8800 GTX: How Nvidia's Success Hindered Innovation

The Nvidia 8800 GTX launched in 2006 and delivered jaw dropping performance, faster than two 7900 GTX cards in SLI. It has an interesting history, showcasing what Nvidia can do if they have competition, but also what happens if they have the performance lead.
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[@overclockwise323]

The G80 is also the first GPU that supported Nvidia's CUDA API. Back then it was kind of a niche thing and it was mostly used to offload Physx (remember that card?) and video encoding. Computer scientists then came up with clever ways to leverage the massive parallelization of GPU cores to come up with amazing data science libraries. Who knew that those libraries would usher in the era of AI we have now today?

[@bloeckmoep]

Ageia physX... oh god, what a scam.

[@kyles8524]

@@chloedevereaux1801 CUDA cores were introduced in there 8000 line of cards, it should be checked off but its the software thats the problem.Its 128 shader cores which is what AMD shows in gpu-z are the same thing as CUDA cores its just an acronym

[@arenzricodexd4409]

@@kyles8524 in the past both AMD and nvidia call it as stream processor. nvidia change their stream processor to CUDA cores starting with 200 or 400 series.

[@arenzricodexd4409]

@@bloeckmoep the original PhysX indeed was a scam lol.

[@arenzricodexd4409]

nvidia had the idea of GPGPU since like 1995. nvidia envision gpu eventually will become a general purpose processor just like CPU. but it is not without it's challenge. for some GPGPU programing is a lot harder than doing it on the CPU or the usual x86. that's why when nvidia introduce CUDA intel pretty much dismiss what nvidia try to do and said there is no way existing programmer want to learn new programming language just for GPU since majority of programmer are used to do such thing on CPU.

[@DyceFreak]

I still have my 9800 GT, the die-refresh of the 8800. Definitely one of the gold standard video cards. Good memories playing competitive shooters on my old CRT.. The last time I cared to be that competitve.

[@Vitormarques542]

i have a 9800 gtx on my side on display :) xfx

[@RuruFIN]

Not all 9800 GT cards are die-shrinks, some are just rebrands with the same 65nm G92 chip.

[@johnhauser5939]

I actually still have my 9800GT as well. It works grate still to.

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

For what the 9800GT was and represented, it could walk so the GTX750Ti could run. Among the last times nVIDIA cared to offer a competitive product for the money.

[@micksterminator3]

My evga 9800gt sc would regularly be above 90c under load even in a well ventilated NZXT case. The gtx 260 I had after was definitely on another level

[@BigPoppaAA]

Brings back the memories... a 7600GT was the top card I could afford at the time

[@screwb1882]

i was on a ATI HD 2600 Pro AGP 512mb

[@fredericbrown8871]

I kept my 7600 GT for years until I could upgrade for a reasonably priced GTS 250 (which is more or less a 8800 GTX rebranded). I was feeling very outgunned with that card when the 8800 GTX was released.

[@RuruFIN]

@@fredericbrown8871 it's a 8800 GTS G92 rebrand.

[@sergeysiminyuk]

When the 7600gt released it was a hellova card. Its faster tgan a 6800ultra. I had a 7900gt which I replaced with an 8800gt.

[@fredericbrown8871]

@@sergeysiminyuk Yes, it was a good card when I purchased it. However, GPUs were evolving rapidly back then and a few years later similarly priced cards were much faster.

[@aceofhearts573]

I wish Sony had put a variant of the Geforce 8800 GTX GPU in the PS3 but sadly we had the RSX use a modified 7800GTX. Xbox 360 had GPU with unified shaders back in late 2005.

[@Thunderbird848]

Back in the day I just bought a X1950XTX and the 8800GTX slapped me in the face. So I went out to buy a 8800GTX, which lasted until the 580GTX came out. 8800GTX is a milestone in 3d graphics like: 3dfx Voodoo, GeForce 3, Ati R300 series

[@hoyschelsilversteinberg4521]

I did the same thing. After the 8800GTX I got the gtx580.

[@zsideswapper6718]

GTX 1080 Ti joining the legend soon.

