XFX Says 8600 GTS is equivalent to 7900 GT

[Dantzig]

I just sent my defective XFX 7900 GT video card in for RMA. XFX said that they don't have any more of those cards in stock so my two options are to replace it with an 8600 GTS 256MB or pay $150 to upgrade to a 8800 GTS 320MB.

The issue is that the 8600 GTS is hardly equivalent to my old 7900 GT. It gets 50-75% of the FPS of the 7900 GT in most games according to Tom's Hardware VGA Charts

the 7900 GT still sells for $215 according to froogle
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.google.com/products?q=xfx+7900+gt+btnG=Search+Products+scoring=p">
The 7950 GT sells for $203</a>
The 8600 GTS sells for $150
And the 8800 GTS sell for $279 less a $20 rebate, so $250

Since the 8600 GTS is a definite step down from the 7900 GT and the 8800 GTS 320MB is a definite step up and given the prices of the cards, my proposal was the change the "upgrade fee" to $75.

XFX's response--

[DANIEL_E - 10/19/2007] Hi, the 8600gts is a comparable card to the 7900gt. The benchmarks on tomshardware is with drivers nearly 9 months old for the 8600gts and the drivers the 7900gt were using were mature since the card had been out for a while. With the new drivers that have been optimized for the 8600gts the performance is the same and even better in some games, and you get dx10, video encoding support, and hdcp with the 8600gts; the 7900gt had none of those features. Also the 8800gts upgrade price is from our sales department and is non negotiable. I`ve forward this informaton along to have someone give you a call regarding this. In the meantime try to see if you can find some differant benchmarks to compare the 8600gts to the 7900gt as the tomshardware ones are awful and not a correct representation of the cards performance with current drivers. We appologize for the inconvienience. Daniel

This sounds like completely and total bull to me. Is my position reasonable? Has anyone else had similar problems with XFX?

 

[nonameo]

Really... features don't make up for performance. Are they saying that they can give you an 8500GS as long as it grates cheese? @ 10lb/min? I don't think so.


OTOH, you could just wait a few weeks and see if you'd rather upgrade to the 8800GT

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

He's got a point. The Tom's Hardware charts do use outdated drivers. Look at the ones on AT, FiringSquad, OCP, etc.

 

[AzN]

7900gt is a discontinued product that is why the price is high.

I have to agree with XFX. Tom's hardware is using some old drivers when 8600gts were first released and wasn't optimized.

8600gts is actually a good match for a 7900gt. Just look at current benchmark. 8600gts usually wins. Especially any games that was made this year. However 7900gt is better card if you want to run higher than 1280x1024 since it runs faster in higher resolutions for older games because of 8600gts bandwidth limitations and lower ROP.

 

[Dantzig]

Please link any of these current benchmarks. I cannot find any. Please also keep in mind that I run games at 1600x1050 with AA/AF enabled so I don't care if the 8600 GTS can keep pace at very low resolutions and/or without AA/AF. I've looked everywhere and found the 8600 GTS performing at 50-70% of the 7900 GT.

The 8600 GTS just doesn't have the memory bus capable of supporting decent performance at higher resolutions. It has a 128bit bus while the 7900 GT has a 256bit bus.

 

[zagood]

There have been a lot of posts with similar issues. If you really want a 79xx series card, keep pushing them. Very likely they'll just happen to "find" one.

If not, that 8600GTS is actually running newer games better than the 7900GT. Source based games will be faster on the 7900, but newer engines will run as fast if not faster on the new part.

AT's UT3 roundup:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3128&p=3

Edit: check the next page for 16x12 resolution. Very similar results. Wait, 16x12? WTF? Who runs that on a 4:3? CRT? Wow. I need one of those monitors.

AT's Orange Box roundup:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3122&p=3

-z

 

[AzN]

http://www.amdzone.com/modules...ticle&artid=326&page=1

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3128&p=3

http://www.amdzone.com/modules...ticle&artid=315&page=1

 

[AzN]

For 1680x1050 though you really need to upgrade your card if you want to play newer games. 7900gt or 8600gts won't cut it unless you are okay with medium settings.

 

[Dantzig]

LOL, yeah the performance of both the 7900 and 8600 look pretty bad on newer games. Right now, I mainly play Source engine games so the 7900 is definitely better for me.

I'm going to push them some more for a 7900 series card but it's looking like I might have to give in and pay the $150 for the 8800 GTS 320MB and then tell XFX that they just lost a customer to EVGA for all of my future purchases.

 

[zagood]

Another option if you don't get the 7900gt:

Accept the 8600GTS
Sell 8600GTS (I would guess around $125+)
Take the $125, combine it with the $150 you saved, and put it towards a 8800GT.

-z

 

[AzN]

I play source 1440x900 with 16xAF 16x CSAA just fine on my GTS. I don't think you'll have any problems playing source in that resolution.

