HOT! RUN, DONT WALK. Kansas City Area Best Buys have 1 or 2 BFG 6800GT OC for 399

[SixFootDuo]

As of the last 30 - 35 mins, 2 of the Kansas City area Best Buys had I think two BFG Nvidia 6800 GT OCs for 399.

The one near Oakpark Mall has 1 left as of 10 mins ago.

The other had 2.

Bannister Store burned down.

Good luck.

GIVE YOUR LOCAL STORE A CALL RIGHT AWAY. I AM TOLD MANY 1,000's of cards went out to Most Best Buys. Was told this by an area manager ( district manager? )

If you call, make sure to ask the guy / gal to check via the computer as one of the stores still had the cards in the back.

I am fairly sure that many of you out there if you act fast can get these very hard to get cards.

 

[ActuaryTm]

Originally posted by: SixFootDuo
I just purchased one. Dont go to Bannister Store, it burned down

No doubt by the power hungry would-be GT consumers.

 

[SubaruWRX03]

Nothing over at the hawthorne, west la, culver city

 

[kennyG]

Well if you know a BESTBUY employee..it can be your for 311.00 plus tax..that's if you know a BESTBUY employee

 

[M12]

Availiable all over so cal now. Check site again.

 

[c627627]

Bannister Store burned down, what do you mean burned down.

$400 for a video card and it's an unbelievable deal?

So... the difference between it and say 9800 Pro for less than half the price is worth the $400?

 

[stonep]

$400 for a video card and it's an unbelievable deal?

So... the difference between it and say 9800 Pro for less than half the price is worth the $400?

nothing worth $200 more thats for sure!!

$400 a hot deal for a video card? no thanks

 

[Trikat]

All sold out around my area...

 

[iwearnosox]

Picked one up in San Carlos, CA this morning. They got two, employee snagged the other one.

 

[hevnsnt]

I am right by the oak park store, if you want it I could probably pick it up for you

 

[BATCH71]

I bought the last 2 in Nashua NH, sorry guys. One for me and one for Dad. These particular BFG 6800oc from best buy have an all copper heatpipe attatched. Both of the cards clock to 430/1200 and run the hell outta doom. I think this is a great deal for a outstanding video card. Get em if you can find em. The heatpipes are not on any of the cards I have seen reviewed. I am a bit perplexed and pleasantly giddy at the same time.

 

[c627627]

"There?s no practical difference between the Ultra High and High Quality modes. You can only discern it looking at the screenshots in turns. On a close inspection, there are color patterns in the second screenshot, which are due to diffuse and specular maps compression, but they are very inconspicuous even on static screens.

In the Medium Quality mode, you can already see the specific square-shaped artifacts, most visible on small details of a scene. This is a tradeoff of the normal maps compression. The quality of the textures hasn?t become worse much in comparison to the High Quality mode, but they look blurry, especially in the distance, due to the lack of anisotropic filtering. Besides that, there are compression-related artifacts on complex textures ? the same color patterns."

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/doom-3-tests_3.html


Doom 3 appears to play quite well even on GeForce4 Ti 4200 at Medium Quality 1280x1024 @ 85 Hz. Ti 4200 is better than FX 5200 Ultra. Overclocked it keeps up with FX 5600 but it's way below 9800 Pro.

If the game plays this well with Ti 4200, 9800 Pro must must really be great for it.

I'm not putting the 6800GT down but is this true?:

"The Ultra High Quality mode is intended exclusively for graphics cards that can boast a tremendous memory amount of 512 megabytes! There are no such products in the market yet; they are only expected in this fall."

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/doom-3-tests.html

If it is, why bother with the $400 purchase that can't do The Ultra High Quality mode?

 

[zoh6]

Originally posted by: c627627
Doom 3 appears to play quite well even on GeForce4 Ti 4200 at Medium Quality 1280x1024 @ 85 Hz. Ti 4200 is better than FX 5200 Ultra. Overclocked it keeps up with FX 5600 but it's way below 9800 Pro.

No way it plays well at 1280x1024 on a gf4-4200. I've played it on a 9800pro and a gf3 (gainward golden sample). It's very playable at 640x480 in low quality on the gf3, and I play at 1024x768 on the 9800pro (both p4-3.2/1GB machines). In my experience, the HardOCP article hit it dead on.

 

[Dantzig]

I've heard several reports of Doom 3 performing very well on Ti4200/4400/4600/4800 cards at high resolutions and medium or high quality. It probably has to do with the fact that the Ti4XXX series cards do not support DirectX 9 features such as heat haze, so even in medium or high quality modes, they're not running the game with all of the graphical goodies enabled.

My 9800 overclocked to Pro speeds runs the game well at 1024x768, high quality but it still gets slightly jerky sometimes.

 

[c627627]

Thanks for the link zoh6, they say:
"...antialiasing is not a necessity in DOOM 3. Turn the resolution up as high as you can and aliasing soon becomes forgotten."

I have a quick q, how would you define "plays well".

At 1280x1024, High quality was not a "plays well" option for my 128 MB GeForce4 Ti 4200. Medium Quality (instead of High) at that resolution does run without apparent problems though.

When I turn the FPS display, it fluctuates wildly though, is FPS how we would define "plays well" and if so, what's the way to tell which of the fluctuating digits is the one for your card.

Press CTRL + ALT + ~ to bring up the console.
com_showfps 1


P.S. What's the verifiable command to lock the refresh rate at 85 Hz instead of the game default 60 Hz please? I use RefreshLock program but it would be easier if there was a console command.