[@spooksy1982]

The 8800GTX was epic. I had one in the winter of 2006 (I think) right until the launch of the 280 GTX. The 8800GTX was such a cool GPU. Fond memories. I also had the very first 3DFX card (orchard righteous 3D) which required a 2d card to accompany it. There was a display cable that linked the 2d card to the 3dfx card. Now I have a 4090, 4070 and 7800XT across 3 different PC’s!

[@aceoyame2619]

Had an 8800gtx and it was mind blowing the uplift in performance in crysis over my hd2600 pro

[@aceoyame2619]

@@vardekpetrovic9716 ? I had both cards and gave my own experience. Not saying he should compare them.

[@HoldandModify]

What a great era and a great card. Was SUCH an awesome card when it hit. Just floored by it back then. Thanks Phil!

[@IcebergTech]

Hmm, 2007. I was deep in the grasp of EverQuest 2 by that point and didn’t see much of the outside world, but I did just about manage to log off for long enough to play Crysis. No idea what GPU I had, but I do remember picking up a GTX 260 the following year.

[@mrmerlin6287]

I never had the GTX as a teen. I could afford the 8800GTS when it came out and I relied on it until at least 2014-2015!

[@theuglycamel8122]

Awesome video as always! I just spent 2 weeks "chasing the dragon" for a 8800-9800. Every day I would talk myself into the next best and was just about to grab a EVGA 9800 gtx when I found a quadro 600 in an old thinkcenter. With a little msi boost it even plays far cry 2 fairly well with xp 320 drivers. Plus no external power needed. Now I'm looking at a k4000...

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice! Yes some of these workstation cards are priced well and they are also built better.

[@jdwnielsen]

Thanks for this video - I had it back in the day and it was really cool

[@miguelque9102]

I remember some hardware magazines of the time mentioning the thermal issue of early 8800GT cards, namely those manufactured by XFX.

[@Feradon]

I found on my local flea market a 8800 gts from eVga for about 6$ with box and i had to grab it. Now its sitting in my winxp machine with c2d e8500 and its so much joy to play a games from 2001-2007 without any hassle to tinker and figure out how to turn it on

[@batofgotham4383]

Hi Phil! This Leadtek card is gorgeous. I have one too. Keep up the good work with your great videos!

[@philscomputerlab]

I'll try finding another one. SLI action!

[@benjaminwirth5192]

Great video, Phil. This one is still missing in my collection. I had 2 hd 3850 cards for that time, followed by a 4870x2 that i still have with me. Including accelero cooler.

[@joepollard5600]

Maaan you're bringing me back! I had a Core 2 Quad, 8800GTX, and 2GB of Corsair XMS DDR2 on my rig back in the day! It played everything with settings cranked!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

4:25 I always use fire hazard PSUs. I love livin on the edge.

[@philscomputerlab]

😅

[@nemysisretrogaming3771]

It was just before the release of Crysis I bought my 2 8800GTX's which I promptly installed and connected into SLI mode. It could run Crysis until the last battle. Even 5 years later when FEAR released my LAN friends were still trying to figure out how I was able to run that game at 200 FPS. Contrary to popular belief 5 years is how long a GPU should last and then maybe some more and still remain relevant. If it wasn't for some hardware based changes I think the 8800GTX could have gone 10 years barring hardware failures.

[@screwb1882]

Those cards where unfortunately PLAGUED with hardware failures. The entire 9XXX and 8XXX series are time bombs due to faulty soldering on the chip packaging.

[@antonhei2443]

@@screwb1882 The single slot solution of a 9800gt runs very hot on my WinXP setup. I just bought some thermalpads to replace the stock ones, hopefuly it works.

[@Dave_90lg]

@@screwb1882small world ;)

[@screwb1882]

@@Dave_90lg 👋

[@Nintenboy01]

@@screwb1882 more accurately it's due to the lead-free solder eventually cracking from thermal cycling. It's what also plagued Xbox 360 and PS3 Fat consoles (RROD and YLOD)

[@NomadOutdoorAdventures]

At the time on this graphics card came out is when I built a computer and matter-of-fact of speaking. I still have it and it never died on me. I’m actually just getting ready to put it in a display box, including the motherboard and duel core processor. Just to keep it as a history everything still works from what I remember.

