The Holiday Stop Gap: GeForce 6800 GS

Final Words

The King is Dead! Long Live the King!

For most of its life the 6800 GT was NVIDIA's best high end value. The 6800 Ultra was both too hard to find and too expensive to be worth the investment, while the 6800 GT performed very well and wasn't a bad overclocker either. But ever since the 7800 series came along, the 6800 GT just hasn't been as viable an option. Today we can find cheap 7800 GT parts for about as much as an average 6800 GT (~$320).

Today sees the introduction of a part that performs just as well as the 6800 GT but costs about $70 to $80 less. The 6800 GS looks like it hits the sweet spot between price and performance this holiday season. Aside from cutting the cost of the 6800 GT, the 6800 GS doesn't cost that much more than a vanilla 6800 with 256MB of RAM. As the vanilla 6800 performs just slightly better than the 6600 GT, we can say with confidence that the 6800 GS has taken over the 6800 line and is the only real option left of the bunch.

We had heard that only EVGA would be building the new king of value, and then only until the first quarter of next year. It has come to our attention that most of the usual suspects will eventually come out with 6800 GS parts. With all the advantages the 6800 GS holds over its 6800 series brethren, we are glad to see that it will stick around.

Putting 6800 GS cards together in SLI is not worth it when you can get a 7800 GTX for less than 2x the price. Since the 6800 GS will be a short lived product (from what we understand) SLI as a future upgrade is not a viable option - stick with the single card here or go with something faster if you need to spend more money. We don't like SLI upgrades anyway, but it's even less smart an idea if you can't be sure the card will be around much longer.

This card does for NVIDIA what the X800 GTO did for ATI a short time ago. The X800 GTO falls short in terms of value compared to the 6800 GS, which is both impressive and exactly why NVIDIA wanted to bring it out now. With initial prices on upcoming ATI parts looking to be a little high for their performance, this seals a recommendation for NVIDIA for the holiday season: if you've got about $220 to spend on a graphics card, the 6800 GS is the part to have.

Of course, if you are the adventurous kind and enjoy modding your hardware, the X800 GTO does have something to offer. Most of these cards are easily overclockable and/or flashable to 16 pixel pipelines. The 6800 GS won't allow anyone to unlock extra pipelines as the silicon is built around 12 pixel pipes to save die area. Getting good results with the X800 GTO is not guaranteed, but for those willing to take the risk, the option is there.

All the new parts add a lot of confusion to the mix. With both ATI and NVIDIA bringing out essentially redundant parts, it's hard to know what to recommend or buy. Luckily, NVIDIA has cleared that up for us - the entire rest of the 6800 line is going away and only the 6800 GS will remain. As for ATI, it is very hard to address the amount of spring cleaning their line up needs (especially with the X1000 series parts coming out soon).

You can buy the 6800GS today in its eVGA forum at several vendors.

• Monarch Computer
• Newegg
• MWave