Asus EN 8800 GTX - nVidia's G80 Performance Revealed

Conclusion

Published: 21st November 2006 | Source: Asus | Price: | Author: Matt Kemp

Page Posted: 18/11/06
Author: Matthew Kemp (kempez)
Product Acquired: Asus

Conclusion

There's no doubting that in the 8800 series, nVidia have made themselves a very nice card indeed. The new architecture and implementation of unified shaders have left a lot of people in the technology community surprised and excited. nVidia have "done" unified shaders the right way with a clean and clever implementation.

The high-quality feature implementation when using AA and AF are a huge improvement on the 7 series cards and at last nVidia have sorted out the quality problems they had rendering AF. Not only have nVidia solved these quality issues, but they have done so in such a way as to speed up the rendering of the higher quality features far above that on the previous generation of cards.

For high quality, ultra-high resolution gaming there's no doubt that an 8800GTX should be being built into your Gaming PC right now. It looks like ATI will be late to the party so the 8 series may be sitting in quite a few people's PC's before too long.

DirectX 10 is of course not out yet. This is where I foresee a stumbling block with people opening their wallets. Games like Crytek need to be out to fully utilise DX10 and DX10 cards, but we haven't seen any of them out yet as the API isn't out yet. With Microsoft saying that to play DX10 games you need Vista this makes the upgrade to DX10 that little bit more expensive which puts a bit of a downer on this incredibly fast card.

Coming onto the Asus bundle: it's a very nice bundle that comes with the card with two full games and 3DMark06 as well so full marks to Asus on that one. If you want to pick one up then it's yours for the princely fee of £461.25 @ SpecialTech. Is it worth this money right now: well it all depends if you're cutting edge or not. Personally I think this card is worth every penny, but then I'm in that "must have it now" user bracket.

I'm awarding the nVidia 8800GTX the "Innovation Award" and the Asus 8800GTX the "Gamers Choice Award" as well as an "Editors Choice Award". Quite some feat for one review item!

Asus 8800GTX

nVidia 8800 Series GPU's

asus 8800gtx innovation

Pro's

+ Very fast
+ First card with DX10 support
+ Quiet Cooler
+ Great bundle
+ Excellent Image Quality
+ Innovative implementation of DX10 API

Con's

- Awaiting DX10
- CPU bound

Thanks to Asus for providing the review sample

Comment in the Forums

Most Recent Comments

26-12-2007, 14:02:42

Bungral

Ok finished the reading :) very nicely done Kempez... Must have taken a fair while??

I think what surprised me the most was how close all 3 were.. I knew the GTX still beat the GT but I thought the gap was bigger... Its such a small gap to try and fit the new GTS into. They obviously didn't want it to come out and trash the more expensive GTX but didn't want it out and get whipped by the cheaper GT...

Oh yeah 1 more correction too :)

Conclusion

It's actually wrong to separate these two cards based simply on pure performance along.

Enjoyed reading that.. So again nice one!

26-12-2007, 14:16:24

Kempez

Thanks Bungral :)

All corrected :)

And yep, it did indeed take a long time :)

26-12-2007, 19:25:46

!TIMMY!

If u do buy a Asus 8800GT then you might get it with a 2 slot cooler:

[IMG]http://upload.overclock3d.net/dwn/261919555140/cimg3966.jpg[/IMG]

I thought i was getting one with the stock cooler but hey, although there doesnt seem to be any ram sinks which worries me with ocing (I think most ram on 8800GT's are rated to run @ 1000):

[IMG]http://upload.overclock3d.net/dwn/261921444681/cimg3967.jpg[/IMG]

Just a heads up for people if they go with Asus.

Nice review Kemp, might have to oc this bad boy and get it closer to a 8800GTS 512.

26-12-2007, 19:54:52

Hatman

I just put the EK block on mine looks sooo kl on water although I dont have any sticky pads?? Used AC5 for the ram chips but nothing 4 the mosfets on the card mmm...

27-12-2007, 01:56:51

Deshman

So forget about the ATi completely?

My screen is under 1680x1050. :)

Deshman - Where d'you get the cards? The 8800GT Extreme is £180 delivered, which isn't too bad, but I can't find a 8800GTS Extreme for ~£210.

Got them from specialtech but they're out of stock now.

08-01-2008, 13:22:49

PV5150

A great and informative review as always Kemp, and one which will make a potential purchasing decision easier. Well done!

08-01-2008, 19:28:38

Kempez

Thanks mate, that's the idea and glad you liked the review :D

17-01-2008, 13:32:54

Paradisos

Can please someone be more specific about the noise on the asus card ?
I mean is it really annoiing when playing games like crysis with full load ?
I guess when not playing games it should be no problem right ?

17-01-2008, 14:12:20

Bungral

Can please someone be more specific about the noise on the asus card ?
I mean is it really annoiing when playing games like crysis with full load ?
I guess when not playing games it should be no problem right ?

Its only loud when its at full speed which only happens when the card gets a bit warm.. You can always change at what temps the card switches speed of the fan.. Thats what I do.

My card sits at 20% fan speed up to 55 degs so you can't hear it at all when not gaming then at 57 degs it jumps to 40% still can't hear it. 60 degs and it jumps to 60% and 65 degs it would jump to 80% which you can hear...

100% is a touch annoying but you can't hear it if using a headset obviously.

17-01-2008, 14:24:54

Paradisos

Thanks Bungral !
Although i don't intend to use headset, i guess playing a game with a 5.1 surround sound wont let you notice the fan noice of the gpu, so i guess i will be ok.