GeForce 8800 GT vs GeForce 9800 GT

I know that the 8 Series was the last soft-moddable GeForce cards. I see you can find used ones on the interwebs.) I currently have a 9800 GT which works fine but would like to dabble in CG on the side. Anyone know how the 9800 stacks up to the 8800 in terms of gaming and soft-modability? (I am testing a Quadro card right now and am not all pleased with the huge drop in fps in Crysis!) Thanks, peeps!

 

9800gt is about the same as a 8800gt

Why do you have a quadro cards? Quadro cards are for workstation stuff and are horrid for gaming.

 

Thanks for responding, pclover. As I said, I am just dabbling in 3D/CG and heard Quadro cards are better/more stable for 3D apps (Maya/3DS). As you can soft mod an 8800 GT (to work with Quadro drivers), I wonder if the benefits of using Quadro drivers with a gaming card (i.e. 8800) were worth replacing the newer 9800 (which is not moddable). In other words, is the 9800 GT "good enough"? I know it is for gaming. But I have yet to try it with 3D apps. (I have the Quadro card installed right now and didn't install the 3D apps til after installation. backwards, I know: Should have tested the apps with the GeForce first.)

 

I'm not sure. The modded drivers may help but it's not quadro hardware.

 

No real help here - just wanted to say that I'll be watching this thread. I've always been a bit confused as to how a card can excel at stuff like medical imaging, CAD, and 3D modeling, but not be any good for gaming. Like with the ATI 'Fire' series (FireGL, FirePro, FireMV) which are ATIs answer to the Quadro, some of these sell for OVER $1000!!!! And check the price on Quadro FX3800 - they're over $900!!! I don't get it. How is the FX3800 "better" than a GTX480? You'd think for that kind of money, you'd get the best card around. I guess I don't understand how the different types of use the cards are designed for are actually different.

 

Sorry to highjack my own thread a bit, but...
I removed the Quadro drivers, shut down, removed the Quadro, reinstalled the GeForce (9800 GT), and installed the latest drivers (197.45 -just released last week). Now Crysis freezes and gets blocky and gives me frame flashes of textures! (It hummed along fine at an acceptable 25 fps max with no freezes or crashes prior to swapping for the Quadro, which gave me an abysmal 12 fps max.) I know I did NOT have the most recent drivers installed prior to removing and installing the Quadro (which I am returning to Fry's today). I have no idea which version of the drivers I DID have for the 9800. I know NVidia has a driver archive. Does anyone know one that works for sure? (I'm guessing the version I had was released 2009 or even 2008?)

 

Going back to the 8800GT vs the 9800GT, I would postulate that the 8800GT is better based on some charts I have seen from Tom's Hardware. Both the 8800GT 1024MB and the 512MB come in before the 9800GT 512MB.

Reference: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart....1.0-3DMark-Score,Marque_fbrandx876,1829.html

 

My knowledge is limited re: drivers but, my GTX285 renders the best with the 182.46 drivers. After testing around ten different drivers, the 182.46 have been the most stable and consistent for my setup. My experience with the 190-195 drivers was not as successful.

At 1680x1050 I play most games (Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Risen, Gothic 3, Crysis) at high settings with some turned down for performance reasons.