8800GTS shootout - XFX 8800GTS XXX vs Gainward 8800GTS "Golden Sample"
Game Tests - F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and Oblivion
Published: 5th March 2007 | Source: XFX | Price: |
F.E.A.R. is a game based on an engine that uses many features of DirectX 9.0c. It has volumetric lighting, soft shadows, parallax mapping and particle effects, with a slow-motion mode that really taxes today's top of the line GPU's. I fully patched version the game with the latest patch. I played three two-minute runs on a taxing part of the game with plenty of action, using slow-motion for the full time whilst firing at enemy soldiers and using grenades that produce a cool "blast" contortion effect when blown up.

Once again F.E.A.R. is a pretty even match for both cards, without the large lead shown by the XFX in Counter Strike: Source.
Quake 4
Quake 4 is a game built on the Doom 3 engine. This uses many DX 9.0c features and is a game that nVidia traditionally did well on being an OpenGL game. Once again I did three two minute runs on Quake 4 on each card and took the average of all my readings from these. I played a fast and furious part of the game that required both internal and external scenes.

The XFX had a slight edge in Quake 4, those faster stream processors giving the speed boost. I actually thought that the gameplay was slightly affected by the extra speed, but certainly not to a huge jump in gameplay.
Oblivion
Oblivion is an awesome RPG with a simply huge immersive environment, great graphics and incredibly realistic scenery. This game is currently one of the most testing games that you can buy and it is certainly a test of the high-end cards here. I chose to do a run-through of the Arena part of the game. I spoke to a character, did some magic whilst in a fight and fought in the arena that is pretty huge. Also as well as doing this test I took a wander around to make sure that the benchmark resembled the general gameplay with each card.
I enforced 4 x AA onto the game as nVidia cards now support AA and HDR in Oblivion.

Most Recent Comments
Somewhere along the line I was wishing u`d take a screw-driver to those coolers, the pcbs look almost identical asif these guyz are working extremely close together. Like in the same building :p
I see many are already posing whether it`s better value to get a base card and do all the clocking uself. Meh.
Great review Kemp.
Somewhere along the line I was wishing u`d take a screw-driver to those coolers, the pcbs look almost identical asif these guyz are working extremely close together. Like in the same building :p
I see many are already posing whether it`s better value to get a base card and do all the clocking uself. Meh.
They're all the same as the reference boards i expect.
As for the clocking we can oc the core but not the stream processors:(
I took the 8800GTX apart in that review.
If your particularly interested I could take apart another GTS and post some pics?
And ye you can OC the core clocks/memory clocks but I haven't found a way of doing the stream processors yet
If I`m the only one looking for hardcore up-cooler shots, I wouldn`t bother, if I do some searching there bound to be something out there ;)

i use ATitool for my oc'ing and you can have it load the oc on startup and it tells the temp... i have mine running at 640/1000
havnt seen the temp go above 70*c yet cuz i got some insain air fed to my card at all times... two 80mm fans and a 120mm all blowing on it