[@jasonrockley3724]

This and the 1080ti are the greatest GPU`s ever made for me. The 8800 was the first GPU I didn't have to upgrade after a year. Awesome card. Same with the 1080TI. That lasted me for 4 years

[@BulkierFive921]

I’m still running a EVGA 1080 FTW paired with a Ryzen 9 7950X because I can’t justify new card prices lol It still gets me about 60fps in starfield at medium-high settings at 1440p.

[@jasonrockley3724]

@@BulkierFive921 great cards. Mine is running in my 10 year 6sons pc now ams still doing sterling work. I brought it in 2017

[@pauls4522]

1080ti was only like a 40% increase over 980ti. Which was good in an era where we only saw 20-25% increases per Gen from nvidia, but was not anything revolutionary.

[@jasonrockley3724]

@@pauls4522 it may have not introduced anything particularly new, but it having 11 gb of vram in an era when 6 was common as well as the bump at 1440p over my previous 980ti represted a game changer for longevity for me and many others. Hence why nvidia have been screwing us over with vram ever since

[@WujoFefer]

In 2007 I had 8800GTS 320MB with C2D e6300... what a fantastic times that was... With this config and 4GB of ram even Windows Vista was lightning speed

[@MiLoCzE]

i have the same... cpu overclocked from 1.86 to 3.2 ghz

[@GregoryShtevensh]

Yeah it would have been! I had the 9600gt and an athlon duel core with 2gb of Ram and vista on a new Acer aspire at that time. I remember having more ram was huge on vista and 4gb was HUGE even then for home PC at least anyway

[@charonunderground8596]

The 8800GTX was an amazing card and a huge leap in performance, but it was also the time when there was a problem of the same nature as RROD in the X360 or YLOD in the PS3. Many NVIDIA chips between 2006 and 2010 suffer from the same problem.

[@upgrade1373]

I also got the 8800 GTS and was very happy with it!

[@philscomputerlab]

I did later test the game with a Sound Blaster Audigy and Daniel K drivers and that fixed the audio stuttering issues!

[@peterilling1627]

Nice video Phil.Still have my 8800 gts 512 ,9800 gt and gtx 260 still new in the box .Used to be a dealer for Nvidia back in my younger days.

[@mesterak]

Happy Friday Phil!

[@roocrew86]

great video. An idea for a future video, what about history of the GPUs that were the standouts of their time? Eg This card the 1080TI etc the cards that were so much better than the rest for so long.

[@60fpslocked]

LeadTek, Gainward, and XFX for Nvidia - good memories from the past 👍

[@michaelfalabella6296]

I have a feeling im going to love this channel :o

[@Super123456789Kuba]

My grandpa had a 7600GT in a Core 2 Duo E6320 PC, it was alright, it ran Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare quite well on High and 1280x1024, and since this was on XP and drivers where on CD... It was the smoothest NVIDIA driver Experience I ever had. And TBH I don't regret missing on Vista, I was a very Happy boi with Windows XP.

[@zhongyangli]

Nice pick ! My favorite GPU covered by my favorite channel ;)

[@philscomputerlab]

😌😊

[@TorqueEffect]

I didn't have an 8800 back in the day, but I built my first PC around this time and I went with the Significant Cheaper Sapphire 3870 which was in a single slot configuration. But it was an amazing upgrade from my old pc with a Radeon 8350 AGP card. I do remember the talk about the 8800 being THE card to have but it was waaaaaay out of my price range, as my first PC build was only like a $500-$600 machine total.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yup everyone wanted it!

[@xmodifier3918]

Dang I remembered I wanted that 3870 agp so bad so that I don't have to upgrade my whole PC.

[@marsellusbrel]

The GPU I wanted back then was the 9800GTX+, when I finally got one, 12 years later, it just blew up in my system... :( very nice video Phil, thanks!! I'm considering this one next for my M2N-SLI system.