 

[cyrax78]

Doom3 runs very smoothly on my 128meg Ti4200 at 1280x1024 with 'high quality' setting. I had to OC it to 280/520 to get this result though (no biggie with Rivatuner, gotta love that tool). Without the OC its noticably jerky, but with OC it seems to run better than Far Cry for my rig (no "first time stutters")

 

[joecool]

i'll be swinging by cusa today at lunch to pick up my pny 6800 gt ... that i got with a free copy of doom3! going to have some fun tonight!

-joe

 

[NightFalcon]

Found it in 3 stores near me, but can't go till this evening and they'll be probably gone by then

 

[royalx21]

2 in stock at the Best Buy in Pontiac, MI @ Summit Mall. FYI.

 

[Jmman]

I just checked and here in Denver all five Compusas say they have stock on the 6800GTs....might want to check your local Compusa's folks....

 

[ricoesco]

I don't agree that having a hard-to-get videocard in stock at full price is a hot deal.

I had a ti4200 and played doom3 with it. It runs ok at medium settings and 800x600 resolution....definitely playable. However, IMO it looked terrible graphically. I upgraded to the 6800gt. I can now play the game on high quality with all options on at 1280x1024. Doom3 runs well AND now looks great.

The premium you pay for the 6800gt is to have games like Doom3 and Half-life looking great NOW. In a year the GT will probably be down to $299 or $249.

 

[NightFalcon]

Originally posted by: ricoesco
The premium you pay for the 6800gt is to have games like Doom3 and Half-life looking great NOW. In a year the GT will probably be down to $299 or $249.

Highly doubtful... $349 maybe, don't think it'll fall $100 in 1 year. But if it does, then great

 

[Zbox]

For the record, the in store availability on the bestbuy.com website is near ALWAYS wrong. Be sure to call ahead first. Many stores will be receiving additional quantities tonight and should have them on the shelves tomorrow morning...

 

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: c627627
"There?s no practical difference between the Ultra High and High Quality modes. You can only discern it looking at the screenshots in turns. On a close inspection, there are color patterns in the second screenshot, which are due to diffuse and specular maps compression, but they are very inconspicuous even on static screens.

In the Medium Quality mode, you can already see the specific square-shaped artifacts, most visible on small details of a scene. This is a tradeoff of the normal maps compression. The quality of the textures hasn?t become worse much in comparison to the High Quality mode, but they look blurry, especially in the distance, due to the lack of anisotropic filtering. Besides that, there are compression-related artifacts on complex textures ? the same color patterns."

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/doom-3-tests_3.html


Doom 3 appears to play quite well even on GeForce4 Ti 4200 at Medium Quality 1280x1024 @ 85 Hz. Ti 4200 is better than FX 5200 Ultra. Overclocked it keeps up with FX 5600 but it's way below 9800 Pro.

If the game plays this well with Ti 4200, 9800 Pro must must really be great for it.

I'm not putting the 6800GT down but is this true?:

"The Ultra High Quality mode is intended exclusively for graphics cards that can boast a tremendous memory amount of 512 megabytes! There are no such products in the market yet; they are only expected in this fall."

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/doom-3-tests.html

If it is, why bother with the $400 purchase that can't do The Ultra High Quality mode?

Because it can do high quality at 1600x1200 at nice fps, it can do ultra quality, I'm not sure how much of a speed decrease their is, but I upgraded to one of these although only paid 279 at compusa from a ti4200, and noticed a big difference accross the board in games. BF1942, much smoother, UT2004=awesome, Doom 3=world of difference. Although I do play at 1280x1024 due to that being my LCD display's rez, so if yuou got a smaller monitor it might not be worth it, and ur ti4200 might be fine i guess.

 

[ColdBrew]

Here is my story...

I've been calling BB everyday for about three weeks (also other near by cities). Thanks to the info for the SKU and where to find them, my purchase of one was made possible.

Last night when checking the online stock of the local store it showed they had some in stock. I had forgotten to call that day and it was after closing when I checked the BB website.

I called first thing this morning to check the stock and their computer showed two in stock. I asked the guy if you could put his hand on one and he said he didn't know where they were. We went back and forth with me trying to get him to find it and him making up excuses (all were lies). When I got off the phone he said give him 45 minutes and he would see if he could find them. I decided I would drive over there, so 30 minutes later I find the guy I was talking to on the phone and he said he couldn't find them. He just kept pointing to the empty space on the shelf.

I repeatedly asked him if he had checked in back, the end caps, any where they could be stored. He said yes, but offered nothing more but to ask the "geek guys" or something like that.

I go ask the "geek guy" (warranty repair guys) if he has a video card and he says they don't have any talk to the guy in computers (useless). He says get him to make sure they aren't in the warehouse.

Instead I go ask the guy who greets you when you come in the store. He says he can't check stock there but to ask a guy in the cell phone area since he isn't busy. The cell phone guy looks it up and sure enough it shows two on hand. He says maybe it is wrong, but he doesn't even know what it is and offers no solution...

So now I'm getting ticked off no one is willing to hunt down these two cards. I go back to the guy at the front and ask him to get the store manager, I want these cards found! Well that got him going... He got a girl to watch the door and basically ran back to the back and emerged with a 6800GT. I asked him to get the other one too because I had someone with me who was going to buy it. He brought out both the cards but for some reason didn't trust me to go to the front with them myself, so he escorted me to the check out register.

I wanted to go tell the asshole in the computer section off but didn't get the chance. The guy who did get the card just said the guy was lazy...

Anyways I now have my card installed and it works with a Tyan 2885 (in case anyone here has a MB like that). I couldn?t get the omega drivers to work, but NVIDIA?s worked great.

I happy I got my card, but very disappointed at the lack of interest of BB employees to help me find the cards.

So if anyone else gets the run around when they show in stock, I would keep on them until they locate them.