While a synthetic benchmark like 3DMark06 has often taken flak from enthusiasts on a number of issues, from relevance to neutrality, there is no doubt that it does manage to distinguish adequately between small differences in clock speeds. This is exactly the situation that we find ourselves in with these 10 GeForce 8800 GTs, where the differences may well boil down to 10MHz in core clocks.
Looking at the scores for our cards, we can probably split them roughly into three groups, the standard GeForce 8800 GTs, the two stand-outs, overclocked versions, namely the ASUS and the Zotac and then there were a bunch of similarly overclocked cards all jousting in the middle, where it could be quite difficult to distinguish. The differences became more pronounced at the higher settings like when we enabled anti-aliasing but heading the table was the ASUS EN8800GT TOP, which was actually shadowed very closely by the Zotac. Effectively, these two cards are almost identical, but ASUS has a higher shader processor clock speed that managed to garner the slight edge.
Results - Company of Heroes & F.E.A.R
The ASUS and Zotac were the early front runners in Company of Heroes without anti-aliasing, though the Leadtek Extreme soon joined them in the leading pack. Most of the overclocked cards fared rather similarly and cards like the Palit, XFX and MSI were separated by less than a frame on many occasions. If you're wondering about the virtues of getting an overclocked version of the GeForce 8800 GT, we'll recommend getting one with a larger overclock in order to experience the actual in-game impact. For example, in F.E.A.R, such a difference between an overclocked variant compared to the standard could be as much as ten frames and as little as four, depending on the resolution and settings used.
The real world difference between the various overclocked cards appeared to be less significant in F.E.A.R but that could be due to lower overall frames in that game compared to Company of Heroes. In any case, the leaders were still the same few here as could be expected from their clock speed advantage.
Conclusion
There is certainly an abundance in choice for the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. Missing from our roundup are some brands that should be familiar to those who patronize online retailers like Newegg, vendors like BFG Tech, EVGA and PNY, to name but a few. However, with up to ten different brands to choose from, it's not exactly easy to choose. This task is not helped by the variety of clock speeds and different bundles offered by the manufacturers, along with mostly competitive pricing. In addition, there is always the hard to quantify criteria, such as build quality and reliability, product support and warranty. Expect even more diversity in future batches of GeForce 8800 GT cards, as more vendors equip their offerings with custom coolers in a bid to compensate for the generally high temperatures on these cards.
In case you're set on any particular brand, we recommend that you have at least a couple of other alternatives, as a cursory survey of local retailers indicate that not all brands are available due to the much discussed limited supply of this popular GPU. The opportunistic retailers may even raise prices to extract a premium from those who can't wait to get their DirectX 10 fix. Below are our concluding opinions about the ten GeForce 8800 GT cards featured in this article:
It's the ASUS TOP Edition and obviously that means high clocks and in the case of the GeForce 8800 GT, even higher temperatures. These clocks help to ensure that for most of our benchmarks, the ASUS was right there at the top. The manufacturer has spared no expense on this premium edition and the new Company of Heroes expansion should be welcomed by most RTS playing consumers. With an estimated retail price of S$469, it is no doubt one of the more costly GeForce 8800 GT cards out there in the market but it could be well worth the price if guaranteed overclocking together with an extended 3-year warranty is what you're looking for. Besides, if you can wait a little, the revised TOP edition with a Glaciator cooler and custom PCB may be available shortly and that could prove to be an even better choice.
Gigabyte's GeForce 8800 GT will not win any benchmarks with its reference design and standard clocks but it could well be the choice of enthusiasts who are looking to indulge in some overclocking of their own. The attractive S$409 price is certainly tempting and for that, Gigabyte has even thrown in the very decent Neverwinter Nights 2 game bundle.
Looking like a slab of chocolate from an up-market brand, the Inno3D GeForce 8800 GT OC Edition tries to distance itself from the budget offerings that the brand has seen over the years. This meant overclocking the card but its no-frills roots come back to haunt it in the form of a bundle lacking most of the extras one would expect from a premium edition. Given that its price is not exactly budget class, we believe most consumers would also pass.
Featuring a solid bundle with applications and a RPG game, the Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GT Extreme will not garner the headlines as its overclocked speeds are slightly inferior to the ASUS and the Zotac. However, smart consumers may consider its blend of price, features and performance to be worth paying for.
A newcomer to the NVIDIA graphics card business, Manli's GeForce 8800 GT is easily forgotten by consumers. Not only is the brand less than familiar to enthusiasts, the package and generic hardware give us little reason to remember it. Unless of course vanilla is your cup of tea.
MSI has often been very aggressive in terms of pricing and features and this MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC fits their formula. Priced reasonably for an overclocked GeForce 8800 GT, the bundled games are a tad weaker than some of its more expensive rivals. But at S$429, we believe that the overall package, together with MSI's reputation, should ensure there are enough takers.
The sole vendor to offer a custom solution, Palit's GeForce 8800 GT Sonic has a two-slot cooler that is clearly superior to the reference version, at least in our temperature testing segment. This is in spite of being overclocked. Palit has tried to put together a decent bundle and in this aspect, it has largely succeeded. Although we don't have the price at the moment, we expect Palit to have competitive pricing, going by previous Sonic editions. Editor's note: Palit just informed us that the Sonic will be sold under the XpertVision brand locally, meaning you'll find the XpertVision GeForce 8800 GT Sonic instead, along with the lowest price among the retail cards here, at S$406, making this a very good buy.
Despite its long name, the XFX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog Edition is not one of the company's more inspired products. The overclocks on this card is quite high, but not sufficient to claim top dog status. Surprisingly, we found overclocking to be quite limited on our review unit while it was much more expensive than the competition at S$499. Together with the not-so-recent Company of Heroes game included in the bundle, this is one XFX product that fails to impress.
Another standard clocked GeForce 8800 GT, this XpertVision GeForce 8800 GT is relying on price to make its mark but faces stiff competition from Gigabyte. Given that we preferred the game bundled with the Gigabyte to the XpertVision and it cost slightly more than the Gigabyte, it's hard to recommend it.
The surprise package in our roundup is without doubt the Zotac GeForce 8800 GT AMP! Edition. Boasting high clocks that match the ASUS TOP and enthusiast friendly extras like an orange LED, this is almost the perfect match. If only Zotac had included a game to bolster its bundle against its rivals, it would have been a clear favorite. As it is now, the saving grace is its price tag of US$299, which makes it slightly cheaper than the ASUS, with almost identical performance.
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