Help picking between two 8800 GTs

[winterlight]

I am about to buy a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB for a new system I am building in preparation for a New Year's Day LAN party.

Games that I am playing include: Unreal Tournament 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, Call of Duty 4, Command & Conquer 3, and Crysis. I also want some staying power but I will be upgrading to better hardware all around in 12-18 months after the Penryns and the suitable motherboards have come down.

I'd like to max all those games at 1360x768 with at least 2xAA at a minimum of 40fps, except for Crysis. For Crysis I would accept no AA and mostly High settings (no need for Very High), some Medium, and 30fps.

My other system specs are:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
2 GB DDR2-900 RAM
7200 RPM 250GB hard drive, 16MB Cache
Samsung 26'' 720p HDTV (1360x768 resolution)

Here are the two cards I'm looking at:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130318

- EVGA 8800 GT 512 MB 256-bit GDDR3
Core clock: 600MHz, Memory Clock 1800MHz

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130303

- EVGA 8800 GT 512 MB 256-bit GDDR3
Core clock: 650 MHZ, Memory Clock: 1900MHz

Now are these cards really identical but the latter is overclocked in the factory, is that what's going on here? If that's the case then I can just buy the first one (20 bucks cheaper) and overclock it myself. Or is the second one actually different and capable of going to higher clock speeds for some particular hardware reason?

Thanks!

 

[BlueAcolyte]

The second one is factory overclocked. Good luck with finding either...

 

[Zambien]

Originally posted by: winterlight
I am about to buy a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB for a new system I am building in preparation for a New Year's Day LAN party.

Games that I am playing include: Unreal Tournament 3, The Lord of the Rings Online, Call of Duty 4, Command & Conquer 3, and Crysis. I also want some staying power but I will be upgrading to better hardware all around in 12-18 months after the Penryns and the suitable motherboards have come down.

I'd like to max all those games at 1360x768 with at least 2xAA at a minimum of 40fps, except for Crysis. For Crysis I would accept no AA and mostly High settings (no need for Very High), some Medium, and 30fps.

My other system specs are:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
2 GB DDR2-900 RAM
7200 RPM 250GB hard drive, 16MB Cache
Samsung 26'' 720p HDTV (1360x768 resolution)

Here are the two cards I'm looking at:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130318

- EVGA 8800 GT 512 MB 256-bit GDDR3
Core clock: 600MHz, Memory Clock 1800MHz

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814130303

- EVGA 8800 GT 512 MB 256-bit GDDR3
Core clock: 650 MHZ, Memory Clock: 1900MHz

Now are these cards really identical but the latter is overclocked in the factory, is that what's going on here? If that's the case then I can just buy the first one (20 bucks cheaper) and overclock it myself. Or is the second one actually different and capable of going to higher clock speeds for some particular hardware reason?

Thanks!

I'd go for the cheaper one and put the extra $20 towards an aftermarket cooler. Maybe an Accellero. $269 isn't all that bad for an IN STOCK EVGA 8800gt 512

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
The second one is factory overclocked. Good luck with finding either...

They're both in stock. >.>

To the OP: Personally I'd go for the 650MHz one if you don't mind spending the extra $20 and you get QW:ET with it as well. I used to strongly believe there wasn't much difference between the OC and stock versions but EVGA puts a great deal of effort into differentiating their products to sell for slightly higher prices. Someone also recently posted a SS of their binning rooms that have stacks of cards and workstations. There's also the potential for different voltages etc. in the BIOS, which I believe was the main difference between EVGA and BFG's cards (and resulting OCs) at launch. Lastly, the newer GTs should be shipping with a bigger stock fan. Not sure if these have them but the pictures don't have the bigger fan. If you get a model with the updated fan I wouldn't worry too much about replacing the stock cooler.

 

[amtbr]

Save yourself some money and buy the cheaper one and 'superclock' it yourself. I bought the vanilla EVGA 8800GT and it runs at 680/1697/2000 with the stock cooler no prob. If you are comfortable using Rivatuner then OC'ing it yourself isnt that difficult.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: amtbr
Save yourself some money and buy the cheaper one and 'superclock' it yourself. I bought the vanilla EVGA 8800GT and it runs at 680/1697/2000 with the stock cooler no prob. If you are comfortable using Rivatuner then OC'ing it yourself isnt that difficult.

Myself and many others were able to push the launch 8800GT SC to 700+, I maxed out at 729/18XX/2000 with the stock cooler at 60%.

 

[Butterbean]

The photos to the cards you have linked show the smaller and louder fans that came out with the reference cards. They are being replaced. XFX has one model out (as does Asus, Gigabyte, LeadTek and a few others):


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16814150259


See here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2126858

 

[secretanchitman]

the first one...overclock it yourself. evga covers ANY type of 3rd party cooling and overclocking so you are fine in both departments.

 

[taltamir]

isn't best buy selling them for 220$ with cupon right now?

 

[nitro28]

I just bought the 600mhz evga and a zalman vf900 cooler. Nice combo. This card does come from Newegg with the new larger stock fan by the way. It also comes with Quake Wars, they just didn't list it for some reason. No need to get the factory overclocked when you can do it yourself and put the money towards a quieter and more efficient cooler.

 

[MTDEW]

If you're looking for max Overclock speeds than your chances of getting a higher clocking card "may"...i repeat "may" be better with the superclocked version.

But if your looking at the superclocked speeds vs the stock speeds, the stock card will do superclocked speeds EASILY. (and most likely more)

Pretty much EVERY 8800GT will do the same speeds as the Evga superclocked does, since its speeds arent that much higher than stock 8800GT speeds.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

err... oops sorry. Are they still in stock? Anyway, like someone else said, spend the $20-30 on an accelero S1, those are great for cooling and make no noise.

 

[Mucker]

Originally posted by: amtbr
Save yourself some money and buy the cheaper one and 'superclock' it yourself. I bought the vanilla EVGA 8800GT and it runs at 680/1697/2000 with the stock cooler no prob. If you are comfortable using Rivatuner then OC'ing it yourself isnt that difficult.

Agree, same story for me..........

 

[xgsound]

If they're both in stock now, flip a coin and buy one while they're still in stock. I got the EVGA 650 Mhz one recently myself, but only because that was the only EVGA in stock. I don't think you can lose unless they aren't available when you decide. You'll probably want to use rivatuner (it can do the overclock too) to check temp and auto adjust the fan regardless of which one you buy.


Jim