there is a good chance i will have 14, 15, or even 16 working pipelines for the price of 12

anyway, sorry if i posted it in the wrong section.

wolfman

No probs, yeah sounds like a good way to go. Be warey though, I had planeed to do the same. Read this article,
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gf6800-oc_5.html. Apparently the additional 4 pipelines are defective.

I had planned to spend £120 too, and get a GeForce 6600GT, but got more than expected for my 9700 Pro, so decided to push the extra £50 and get the 6800GT.

It'll be my last AGP card too. It's in balance with the rest of the system, so I'll probably sell the whole base unit a year or two down the line.

branney

watch out how you pay with that company linked above. they took my card details on sunday, but said they could not tell me if it had authorised until monday.

on sunday i called the card company (before the order) and they said as soon as i go overdrawn i can call and pay by debit card, but not before. so on monday nothing was showing up with capital one online. on this MSE board i was told a company can take the payment 1-3 working days after authorising. so to be on the safe side i called capital one tonight (tuesday), and the company took the payment out YESTERDAY.

so beware, they are quicker than most!

Rave

branney wrote:

there is a good chance i will have 14, 15, or even 16 working pipelines for the price of 12

Are you sure? AFAIK they can only be unlocked in 'quads' of four pipes- so with a 6800 (which has 12 of it's 16 pipes working already- I.E. 3 of 4 quads) the remaining four pipes either unlock or they don't. You can also attempt to unlock the sixth vertex shader unit though.

branney

Rave wrote:

Are you sure? AFAIK they can only be unlocked in 'quads' of four pipes- so with a 6800 (which has 12 of it's 16 pipes working already- I.E. 3 of 4 quads) the remaining four pipes either unlock or they don't. You can also attempt to unlock the sixth vertex shader unit though.

nope, you're right. tried last night, and it's all or nothing!