[@georosculet6505]

In 2007 I've built my own PC (the others were bought by my father) as it was my first year as an employee😔. I went for an Athlon X2 4000+, 1GB of Geil RAM and a 8600GT. The OS was Windows XP. From that computer I still have the cpu, ram and hdd. Luckily they are still working🙂 This year I have managed to get my hands on a 8800GTS 640 for 10Euros🙂 And yes, it's functional, but it has a minor defect on the holding bracket.

[@sgdude1337]

I wanted the GTX but never could afford it. By the time I ended up building my pc in august 2007, the 8800GT was rumored so I got a evga 8600GTS and then used their step up program to get the 8800GT on release

[@NSHG]

Oh hey, looks like Phil got the same Leadtek as I do. Both our cards are the exact same - 768MB, 384 bit GDDR3. That thing outputs massive heat but boy the tradeoff for performance is worth every single degree.

[@MaximumRD]

Ah the 8800 GTX, many great games and good times with that GPU.

[@chicagochris1988]

I didnt have it on launch either. I was working at wendys and saved and saved and got an EVGA 8800GTS 320mb and I loved G80 :) some of my best memories

[@bervirus]

I was running a 7300GT DDR3 that time, which was just enough to play some of the best game from golden year of gaming, like assassins creed, cod 4, and bioshock. Few years later, got a GTS 250, which was a rebranded 9800GTX+ and finally can run Crysis...

[@patchouli3422]

I have this card's predecessor, the 7900 GTX. Got my hands on it well after its heyday, but I absolutely love it for what it is.

[@berenyi_kft]

Wow I have the exact same model stashed away somewhere as well! Got it a couple years back for £3, an amazing card for sure, especially for the price, still good for casual light gaming 😀

[@philscomputerlab]

3 Quid??? Amazing 😍

[@62DDOGG]

Best way to end the week is a Friday vid

[@K3NnY_G]

Still got my XFX 8800 GTX from my cousin's 7 grand SLI build that ran crysis in 2007. I've baked that GPU maybe 11 times over the years, it's in a state it still functions; and it's long retired. Even shortly after it was replaced some really didn't seem to understand what a beast it was. Funny seeing it's power consumption now compared to what we get out of about 200 watts now days. Also, Steam was SHITE in 2007, it was just finally getting anything other than Valve and it crashed CONSTANTLY, unresponsive, annoying in many rights. Miss that green and tan color scheme though.

[@captainwasel8377]

What a great video and to end it with Bioshock is the cherry on the top. I need to play Bioshock Infinite.

[@PatientXero607]

I had an eVGA 7800 GTX before moving to the XFX 9800 GX2. I could throw any game of the day at the GX2 and it would never flinch. It lasted for 5 years before it died in a friends system.

[@philscomputerlab]

What a beast of GPU!

[@mikboy018]

Nice video! 8800 GT cards have been plentiful for me lately... $10-20 on average, great bang for the buck on these titles!

[@druout1944]

great video

[@FatheredPuma81]

I like how he's talking about Bioshock as if it's some obscure game no one has heard about.

[@philscomputerlab]

😅

[@utubeuser1024]

Hey Phil! I ended up buying the 8800GTS 320 in early 2007 - my best friend decided to get the 8800GTX with 768MB of RAM - I kept going to his place and being stunned by the performance!

[@philscomputerlab]

Hehe we both had the 320 then, good value 😊

[@BlitzvogelMobius]

Had the 320 MB as well. Still a mind blowing product for it's time.

[@alpzepta]

I'm shocked with 300 FPS on Unreal Tournament 2004 when I try the 8800 GTX for first time. Maybe I should try FEAR, Need For Speed Carbon, and Crysis 1 next. Well Phil already showed Crysis on here but I'm curious how much better is it with 2x Intel Xeon X5355

[@blakegriplingph]

I always wanted to have one of those back in the day. Either that or a 9800GT.

[@FOIL_FRESH]

8800 gts is the hand-me-down i got from my housemate in 2009 when my 6600gt died, and it was a great card. still have it and tested it last year, working absolutely fine. my retro XP machine has a 9800GTX+ which is perfect for the build, with DVI-D support for 120hz 1080p gaming.

