eVGA GeForce 6800 review...
Written: Nov 25 '04 (Updated Dec 08 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great speeds, able to play Doom 3 and Halo 2
Cons: May be more expensive than you want to spend...
The Bottom Line: For best bang/buck ratio for Doom3, this is your card
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| ivplay's Full Review: eVGA e-GeForce 6800, (128 MB) AGP Video Card |
eVGA.com was the manufacturer of my most recent video card, the 5900SE. I was very happy with the performance of this card as well as the company in general, so when I started looking for a new video card this summer, I again looked to eVGA.
Why did I buy this graphics card?
The 5900SE was the best video card bang for the buck at the time that I bought it in January of this year. I still think that it is a great buy and would still have it in my machine if it were not for the new games that have come out recently. With the advent of Doom3 and Halo2, I needed to upgrade my video card. The 5900 could barely make 5 frames per second with the settings at 1280X1024 and 2X anti aliasing, and that is simply unacceptable for gameplay.
I wanted a card that would be able to play the new games at 30 FPS or higher with at least 4X anti aliasing for great video performance with no visible problems. The 6800Ultra and 6800GT will obviously fit these requirements, but they cost $200 and $100 more than the 6800, respectively. After looking into the 6800 a tad bit, I decided that for $270 it would meet my requirements. I went to Newegg.com where again I found the best price available. For $270 with free shipping I was sent the eVGA.com GeForce FX 6800 video card! For reference, this was installed in the following system:
Abit IS7-E motherboard
Pentium 2.6c processor
Corsair PC4000 Twin XMS 1024MB DDR memory
EVGA.com GeForce FX 6800 Video Card
Western Digital 200GB SE hard drive
Western Digital 80GB SE hard drive
Windows XP Home Edition
Fedora Core 2 OS in dual-boot
Specifications
Specifications of the 6800 include the following(taken from the website):
256-bit GeForce 6800 running at 325MHz clock speed
128MB 256-bit 2.8ns DDR1 Memory running at 700MHz
AGP 8X/4X Compatible (AGP 3.0)
S-Video Onboard
DVI-I connector onboard
VGA 15-pin connector onboard
22.4GB/s theoretical onboard memory bandwidth
12 pixel pipelines
CineFX 3.0 Engine
The minimum system requirements from the box are:
2GHz Pentium 4 or an AMD Athlon or higher processor
256MB system memory or higher
300 Watt or greater power supply
AGP 2.0 or higher compliant slot on motherboard
One hard drive 4-pin power connection
CD-Rom drive
Windows 98SE/ME/NT 4.0 SP6/2000/XP
So what do I really need?
Processor requirement
This is the highest requirement that I have seen for a processor called out by a video card. I would recommend to have an AMD 64-bit compliant processor or a Pentium 4 2.4GHz or higher processor with the 800MHz FSB. This will help to ensure that your processor and RAM is up to speed for running the games that you are buying this card for.
RAM requirement
Realistically, you should have at least a minimum of 512MB and potentially upwards of 1GB (1024MB) of RAM in your system. This is certainly not required by the card itself, but for the games you are also going to purchase, you will probably run Windows XP. 256MB is required for the OS, and additional will be needed to run the games themselves. I would recommend 1GB of RAM running PC3200 (400MHz) or higher myself.
PSU
300W power supply is a minimum, and it needs to be a good one. Not only does the card require the power supplied by the AGP slot, it also requires a Molex plug like what you insert into your hard drives. It will run without the additional power, but it does remind you that it is reducing the performance of the card if you forget. If you have a cheaper 300W or even less in your PSU, you will probably hang your system or it will sporadically shut off in the middle of an important part of a game.
AGP slot
You have heard of PCI-Express, right? I personally would not recommend buying into this technology as of yet, mainly for price and reliability. AGP is still widely available while PCI-E (or X, depending on what you read) is not. To get into PCI-E your motherboard choices are limited and you will have to buy a new processor as well, most likely. The new PCI-E are based on the 915 and 925 chipsets which take the 775-pin processors.
Another reason to not run out and buy the PCI-E card, board and processor is that the games today simply do not take advantage of the additional bandwidth of PCI-E. In fact, very few games even use the full bandwidth of the AGP 8X specification as of yet! Long story short, PCI-E is expensive, not widely available, and offers very little to no improvement in performance.
In the box
In the box besides the card is an S-video cable, a DVI/Analog adapter, and a full version of Far Cry. You will also get a warranty registration card, but I simply enrolled online for the warranty.
The card is visually appealing, with a bright green board and a nice big HSF fan over the RAMDACs, and a heat pipe contacting the memory modules. The card is large, physically. The size of the card is almost 4" wide and 8 1/2" in length. The user will have a very hard time fitting this in most SFF and micro PC's, if it is possible at all. The board has a connection for more power through a 4-pin Molex connector typically used to power your optical drives. Without this connection the card will warn you that it is detuned and will not run 3D apps correctly. IT NEEDS JUICE!
Installation is typical, simply plugging the card into the AGP slot, which is typically the first slot from the top. Make sure to apply enough pressure to get the card seated securely, as AGP cards notoriously pop out and cost unwitting users money in 'repairs' at the computer shop!
My experiences
I have used this card for over 6 months now and have been extremely happy with it. The card does have overclocking ability as well as great performance right out of the box. I ran 3d2001SE and 3d2005 benchmarks from Futuremark for reference sake, and the results are below:
Out of the box frequencies of 350/700MHz for Core and RAM
3dMark3001SE: 17018 3dMarks
3dMark2005: 2570 Marks
Overclocked to 400/810MHz
3dMark2001SE: 19,584 3dMarks
3dMark2005: 3164 Marks
What this basically tells you is that this is a great improvement over the 5900SE that I used before, although it is only in benchmarks. The true test is how it will work with the game of my choice, Doom3.
For real world performance in Doom3, I ran the game with Best Quality settings, 4X anti aliasing and 1280X1024 resolution at 32-bit color. I was easily able to maintain above 30 frames per second with these settings, although it dropped down considerably when I turned the anti aliasing up to 8X. The 5900SE could hardly maintain 5 FPS at these settings, so it was subsequently sold on Ebay. The performance of this card is simply phenomenal, and I have noticed things in my games that I have never seen before. Far Cry is a great game to showcase the power of this card, and that is probably why they included it with the retail package.
This card is not going to get you to 1600X1200 resolutions for gameplay. For that you are going to have to step into the 6800GT or Ultra models, or similarly priced ATI cards. However, my monitor will not run at resolutions higher than 1280X1024, so this card meets my needs and supplies me with the gaming power I needed.
Conclusion
I researched high and low, and I believe that this is the best bang for the buck card available for Doom3 and Halo2. If you want to play at 1280X1024 with seamless graphics and the 'extras' turned on, this card will do it. If you have an additional $100 to blow, get the GT, and if money is no object go all out for the Ultra.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 270
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