Like Zagood said you can get the 8600gts for now and upgrade later with 8800gt or something.

 

[bryanW1995]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me..._key=y&keyword1=7900gt xfx 7900 gt for $105 shipped.

this one wants $150 and but hasn't had any action, probably b/c you can buy a great 1950xt for that price. it is probably worth a little bit more than the xfx, however, due to the lifetime warranty. http://forums.anandtech.com/me..._key=y&keyword1=7900gt

this one was sold 5 wks ago (before all the 8800gt info became available) for $140 shipped, definitely the top end of a 7900gt card. http://forums.anandtech.com/me..._key=y&keyword1=7900gt


at the resolution that you use for gaming, I'd go for the 8800gts 320. That's like you selling your 7900 gt about $110 and getting an 8800 for $260, but you don't have to mess around with annoying MIR's, shipping, etc. Even if you could get $130 for your 7900gt if it was still working, you'd still only be paying $150 for an INCREDIBLE value card that a year after its intro is still one of the best cards on the market. At 1680x1050 you'll be able to use that card for many years, even on newer games.

If you're planning to jump to 1920x1200 or higher then just settle for the 8600gts and do the upgrade later. I've never bought an xfx card nor do I care one whit for them either way, but I don't think that they're trying to screw you in any way and it would be unreasonable for you to hold a grudge against them for offering you a different card.

The only other thing that I can think of would be if you ask them to get you an 8800gt 512 for the same price as the 8800gts 320. You would have to wait a couple of weeks for that most likely, but that would be an even better upgrade for you and it would probably cost them about the same to do it.

 

[Dantzig]

Those are some good points, Bryan. Maybe I just should have taken the 8800 GTS but the way that they approached me really struck me wrong. "You can choose between something slower or pay us more money for something faster." I think a stand up company would have just sent the faster replacement on principle alone. That would have made me an XFX customer for life.

However, after enough pushing, they agreed to replace my 7900 GT with *gasp* another 7900 GT card. Amazing how they were able to magically find one. We'll see how this one holds up. Wish me luck!

 

[zagood]

Hah! Told you!

-z

 

[bryanW1995]

lol. good job. most people would have probably given up. It does seem odd that they wouldn't have preferred to send you the old tech 7900gt instead of the still-current 8600gts, though. I wonder if they didn't contact newegg/dell/etc to get one of the 7900gt's back from them...

 

[shabby]

Keep insisting they lower the upgrade fee, then go for the 8800gts.

 

[dandragonrage]

Originally posted by: zagood
Edit: check the next page for 16x12 resolution. Very similar results. Wait, 16x12? WTF? Who runs that on a 4:3? CRT? Wow. I need one of those monitors.

I run 1600x1200 100Hz on my 4:3 CRT. It can do 2048x1536 85Hz but I see major flickering in that (the higher the resolution, the higher the refresh rate needs to be for me to not notice flicker; 85Hz is fine at 1024x768 and would get the job done at 1600x1200)

 

[heyheybooboo]

^^^ What Bryan said...

Go for the 8800gts 320. DX10 & hdcp is a nice trade up. No deal is going to be perfect. Just be happy they are (somewhat) honoring their warranty without too much hassle.

That's saying alot these days . . . :thumbsup:

edit: OOps! Check that . . . raise cain and get a 7900gt back

 

[BurnItDwn]

Originally posted by: zagood
Edit: check the next page for 16x12 resolution. Very similar results. Wait, 16x12? WTF? Who runs that on a 4:3? CRT? Wow. I need one of those monitors.
-z

Pretty much any 19inch CRT made since the mid 90s can handle 1600x1200 at 75 hz. Most "good" 19 or 21 inch CRTs can do 1600x1200 at 85hz. (and as you can see by dandragonrage's post, they make even better ones that can do it at 100 hz.)

Before I bought my 1920x1200 display, I was using 1600x1200 on a 4:3.

Why run at a lower resolution?

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: dandragonrage

Originally posted by: zagood
Edit: check the next page for 16x12 resolution. Very similar results. Wait, 16x12? WTF? Who runs that on a 4:3? CRT? Wow. I need one of those monitors.

I run 1600x1200 100Hz on my 4:3 CRT. It can do 2048x1536 85Hz but I see major flickering in that (the higher the resolution, the higher the refresh rate needs to be for me to not notice flicker; 85Hz is fine at 1024x768 and would get the job done at 1600x1200)

Strange, it's the first time I have heard of such a thing. I have the same monitor and find 85hz good enough for most games (especially darker ones), but like to have 100hz or more in Windows, regardless of the resolution.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: shabby
Keep insisting they lower the upgrade fee, then go for the 8800gts.

actually wait another week.


then insist on the new 8800GT