GeForce 6800: characteristics, review and reviews

Not so bad in the world market for fans of dynamic games, as many manufacturers of video adapters note. They can be understood - a lie for the benefit of sales is a priority for them, but many buyers are not enthusiastic about the constant financial costs of improving computer performance.

In the focus of this article - a wonderful graphics accelerator GeForce 6800. The reader is invited to get acquainted with its modifications, learn the characteristics, see a review and find out what many owners think about this video adapter. Naturally, without reviews of experts and testing is indispensable.

The initial level of the game class

Let the device belong to the budget class, however, the performance of this adapter is much higher. The Nvidia GeForce 6800 graphics card can safely be in the initial game class, as it can surpass the power indicators demonstrated by Intel integrated solutions in testing.

Accordingly, the potential buyer has no doubt that before him - a full-featured product, albeit in the lower price category. The only notable drawback of this graphic accelerator are morally obsolete technologies that limit the capabilities of the video card in games, but everything in order.

Basic Characteristics

The chip, code-named NV40, has long been out of production, but fans still often remember it with kind words in their responses. The fact is that this experimental chip enabled the world to see Nvidia devices running on a 256-bit memory bus. Naturally, against the background of other products, the performance of such a novelty did not go unnoticed.

The GeForce 6800 video card is presented in the market by several modifications, which differ not only in performance, but also in the platform. So, the world market got acquainted with markings Ultra, XT, GS, GT, LE and Go. In fact, all the listed models of the device, created on the basis of one chip, are completely different video cards and are united into one family only in order to avoid confusion in the world market.

Declared characteristics of the chip

The breakthrough in the performance of game graphics cards was not only 256-bit technology, but also a 0.12-μm technical process. Got a memory bus GDDR3, the device has become more attractive to many potential buyers. A weak link in comparing the graphics accelerator with modern devices can be considered only the amount of memory (256/512 megabytes).

For the Nvidia GeForce 6800 chip performance characteristics were clearly the first place, as with the cooling of the video card many owners saw a lot of problems. Especially noticeable is the flaw in the process of overclocking the graphics core, which in the regular mode has a limitation of 400 MHz. As for the memory modules, the chip here is much better: they are splashed perfectly from 500 MHz to 600-650 MHz, demonstrating high performance in games.

mobile version

It's better to start with the fact that on the basis of the 6000 series the manufacturer created several video adapters for mobile equipment, to which he assigned the GeForce 6800 Go. The controller was built on the base of the NV42M chip and had several modifications, which differed from each other by the memory bus width (128 and 356 bits) and had different types of memory (DDR, DDR2 and DDR3).

As for the technical characteristics and use of technology, there were no significant differences. The same indicator for the graphics core, memory and shader units is 300 MHz, 256 MB memory is occupied from RAM and all this works at the program level with DirectX 9c instructions.

Zoo modifications

As for the other models, then the manufacturer acted predictably - put one chip on the conveyor, which was subjected to factory overclocking during the testing. So the rejection received the LE modification, and the remaining models divided the performance series among themselves.

Modification of Ultra GeForce 6800, whose characteristics approached the flagship of the line of Nvidia (7800 GT), took the top position of the rating. It was followed by the XT, GS and GT models. According to the "price-quality" ratio, buyers, judging by their feedback, prefer the latter two modifications.

Nearest competitors

Judging by the performance, the Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra video adapter is a direct competitor for the performance of the ATI Radeon X800 XT graphics accelerator. Accordingly, the entire line of the 6800-series chip fully corresponds to the lightweight variants of X800 series video cards (GT, GTO, PRO).

Two chips from different manufacturers demonstrate almost the same performance in synthetic tests, are in the same price category and have similar technical characteristics. Talk about superiority is not necessary, and to convince a potential buyer that a brand is better, there is no sense.

Two Turns of Evolution

But to touch modern graphics accelerators and compare them with obsolete chips is not worth it. The video card Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS on the performance table is at the same level with the GT 430 graphics card and the integrated Intel HD 4000 solution. It is clear that in testing the old product is able to demonstrate high performance in games using DirectX 9c instructions (FarCry, Call of Duty, Splinter Cell).

However, in modern games with the updated software, serious problems can arise. The listed chips should not be considered at all as an alternative to system improvement. As for 3D support, working with high quality video files, encoding and digitizing an analog signal, there is absolutely nothing to surprise the prospective buyer. Therefore, all users who are thinking of purchasing a video adapter for such purposes should once again reconsider their priorities or decide on another product on the computer market.

