What is the best GeForce GS graphics card-- 8400 GS, 6800 GS, 7600 GS?

Question

My guess is that the 8400 card is the best due to the higher model number (I know, it's obvious), but it can't hurt to be sure. I want to upgrade my computer from integrated graphics (completely useless!) to a decent graphics card that's not too expensive and won't overload my computer but suitable for casual gaming.

Answer 1

Well actually not... In looking at Nvidia cards, there are 3 things to look at:

1) The series number in thousands (6000, 7000, 8000)
2) The model number within that series (100, 600, 900 etc)
3) The letter codes (LE, GT, GS etc)

The higher numbered series are newer, so a 7300GT is newer than a 6600GT; the 8400 is newer than the 7900 and so on.

BUT... it's the model number which tells you whether a card is low-end, midrange or high-end. Low model numbers from 100-400 are slow, low-end cards. The 600 series cards are midrange and the 800-900 are high-end.

Finally, the letters finish the description:

LE = cheapest, slowest version available (avoid these)

GS = budget version, slightly scaled down or lower clockspeed

GT or GTS = full-featured version

GTX = best version, fastest available

So within the same series, GT cards are better than GS, and GS cards are better than LE.

A Geforce 7900GT is a high-performance card, while the Geforce 8600GT is midrange, and the Geforce 8400GS is low-end. A Geforce 6100LE is worst version of the lowest model of the old series 6.

In your case, the 6800 is the fastest (high-end model from an older series), while the 7600 is 2nd (midrange of a newer series). The 8400 is a cheap, slow newer card. It has hardware support for DirectX 10, but its memory bandwidth is so poor, that doesn't matter... See the link below for a direct comparison of the 7600GS and 6800GS.

Generally speaking, always go with a 600 card or higher (i.e. 6600, 7600, 8600). That way, you'll always be looking at a decent performer within the current lineup.

I recommend a 7600GT if you're not sure about your power supply. That card doesn't even require a dedicated PCI-E power connector. Otherwise, spend another 20 bucks and get the 8600GT. Both can handle casual gaming well.

Neither is a hardcore high-performance card like the 7950 or 8800, but cards like that aren't in your desired price range anyway.

Here's the latest breakdown of "best buys" for gaming cards in all price ranges.

Answer 2

Even since NVIDIA launched their GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card, everyone has been waiting for them to release cheaper versions of that card. Just over six months after that momentous launch, NVIDIA finally reveals their mid-range GeForce 8600 GTS.

Based on the newer and smaller G84 GPU with 32 stream processors running at 1.45GHz and 8 ROPs, the GeForce 8600 GTS comes with 256MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 2GHz DDR. This gives it a texture fill rate of 10,800 megatexels/s and a memory bandwidth of 32GB/s. That's 61% more fill rate and 43% more memory bandwidth than the GeForce 7600 GT. Not bad for a mid-range card.

That performance advantage was confirmed in the tests we ran in Windows Vista. The Sparkle GeForce 8600 GTS was about 20% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT. It compared favourably against the GeForce 7950 GT in several aspects, but it was generally between the GeForce 7950 GT and the GeForce 7600 GT in performance.

However, its DirectX 10 performance is absymal. Yes, it can run DirectX 10 applications, but you have to ask yourself, "Do you want to play games, or watch slideshows?" Although we were quite happy with its DirectX 9 performance, it is simply too weak to provide usable support for DirectX 10. As more GPU-intensive DirectX 10 games come along, the DirectX 10 support of this card will become even more irrelevant.

For those who are interested in HD DVD decoding, you will also be happy to know that the GeForce 8600 GTS comes with a new video processor (VP2) that allows the CPU to completely offload the processing of H.264 content to the GeForce 8600 GTS. This means much lower CPU utilization than even the GeForce 8800 GTX, whose VP1 processor can only do motion compensation and deblocking.
No, you are somebody my friend.
Doodad

Answer 3

It all depends on one thing, your power supply, if you have a good power supply then upgrading to a higher card like the 7600 GS should be a snap, the higher the card the more power it will eat up. 8400 GS is nice, but if you don't have the power supply to run it, it won't work.

Anything below 400watts will probably not work with the ones you listed above.

Answer 4

Check power requirements first, if your current power supply can handle additional load for the card. I don't know for sure that changing the card will increase the graphics since your placing the card on an integrated system, and if you have speed from your processor to accomplish what your trying to do.

Answer 5

First you should check how much they power they require and how much your power supply has.

Second, 6800 GS is the fastest (family numbers aren't everything theres other stuff to it!) To be sure check the link below and if your card is an AGP slot or a PCI-E slot.

Answer 6

6800GS - old tech but FASTEST of the three. It uses 256bit interface, thus has the highest memory banwidth. Draws more than 50 watts.

7600GS - Uses 128 bit interface and has less shaders than 6800GS. Draws about 27 watts.

8400GS - New tech, DX 10, supports Shader Model 4.0 but only 64bit interface. Draws less than 40 watts.

Best bang for the buck would be a factory overclocked 8600GT. It draws less than 40 watts.

Answer 7

I bet it does.I would try.