[@Kyleplier]

I saw your video and immediately thought of “Can it run Crysis?” As this was THE go-to card if you wanted to play Crysis and not melt your entire computer and catch your house on fire lol

[@Obie327]

I remember this Cool game (Bio Shock) I had the Sound Blaster XFi Sound card and the 5.1 THX Z5500 speakers. I got my hands on a shiny new XFX 8800 Ultra xxx oc. Played Crysis the day it came out at the store. (amazing) FEAR and the Orange Box from Valve. (Half life 2/ Portal) Great times back then. Need for Speed Most Wanted and Some pinball games I liked to play. (Fantastic Journey, Time Shock) I miss those times. Thanks for the Bio shock review!? LOL Anyways, Thanks Phil for the GPU review. Cheers!

[@Cyberdeamon]

Those launch prices x.x Good thing I picked up a XFX GTX and an Ultra for $30 ea a few years back, all in there boxes with accessories and if I knew Phil was doing a 8800 video I would have sent them both cards since I moved countries.

[@philscomputerlab]

Great price you got there well done!

[@danielberrett2179]

Happy Phil-day

[@osgrov]

Lovely card, I wish I had one. :) I never got to play with the GTX either, it was too expensive for me. But, I did grab an 8800GT a bit later and that card is still running today in my E8600. When you mentioned Vista, my mind started spinning - how would you put together a perfect system for Vista, Phil? It's a bit too new for my retro gaming interests but now that you mention it I do remember plenty of really good games from that time. Would be great fun putting together a system tailored for max performance in Vista. Surely that would be a fun video, eh? :)

[@philscomputerlab]

For sure got to do a Vista video at some point 😊

[@foch3]

EVGA let me step up from a 7600gt to the 7950gt the G80 came out and they let me step up again, it was crazy.

[@CaptainUltimaFTW]

Hey! I have that same Winfast card! Such a beautiful card and color.

[@Leeki85]

In 2007 I've got 8800 GT, Core2Duo and Sound Blaster X-Fi. I've never before or after had so overpowered PC. It took few years for software developers to utilize the power of such hardware. Even today there are games that have issues on RTX 4090, but back then 8800 was such overpowered that even worst ports had flawless 60+ FPS. Furthermore you couldn't even kill 8800 with screen resolution, because 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 was the highest you could go with consumer displays and 8800 still had 60+ fps. Crysis was the first game that was too much at ultra settings for 8800. Yet it delivered next-gen visuals, showing what really can be possible on 8800.

[@robertopazsoldan9641]

I remenber those times assasins creed 1, cod4, bioshock and crysis! I was on a hd4850 but gta4 runs bad cant finish the game.

[@gtsimmo1]

The 8800GTX was my first big PC spurge purchase on launch. It lasted almost exactly two years before self destructing, tons of visual artificing all over the screen. It was a glorious two years though and the last time I purchased a top of the line component on launch. It was also a very nice space heater during the colder month and terrible during the summers.

[@floriandilewski8321]

In 2006 I built a new computer with my first earned money. After a year I replaced the 8800 GTS 640 with a 8800 GTX. Board: Intel Bad Axe 2 CPU: C2D E6600 Mem: Kingston HyperX GPU: ASUS 8800 GTS 640 Drive: WD Raptor Vista was a big disapointment and I switched back to XP64 which had a very good support after a really bad start a few years before. Games from these days are the first 3D games which aged very well. They usually look nice even today.

[@MGlBlaze]

I was just getting in to PC gaming around the time the 8800GTX was on the market and immediately achieved legendary status. I never had one at the time of course, because I was a teenager and couldn't hope to afford one even if it could work in the PC I got at the time (It was a dell slimline which I eventually learned was a bad decision), but I had heard plenty about it.

[@maman89]

This gpu is what got me into PC in a massive way but had no money to build a system, always wanted one of these, going to 3dgameman and tiger direct just to watch the review. Built my first amd system 3 years later. Hd4890 with 720BE.

