You're entitled to disagree all you want, and my examples aren't as detailed because arguments tend to become boring when it becomes a benchmark war.
BTW: my 8800 is a 640mb, not a 320mb. Secondly, the comments at newegg have stated that this CAN PERFORM like an 8800GTX - ofcourse with overclocking.
The 640mb GTS might approach the speed of a GTX with overclocking, sure, but that argument is flawed for a number of reasons.
1) To overclock a GTS that far without severely impinging on its usable lifespan, you'd need to keep it under watercooling. A decent watercooling system will cost you in the region of $100-300 depending on what you get. Might as well buy a GTX or even an Ultra, when adding that amount of extra cost on top of the price of a GTS 640.
2) The GTS 640 is still over 100mb of video memory short of the GTX, limiting its ability to handle high resolutions which need a large framebuffer and also limiting the use of high-res textures, no matter how much you overclock it (within the realm of practicality - Liquid Nitrogen benchmarks aside).
3) The argument that the GTS can be overclocked is essentially nullified when you consider that the GTX can be too, with a major head-start and a speed-binned G8x core guaranteed to handle higher clocks than the cores used in the GTS.
Additionally, the GTX has the extra stream processors (128 GTX, 96 GTS) available to actually make use of the extra clockspeeds instead of saturating bandwidth with a situation of diminishing returns.
4) My examples were based on the 8800 Ultra, which is a good 15% faster than the GTX again, and overclocks MUCH further, due to using the best speed-binned G8x cores from the production line.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some GTX fanboy out to stomp on your card, I'm still running two 7900GTs in SLI, waiting for newer cards to come out before I drop that amount of cash on an upgrade.
I just think it's unrealistic to expect an 8800GTS, of any variant, to run Crysis at maximum settings, unless you're playing in 800x600 on a 15" screen and can tolerate resolutions that low.
Third, you are talking about an early beta of the Crysis game. I'm talking about after the launch when all the kinks are corrected by both the game and the drivers.
I already took that into account. I'm using the MP Beta as a reference point and stating that yes, it's unoptimised, but optimisation can only do so much.
You just don't get games at that visual quality in tolerably high resolutions (ie; 1280x960 on a 19" screen, nevermind 1680x1050 on a 24"), with good performance on mid-range cards like the GTS. Not unless Moore's law has been indirectly broken by Crytek and DX10 - And I doubt that.
I'm also not talking about turning a card into another card. I highly doudt my Radeon x700 will ever be a x1400, but at the very least the games that had to run at low settings can now run at near max settings thanks to very good driver support.
Another example of ATI support:
When I first got FEAR, the game ran at only 640 res at low settings and crashed often. The new drivers (coupled with my new processor) now allows me to run at 1024 res with medium settings. If nVidia can't perform these kinds miracles than I guess my card after the 8800GTS will be an ATI type card and that makes your idea a bad business practice because if a competitor shows a lot of dedication to their cards then nVidia has to start showing more dedication to theirs.
Actually, ATI's drivers were notoriously slow with FEAR initially, while nVidia's worked like a charm from the get-go, so I don't think that example really holds up. It's not so much an example of ATI's good support, as them not being prepared for the smash-hit that was FEAR in the way that nVidia were (It was a "Way it's meant to be played" game, if I recall correctly), and having to fix their inadequate drivers so that they wouldn't be destroyed in the ensuing benchmark war.
That's not a failing on ATI's part, since they had their drivers ready to go for other games where nVidia didn't - It's just the way the industry is polarised by the promotions that the 2 companies do with the developers.
So the 8800GTS will have to run Crysis on medium high at launch? Oh well. Later drivers WILL fix it because I wont tolerated having to buy a new card from nVidia if their new track record involves ditching for profits.
Honestly, I think you'll either have to tolerate it or sell your card - It's been known for months that the GTX will almost be a bear minimum to see Crysis the way it was intended, while it won't be comfortable at the best settings until you've got a system running 8800Ultras in SLI under water.
nVidia don't ditch for profits any more than ATI do - They're just not going to dedicate their time and money re-optimising the 8-series with the G92 cores on their way, unless the 8-series performs abysmally for some unforeseen reason.
Like I said, don't get me wrong - The GTS cards, have been, from their release, and will be for the foreseeable future (until G92), the cards with the best "Bang for your buck" - But value doesn't mean top-notch performance in next-gen games, it just means a smarter investment if you can tolerate playing at less than maximum settings in tolerable resolutions.
Topic: Crysis (The game based on the new Crytek Engine) (Read 2524 times)