Tankmen on a note

Owners of the GeForce 6800 GS video card, who prefer to spend time playing World of Tanks, it seems that their graphics accelerator has become obsolete long ago and it needs a replacement for something more productive. Experts in the field of IT technologies recommend not to hurry up and get to know the requirements for the hardware part of the computer stated by the developer.

Favorite toy of many users is focused on a powerful processor with two cores. And the manufacturer has created code that perfectly integrates with both Intel processors and AMD platform. It is important only to provide the system with crystals operating at a frequency of 3 GHz or higher. In their responses, many users claim that the graphics accelerator GeForce 6800, Xeon processor for socket 775 and 3 gigabytes of RAM allow you to squeeze out 40-50 frames per second on average settings.

Dances with a tambourine

The only problem that future owners of a morally outdated video adapter may face is the impossibility of correctly determining the device by the operating system of Windows 10. Informal sources have learned that Microsoft took this step only to stimulate sales of modern video cards. But as practice shows, any software restrictions are easily circumvented, there would be a desire.

With the graphics accelerator Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT and its modifications, the question is solved quite simply: you need to download the obsolete software from the official website of the manufacturer (driver version 307.83, oriented for Vista OS). It is only necessary to check the bit depth of the operating system, and you can enjoy the full performance of the game video card.

Also experts in their reviews recommend users to update the graphics accelerator driver only at the request of the operating system. The fact is that at the hardware level the device does not support modern Nvidia technologies, so there may be problems in the stability of Windows.

Diseases of graphic accelerator

The banal overheating can disable any GeForce 6800 video adapter, the characteristics of which have been improved by overclocking. The user has only two options to prevent this problem: to stop overclocking or install a professional cooling system on a graphics card instead of a regular fan. The best purchase for cooling graphics accelerators of this type is the cooler Scythe Musashi (SCVMS-1000). It is built on the basis of a copper radiator and has two independent fans that will not allow the graphics crystal to burn out during the acceleration process.

Not everything is simple with the memory modules of the video adapter. The manufacturer has installed them beyond the standard cooling system, so fans of overclocking should think about a decent blow-out of Samsung branded modules, which easily fail in case of overheating.

Minor oddities in the technological process

Having become acquainted with the basic problems of the graphics accelerator, the potential buyer decides that the video cards based on the GeForce 6800 GT with passive cooling can be forgotten. And it turns out to be wrong, because it is on the basis of this controller in the computer market that there are many interesting proposals from different manufacturers.

The main feature of silent solutions is low performance, because the factory equipped such devices with the old type of DDR memory using a 128-bit memory bus. Naturally, fans of dynamic games do not even need to consider such a copy as a purchase. But to work with multimedia and office solutions such a solution is quite suitable.

Decent offers on the market

Strangely enough, in the shop windows you can see the original product from the company Nvidia, built on the basis of the GeForce 6800 chip. This solution will appeal to all customers who plan to get rid of the regular cooling system by installing a more powerful device for blowing the crystal and memory modules. As for the other world producers, the product is presented under the logos of ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Palit and many other well-known brands.

Judging by the feedback of the owners, the most popular on the market was the Gainward 6800 Golden Sample (GS) graphics accelerator. True, for the disclosure of its potential it is recommended that it still be equipped with a powerful cooling system and dispersed. In performance tests, this device works with instructions DirectX 9c surpasses the performance of more modern video game adapters that operate at the nominal frequencies.

Workshop for video cards

Most video game adapters fail due to overheating of memory modules. The damage is indicated by artifacts (colored cubes and stripes) appearing on the monitor's display. For owners of graphics accelerators on the basis of the GeForce 6800 chip there is a loophole that can partially eliminate the breakdown.

The video adapter must be returned to the workshop and ask the specialist to warm up the memory modules with a hairdryer. In 99% of cases, artifacts disappear, and a morally outdated video card has a second life. True, the owner of the device will forever forget about overclocking, because the next overheating graphics accelerator can already not stand. You'll just have to pay the fee.

Finally

A good entry-level video adapter GeForce 6800 GT is quite capable to surprise any user who can create all conditions for providing a system unit with high-performance components for games. Experts recommend not to focus on the video card, if the game application was developed under the instructions of DirectX 9c. In most cases, the solution here is for memory, a processor and a hard drive.

Of course, it's worth paying attention to the cooling system, if the owner plans to accelerate to improve performance. However, graphics accelerators of this line have problems, so it is worthwhile to think carefully before proceeding with such actions.