Guru3D: We need to consider the following. The GS offers close to 6800 GT performance yet is a little more friendly on our wallet as it can save you roughly 25-50 bucks. It really is a worthy opponent to the 6800 GT. The price needs to come down just a little bit more though as for the difference in money I do want to recommend people to pick up a sub 300 USD costing GeForce 6800 GT. The higher clock of the GS might bring it close to the GT but the GT has a quad more pixel pipelines which means it has more raw horsepower under the hood; and that is why in general it'll perform slightly better than the GS with the more complex gaming titles. If we'd overclock both products, the GT would win.

HardOCP: We saw a very good example of the differences of game play immersion today with F.E.A.R. We found that with the GeForce 6800 GS and the Radeon X1600 XT, we had to set the computer quality to "Medium," which sets all the physics, sound and particle bouncing, and world detail to a setting that is not the highest the game will allow. With the Radeon X1600 XT particularly, we had to go even further and set graphical effects to "Minimum," which possibly further reduces the experience the game has the to offer. With the GeForce 6800 GS, we did not have to make this compromise, all graphics effects were at "Maximum." It is these kinds of differences in game play that cannot be tested in recorded "timedemos." We aren't just talking about graphics, but rather the game as a whole, the physics, the artificial intelligence (AI), and the sound. All of these play a role in your experience while playing the game. It is very clear from our testing that the GeForce 6800 GS offers a better experience in F.E.A.R than the Radeon X1600 XT. You get to run at maximum graphic effect settings with higher performance, which simply adds to the graphical impact of the game.

AnandTech: Putting 6800 GS cards together in SLI is not worth it when you can get a 7800 GTX for less than 2x the price. Since the 6800 GS will be a short lived product (from what we understand) SLI as an upgrade is not a viable option - stick with the single card here or go with something faster if you need to spend more money. We don't like SLI upgrades anyway, but it's even less smart an idea if you can't be sure the card will be around much longer

TechReport: The biggest knock on the GeForce 6800 GS, in my book, comes from another source. If you're going to fork over $249 for a graphics card, you would probably do well to consider shelling out the additional $70-100 for a GeForce 7800 GT instead, if you can. The 7800 GT delivers significantly more performance, thanks in part to the tweaks NVIDIA made between GeForce generations six and seven. Similarly, if Radeon X1800 XL prices settle into the same range as the 7800 GT as supply becomes more plentiful, that card could become a very attractive option. I don't advocate reaching into a higher price bracket often, but this is one case where it may make some sense.