[@philscomputerlab]

3D Game Man. Wow that took me back!

[@KeyToTime]

Great Video as always Phil. Love the 8800GTX, I was 14 when this came out and lusted after all the cards of this era. In reality, I still had a GeForce 6200 and a 2.0Ghz Pentium 4 at the time. I would eventually upgrade to a second hand GeForce 7950GX2 in 2008, a Core 2 Quad Q9650 in 2009 and then a GTX 460 in 2010. Nowadays, I have that same Q9650 paired with a GTX285 in my retro rig. As it happens I'm playing Bioshock at the moment! Bit of a tricky one to get right. I think it feels a bit off in unmodified form. I have the 60fps animation mod, 100 field of view con fig file mod and a mod to turn off all mouse smoothing/acceleration and it feels much better. I've got a Sound blaster X-Fi elite pro and it sounds amazing. I've tried this under Windows 7 with DirectX 10. EAX sort of works through OpenAL but it frequently has audio problems and doesn't seem to sound as good. Bit of a shame you can't have both.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea in that transition period games often ran better under XP. I remember Mass Effect also habe some issues with Vista and other games.

[@nurbsivonsirup1416]

"[...] the 2900, but it was a dis ... appointment". Really thought you were going for "dis-aster" there because I feel that might have been more apt in this case 😅

[@martli837]

I had the 8800 GT back in 2008 - I would have been way too poor for the GTX, but it did me well. I used it on a windows XP machine that I eventually upgraded to vista, but then promptly downgraded back to XP because I just never really gelled with Vista. That was the first PC I ever built from scratch. I played lots of battlefield 1942, Civilisation IV, and Age of Empires III, so even in 2008 I was behind the times and I was never really able to or interesting in keeping up with modern games from that point on. Had two PS3s, sold them both after a few months when I got bored of them... I guess, in a way, that was when my retro journey really started...

[@philscomputerlab]

For me it was constant back and forth. Vista had DX 10 eye candy but games ran a bit better under XP. Also my TV tuner didn't support Vista for ages.

[@DataDashy]

Lol the whole GTX premium card series were kinda we all wish we had back in the days 😅

[@luismagallanes2371]

I got this video card on release day or very close to it. It was part of my first build that I purchased on my own. Paired this sucker with an Athlon x2 6000. This thing launched with both Vista and Crysis. It was the only reason to purchase Vista. But I was in a gaming cloud with how great DX10 looked. Try running this card with DX10 and ask if it could run Crysis. The answer is yes, but very slowly. It didn't matter much to me since there was a picture quality improvement over DX9 and consoles.

[@benjaminslayton4335]

I was late to the party and got a 9800GT. I loved it! It was great in its time. That card even played Skyrim when it came out.

[@robertopazsoldan9641]

Cool I got gtx460 for skyrim in 2011

[@sgtjarhead99]

I had one of these cards back in the day. Got it on day one. Up until I got my Vega 64, this was hottest running card I've ever owned. It only lasted one year before it died on me, presumably because it just overheated.

[@billv4987]

In those days I moved from an Athlon64 3500+ system with 7800GT 256 to an E8400 with 8800GT 512. I loved both systems, but that 8800GT had amazing performance for the price. The E8400 overclocked to 3600MHz without even trying.

[@Baulder13]

Oh man those E8400's were amazing. I built two buddies computers around them. Both of them overclocked incredibly well with almost no effort. Meanwhile I was using an Athlon X2 5600+. I was so jealous.

[@6mtzhp55]

Did the same build almost, except with an 8800 GTS. E8400 and 8800 GTS availability in that window ended up being a ridiculously long lived setup, possibly because most games had to target consoles too.

[@filipetmarcal]

Nice video

[@ruevs]

2008 - I bought the most powerful ATI video card that had passive cooling. Different priorities - I wanted silent and good OpenGL drivers :-)

[@squeeeb]

My buddy had two of these in SLI, it was a beast of a machine. Also Bioshock may have been the last great use of EAX. End of an era...

[@philscomputerlab]

Word!

