Power Consumption and Final Thoughts
Power Consumption
As you might expect, the 6800 GS uses less power than the older 6800 GT model based on a larger process technology. The 6800 GS still can’t run on the same lower power models that the X1600 XT can, but as you saw in our benchmarks, it far exceeds it in performance as well.
Performance
The 6800 GS simply destroys the X1600 GPU from ATI in our performance benchmarks in basically all the tests. Even though the 3DMark05 numbers are pretty close in scores, the game benchmarks show a much wider gap in performance with the nod going to the XFX GeForce 6800 GS.
Wins for the NVIDIA card at 1600×1200 got as high as 75% in Battlefield 2, 68% in Call of Duty 2 and nearly 60% in Far Cry. FEAR is an interesting story in that the ATI X1600 XT is well behind without AA and AF enabled but is able to nearly tie the results with AA and AF turned on. HL2 performance is a bit closer than the newer games but still sees an advantage to the 6800 GS GPU.
Pricing and Availability
The XFX GeForce 6800 GS is readily available all over the Internet for prices right at $200. Since the 6800 GS GPUs release there have been ample quantities from numerous vendors including XFX and others.
The $200 price point is the meat and potatoes of the video card business and NVIDIA’s 6800 GS can deliver performance that dwarfs that of any available ATI options in that same price range.
SLI
The SLI feature once again shows it maturity and usefulness in modern games like Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2. With a 66% and 77% gain respectively in those games, adding a second video card to an existing 6800 GS-based system definitely improves performance noticeably. Users who already did or will choose to put the XFX GeForce 6800 GS card in their system can expect to get a good performance boost down the road with an additional $200 investment. Of course, you could always shell out the $400 total now and get the performance levels we showed you here right away.
Overall I have to give another nod to NVIDIA and their SLI technology integration and ATI should be taking notes on how easily SLI is working for consumers.
Final Thoughts
The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS GPU is a great addition to NVIDIA’s widening selection of parts based on the NV40 architecture. While the performance of the 6800 GS and the 6800 GT are fairly similar, NVIDIA is able to make the NV42 for a much lower price and keep yields even higher making the GS an easy late-in-the-season decision. ATI doesn’t have anything to compete with in the same price range and as such the 6800 GS makes a great purchase for budget conscious gamers.
The XFX GeForce 6800 GS model is a superb adoption of the new NVIDIA GPU that is overclocked a healthy 15% to get the most out of an already well stuffed video card.
Be sure to use our price checking engine to find the best prices on the XFX GeForce 6800 GS, and anything else you may want to buy!
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