GeForce 8800 series round-up

Final Thoughts...

Generally speaking, Nvidia’s GeForce 8800-series has been a success for the company and its partners mainly with thanks to the lack of any real competition from AMD over the last four months. Of course, Nvidia’s Windows Vista drivers aren’t up to scratch at the moment, but then if you really look at the big picture, nobody has truly bulletproof Vista drivers. Before we detract though, let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 family filtered down into the performance mainstream sector last week with the launch of GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. That card does its job well at the resolutions it is designed to run at, but when you start to get up above 1600x1200, the lack of memory really shows. Thus, if you’re gaming on a 24” or 30” monitor, you need to set your sights a bit higher. GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB and GeForce 8800 GTX do a pretty good job of catering for gamers at the higher resolutions in current games, and based on Nvidia’s support for the development community, the cards should continue to perform well going forwards, too.

Although AMD’s R600 graphics processor isn’t too far away, you could say that there’s always something better around the corner. Indeed, we are under the impression that Nvidia hasn’t been resting on its laurels ever since GeForce 8800-series launched in November, so we won’t be surprised if the company tries to spoil AMD’s release in some shape or form.

The five cards we’ve looked at over the course of this article cover Nvidia’s entire GeForce 8800 family and your monitor’s resolution will ultimately help to make the right decision for you. If you’re gaming at 1600x1200 or 1680x1050, GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB is your best bet going forwards, while GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB is better suited to 1920x1200, but will deliver great gaming experiences at the same resolutions that the GTS 320MB is best-suited for. 2560x1600 is reserved for either one or two GeForce 8800 GTX video cards, but if you’ve got money for just the one you’ll get a lot more life out of it at 1920x1200.

Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GTS TDH 320MB:

Leadtek’s card comes with a very attractive price, but it’s still more expensive than the excellent value BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB we reviewed last week. The card performs better than MSI’s NX8800GTS-T2D320E at its stock clocks and our sample had some decent headroom in it. The two games Leadtek has included are great, but there’s a chance that you’ve already got them, or that you don’t want to play them. However, there’s no getting away from BFGTech’s card that delivers more performance and a better warranty for less money.

BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 640MB:

BFG’s GeForce 8800 GTS OC 640MB isn’t a benchmark winner, but it’s got a very reasonable price tag and is among the cheapest GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB cards out there. It doesn’t perform as well as XFX’s GeForce 8800 GTS XXX Edition and there are some occasions where it is outpaced by EVGA’s e-GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB Superclocked card too. Add the competitive price and respectable performance to the fact that the card comes with a great warranty and after sales support package, and you’ve got yourself our first recommendation.

XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB XXX Edition:

XFX’s 8800 GTS 640MB XXX Edition is one of the fastest GeForce 8800 GTS cards we’ve tested – the fastest we’ve seen was Foxconn’s FV-N88SMBD2-ONOC. Like the Foxconn though, XFX’s GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB XXX Edition is let down by its price tag. The card sells for over £320 including VAT and that’s just too expensive when you consider you can get a card in the same performance bracket for almost £50 less.

It needs to be around £30 cheaper otherwise it’s just too close to some of the cheaper 8800 GTXs on the market. We’d also like to see XFX’s European branch offer a similar warranty to the one that its US branch offers – two years just isn’t enough for a high-end graphics card, in our opinion.

EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTX KO 768MB ACS³ Edition:

If you want the fastest graphics card on the planet at the moment, you don’t need to look much further than EVGA’s e-GeForce 8800 GTX KO ACS³ video card. While the cooling solution doesn’t make much difference to GPU temperatures in our testing, it did provide the highest performance we’ve seen from a GeForce 8800 GTX. It’s not the cheapest GeForce 8800 GTX on the market, but then you don’t hold the title of “fastest graphics card on the planet” without a price premium.

Add that to the fact you get a stellar warranty term from EVGA and the option to upgrade in three months (if there’s anything faster out there at that point) and you’ve got our second recommendation. Probably the only high-end video cards we’d recommend over this are the watercooled GeForce 8800 GTXs from either BFGTech or EVGA. Simply put, you’re going to require watercooling to get much better than EVGA’s 8800 GTX KO ACS³ video card.

XFX GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB XXX Edition:

Finally, XFX’s GeForce 8800 GTX XXX Edition was just pipped to the “fastest graphics card on the planet” title by EVGA, but that’s not to say this card is an also ran. Sure, we would like to see an increased warranty term in Europe that matches its competitors, but its price is attractive compared to EVGA’s. If the short warranty term isn’t a concern of yours, XFX’s GeForce 8800 GTX XXX Edition is a good choice.