[@LairOTech]

One of my friends had one back then and it ran everything. For LAN parties he was up and running whatever games we installed right away while the rest of us was wasting time with the settings to find good framerate haha

[@techyescity]

The firehazard 600w doesn't look to bad actually, how did you get that? never seen one of those before lol.

[@philscomputerlab]

I think it was from Taobao. It is super light, no weight at all 😅

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

That green glowing wisp in the forest still looks good. It’s a benchmark from 2005 and I think it looks better than some modern games. The green glow looks very nice. I personally got the G92 8800GTS 512MB that was cheaper but as good as the GTX. IIRC it was a Gigabyte model with a Neverwinter Nights 2 sticker on the cooler. It had a problem with overheating through and I had to manually increase the fan speed otherwise it was unstable.

[@O.Shawabkeh]

I belive the same thing, almost two decades and the beauty of 3D Mark(s) are still unmatched.

[@MazeMouse]

I didn't have the GTX but had 8800GT. Even that one had incredible performance (especially for it's pricepoint). It's basically what cemented NVidia as "the card" to get for years.

[@nhh12345]

I have one of these in my old Dell Vostro XP machine. Very noticeably faster than the 8800GTS 320. Reading forum posts about the 8800GT, it was incredibly popular. The die shrink really enabled them to crank up more performance and keep it efficient.

[@Droogie128]

The 8800gt is a price/performance legend.

[@bryndaldwyre3099]

I only had the 8600GT but I was happy with that for the time. It cost me $200 aud.

[@justherefortalking]

2007, I would still have been just trying to find a friend wiling to let me play Diablo 2 on their computer. It was the single core netbook I got in high school/2011 that really let me get into PC games from the early 00s. :)

[@philscomputerlab]

Netbook? That brings back memories. I had one of the first ones. Acer with an Atom processor and Intel graphics.

[@justherefortalking]

@@philscomputerlab I had the Asus Eee PC 1005PE with the extended battery. It was a potato, but I could go to school and watch movies the entire day without charging at the end of the semester when we were killing time. I learned to BCLK overlock on that Atom N450 (1.6Ghz up to 2.13!). The sound was tied in to that, so it would oversample game audio with the OC active.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@justherefortalking Good times! For me, I was just amazed that finally tiny laptops wouldn't cost upwards of 3000 AUD, looking at Sony here...

[@ProfessorSprouts]

I had that exact card. I loved it.

[@the_beefy1986]

I've always been a budget-conscious buyer. I bought an 8600GTS during this era. I still have it in an old build.

[@philscomputerlab]

Want to checkout the 8600 now...

[@the_beefy1986]

@@philscomputerlab I happen to have 2 of them. If you pay for shipping from the US, I'll let you have it at no cost. :)

[@snakeplissken1754]

Just had a 8800gts back in the days but the early one with 640mb vram. Was a great card back in the days.

[@revanbh]

I had 8800 GT with 512 MB VRAM. It came bundled with Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts. Still have that DVD. I remember first booting up The Elder Scrolls Oblivion at 1080p at full details when I installed the card. It was mind-blowing.

[@iamtragos]

I owned this card - maybe the best card i ever had , definitely the best value for money . Amazing piece of hardware . I had it paired with a core2quad . Great times .

[@jwoody8815]

In 2007 I was still running my 7800GT unlocked to a 7800GTX, was plenty for my gaming needs.

[@alvaroacwellan9051]

...and one more model I have one too, big and impressive and all - and it behaved quite strange. When I first stuck it in test board, connected the power and turned the machine on - an SMD started to glow on the back of the card and let out some of its magic smoke. Apparently not all of it because when I gathered some guts and turned it on again it booted and everything worked. I still don't understand what happened... And I'll give it another try later, just have to wait a bit, I don't usually try such power hungry hardware outside the heating season.

[@JAP917]

I was too occupied with real life to enjoy this era of cards. My first GPU after college was a 7950 GT PCIE on an IP35 Pro, and skipped straight to a pair of GTX295s that I ran Folding and Seti on. I did also pick up some GTS 250s for some cheap crunching power around the same time as well. From what I've read recently, the jump to unified shaders really were a literal game changer for late DX9 games and on. Things were happening fast.

