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Conclusion

The 6800 GS while not quite as impressive a leap as we have seen past christmas seasons, is still an amazing product and should be a top contender for a spot in most users' mainstream PC's.

Compared to the X800 GTO, this card is definitely worth the price hike, but whether most people will settle for the $40 less GTO card is questionable. The 6800 GS is definitely a more powerful card than the GTO, beating it in almost all benchmarks, and adds the 6 series SM 3.0 implementation as well. Compared to the X800 GTO², it's definitely a closer call, and it comes down to tweaking. Unlocked, the ² GTO performs just slightly below the GS (by a few frames) in most benchmarks, but it's the overclocking where the real battle is. Both cards are capable of very high overclocking, and will remain quite comparable as they scale. Unfortunately, the GTO² where its available, runs for roughly the MSRP of the 6800 GS, while the 6800 GS can be had for about $35 less than its MSRP.

Within a couple of weeks this picture is going to get even more muddled as ATI ships its X1600 XT cards. There's a reason that we did not even include this card in our benchmarking - the card is an extremely poor performer relative to price. While ATI yesterday announced that it had cut the MSRP of the card to $199, the card is still beat by the last generation X800 GTO which still costs $30 less and will be even cheaper by the time the X1600 XT reaches market. The X1600 XT is not even close to being a player in this game, and we dearly hope ATI decides to either rework the card and implement a 256bit memory bus, or scrap it all together. When (if?) this card ships, we would recommend not even entertaining the thought of purchasing one versus the X800 GTO or 6800 GS offerings we compare here today. Until ATI announces an inexpensive X1800 chip or an X1700, stick to their current offerings for your midrange needs.

As far as AGP goes, the rumor today is that Nvidia is working on a version of the GS for the older but still fully usable slot. We hope this is true, although by the time it reaches the market (if the rumor is true of course), it could potentially be too late for the Christmas rush.

One caveat we have with the GS card is that it is not compatible with a 6800 GT in SLI. While this might have been a difficult move for Nvidia to make, it would have been an extremely popular one. The many 6800 GT owners out there looking for a second card would have been more than elated to grab a companion for $50 less than the cheapest 6800 GT. It doesn't make any sense to buy two 6800 GS's for an SLI setup, as they will be outdated extremely quickly and there's no room for upgrading. For the just over $400 it would cost for two 6800 GS cards, a 7800 GT would be a much better decision, and the $70 or so dollars saved could be put towards a second one in the future.

While the 6800 GS is still a solid deal at $249, Nvidia would have been much wiser to release the card at a $199 MSRP. Already some places are selling the card for this cheap, and most stores have the lowest price versions running for $215. While being able to buy the card at that price has no reflection on the MSRP, having a price that's $50 less quoted across the web is only better press. While we cannot now say that for the fourth year in a row Nvidia has brought the high end performance of a year before to the $199 price point, we can say they came close.

All things considered, while not an entirely show stopping move, the 6800 GS is still a good bargain. It's performance is slightly better than the more expensive and hotter 6800 GT, and it can be overclocked even further thanks to its 110 nanometer core.

The card is very powerful for the money involved, and is essentially giving buyers a behemoth of a card for a low price. It's overclocking ability is fantastic, and while the board isn't everything it could have been, for what it is, and how much it costs currently on the market, it is a truly stellar deal. Anyone who is moving to an inexpensive PCI-E based system, or needs an upgrade for last years 6600 GT should not hesitate for a moment to buy this card, as it is nearly, just nearly a steal.