Thoughts
As demonstrated, the GeForce 6800 GS is a SKU that fits in right where NVIDIA say it does. Matching the old GT for performance pretty much everywhere, the roughly £150 (including VAT and shipping) GS is a very worthy, if somewhat late, addition to NVIDIA’s performance line-up in this price/performance segment.The cheaper-to-produce NV42 GPU does the job behind the scenes and, equipped with 256MiB of good on-board memory the product doesn’t lack for performance for the money.
While it’d be nice to see NVIDIA filling out the performance range with 7-series GeForce products, since the GPU at the basis of those will be that bit better performance and carry slightly better IQ features, the 6800 GS is a fine last-gasp for the NV4x GPU range that’ll keep many a gamer happy in front of the PC this holiday season.
Recommended if ~£150 is what you have to spend on a new graphics product in the next couple of months. You'll notice that the ATI Radeon X1600 XT was used as competition, and at £140 when it starts selling into the UK, AIBs will have to move around on that a bit if they want to sell, at least until titles arrive that take advantage of RV530's internal shader architecture. Even X800 XL, the mid-range champ from ATI for some time now, not shown on the graphs and at the same price (within £10 or so at least), is outclassed.
We have a new card of choice (at least for a short while until NVIDIA introduce GeForce 7600) in the just-sub-£200 price area. Look out for reviews of retail examples from us in due course. Lastly, keep an eye out for an AGP version, at least from XFX, if that interconnect is what you use.
HEXUS Awards
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS GPU