[@SevenCompleted]

I have a core 2 duo paired with a 9800gtx as my windows xp machine. It was the first PC i bought/built as an adult out on my own away from home in 2008. After the hard drive died in 2012 I upgraded my entire system and left it at my parents house. After they passed away I moved back into their house with my own family. Well my pc was still waiting for me threw an ssd in it and now its a top of the line xp machine.

[@R1BLACKRAVEN]

I run a gtx 780 under windows 98, and it tears through it. I can't write drivers, but do you think it is possible, to ever get a 980 ti to work with windows 98? I would love to see what my old 980ti would do in 98.

[@Wrublos212]

90nm process was a step back. Lower tier cards were built in newer process. The reason is that 90nm process was more refined and such a huge GPU die was a difficult task to manufacture. They needed proved technology for that. The bigger the complexity, the small silicone yield is.

[@LorisPeretto]

Bioshock game, what favolous memories. This Nvidia card was a really game changer, first architecture with programmable cuda cores over the previous generations of shaders...

[@vidagogo9829]

I got an 8800 Ultra for my Windows Vista, Athlon 64 X2 PC back then. Costs for it had dropped like a rock, so I practically had a steal (around $300-400 CDN). Lasted for so long, but actually died. It started with red lines across the screen, then blacked out soon after. Played it right up to Star Wars: The Old Republic. It still looked great with the 8800 Ultra.

[@moominjuice2]

I got 2 8800GTX cards in a Quadcore Extreme to do 3D. It ran shaded 4 times faster than a FireGL1000Pro. Admittedly, it wasn't so hot with wire frame or AUTOcAD layouts like the FireGL.. but working in shaded/texture mode far more importantin my line of work. Also 3ds Max and Windows NT64 didn't utilise SLI or DirectX .. so I just bought another machine and chucked the other card in that and used that as a render slave. NVidia drivers just work with no hassle, which is why I've always stuck with them. Had several ATI cards over the years and felt like I had to keep a spreadsheet of what drivers worked with what programs/games. It was a whopper of a card, only just skipped it last year... even though it still worked.

[@builder396]

But what was the framerate on Crysis? I remember playing it on a 9800GT back in the day and I could only do medium settings on it at the time before the framerate suffered to an obvious degree.

[@AladimBR]

When cards costed US$ 500 or less. I had one, sold later without losing money to get a next gen. Replaced with a HD 5870 if I recall correctly. As you said, lasted an eternity during those days. Nowadays each generation is incremental and I often skip 2-3 generations before upgrading.

[@jamezxh]

I had two 8800 Ultra's in SLI. had that rig for ages.

[@DanielCardei]

The shroud looks like the hood from an American muscle car😎

[@ZeroHourProductions407]

At the time of its launch, I just barely did my first ever pcie build, with a 7950gt. Income was just _not_ going to allow me to even think of upgrading again so soon. But roommate was also looking for an upgrade, so... for the price difference, he bought my gpu off me and I got an 8800gts (640). Even then, it was insane to see a literal doubling in framerates _and settings_ in Half Life 2 and Episode 1, just like that. Much more recently, found a PNY 9800gtx+ at goodwill. Somehow even the wife was thinking I should snatch it up. With her endorsement, how could I not? 😅 well, didnt work initially, but thankfully literally was just a matter of taking the card apart, clean the pcb, new paste on the gpu die and new thermal pads on the memory chips. Now just a display piece, but a _working_ one at that. 🎉

[@philscomputerlab]

Great story! The 8800 GTS had awesome performance also.

[@Jivemaster2005]

In 2006-2007 i ran two 8600GT's in SLi and in 2008 I upgraded to an MSI 8800GT and shortly after I bought another one for SLi goodness :-) The high spec 8800 series are now becoming collectible and will probably fetch a premium price in the near future. Because of this I've collected a bunch of them during the past 5 years .. different flavours of the 8800GTX/GTS and more exotic models like the ultra and 9800GX2