- Back to homepage
- Related articles
  Related articles

10 Geforce 8800 GTS 320Mb Video Cards Compared

Videocards/VGA Reviews by geoffrey @ 2007-04-30

We continue our Geforce 8800 320Mb tests with the additional of models from Asus, Albatron, Leadtek and the TEC cooled Calibre, comparing gaming performance, overclocking potential and cooling capability with the previous tested cards. This roundup will help you decide what card to get; read on if you´re in the market for a higher end VGA upgrade.

Test setup & Benchmark methodology & OC

Test setup

Geoffreys' Intel Test Setup

CPU	Intel E6600 @ 3,6GHz
Cooling	Zalman 9700 LED
Mainbord	Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi
Memory	2x1Gb TEAMGROUP Xtreem 800MHz 4-4-4-10
Other	Silverstone DA750 Maxtor 80Gb PATA HDD Seagate 200GB SATA HDD Antec Nine Hundred housing 20" Dell UltraSharp 2007FP TFT monitor

The CPU was running at 3,6GHz by setting the front side bus to 400MHz and keeping the multiplier at default (9). The memory was running @ 400MHz (800MHz DDR) with 4-4-4-10 timings 1/1 with the FSB.

ForceWare 97.92 drivers

While Windows Vista is now officially launched, and G80 are the only DX10 capable cards for now, we decided to test with a mature Windows OS (XP SP2), even if we wanted to, the lack of none-beta drivers for Vista keeps us from testing on the new platform.

Benchmark methodology

For our tests we compared the cards at box clocks, and after that we repeated those tests with overclocked cards.

All tests were done with a 20” LCD monitor with maximum resolution of 1600*1200. For high-end VGA cards this resolution can be quite stressful in newer games especially when higher quality settings are enabled like anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

The G80 core is powerful, at 1280x1024 and lower resolutions we couldn’t properly stress them unless we cranked the AA levels beyond reasonable levels. We stuck at our monitor’s maximum native resolution of 1600*1200 and found a good balance between image quality and playability.

Depending on what game we ran, IQ was set a bit different. You will be informed at all time at what it is actually set. Whenever possible the in-game quality options were set to highest. FRAPS was used to measure the FPS during repeated manual run-throughs of a certain part of the games tested, the minimum, maximum and average values were recorded.

FEAR

Tomb Raider: Legend

Oblivion

We also ran Futuremark's 3D mark software

Overclocking

We used Rivatuner to up the clocks speeds and stressed the cards with 3DMark06 to check stability, these were the overclocking results with stock cooling:

Madshrimps (c)

Most cards were able to reach similar maximum GPU speeds, but why didn't we pick a nice round core clock instead of 621/648 MHz? The answer lies in how those cards are build up. G80 boards are based on a 27MHz crystal, and with the help of multipliers/dividers we get the reference 513MHz core clock. During our overclock tests we saw that the BIOS didn't allow for too complex clock calculations, meaning that increasing clocks per MHz was not an option. What we saw was that core and memory clocks set to certain points and that if you slide the core clock between two integers in Rivatuner the core or memory will set itself at a certain clock speed. The bad thing is that you can not see at what point the core clock might jump up to the next logical step, though there is an easy way to solve this matter. Rivatuner's build in log software made it possible to read real-time clocks at any given time, so when you slide your core clock to an higher level, you actually notice it by looking to the chart, the core clock might suddenly jump up from 513MHz to 540HMz for example.

Madshrimps (c)

Memory results were slightly more divided but overall the cards were capable of very similar overclocking, which only means good news for our readers, no matter what brand you'll pick, you'll get a fair chance of reaching high OC, even with stock cooling.

Madshrimps (c)

Comment from Sidney @ 2007/04/30

Nicely done review

Comment from sandstorm @ 2007/05/02

yes idd, great stuff!

I'm anciously awaiting a 8800GTX with a fanless design cooler. I know it's asking a lot but there are vga-coolers out there that are up for the challenge if you ask me. Placing one for myselfs is out of the question, I don't want to wreck a 500 euro graphicscard and lose my warranty.

Keep up the good reviewing!

Comment from jmke @ 2007/05/03

HR-03 Plus should be able to do the job if you have decent case cooling

Comment from jim8 @ 2007/12/18

OK........I have the Albatron 8800 gts 320mb that you guys tested, and I see that nobody is testing any card with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Why is that??? I mean....everyone says that this game is quite heavy...and with the albatron card, this game (I watched the game's frame rate counter) gave me 2 to 5 frames on some missions with intense environments (1280x1024 and low in game settings). With less intense environments, and with low settings on the Nvidia control panel, it reached 25 "maybe" 30 fps max, and that happened "sometimes". And I'm using the new Beta drivers from Nvidia 169.17. With those drivers, the same "tough" mission got a maximum of 10 frames. I tampered with the nvidia control panel and pushed up the AA and Anisotropic filters, and the filters of the game, and the frames average between 6 and 13-14. Is that normal??? or am I doing something wrong??? or could it be because of the monitor??? (lol)....I'm planing to play around with the overclocking and see what frames I'll get......is it possible for you to run a test with the FSX and see what numbers you can get????

my system:
Gigabyte GA 965P-S3 (Rev. 3.3) mainboard
Intel Pentium 4, (540) 3.2 Ghz 800 FSB
2 GB memory, 667MHz
HD 500 GB sata II westernd digital
LG 1735 17" TFT VGA monitor

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/12/18

I wonder how long it takes until you find Madshrimps in the excyclopedia when you look under "roundup" =P

Comment from jmke @ 2007/12/18

This test was finished back in June, the cards are no longer in our possession :/

Comment from geoffrey @ 2007/12/18

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim8

OK........I have the Albatron 8800 gts 320mb that you guys tested, and I see that nobody is testing any card with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Why is that??? I mean....everyone says that this game is quite heavy...and with the albatron card, this game (I watched the game's frame rate counter) gave me 2 to 5 frames on some missions with intense environments (1280x1024 and low in game settings). With less intense environments, and with low settings on the Nvidia control panel, it reached 25 "maybe" 30 fps max, and that happened "sometimes". And I'm using the new Beta drivers from Nvidia 169.17. With those drivers, the same "tough" mission got a maximum of 10 frames. I tampered with the nvidia control panel and pushed up the AA and Anisotropic filters, and the filters of the game, and the frames average between 6 and 13-14. Is that normal??? or am I doing something wrong??? or could it be because of the monitor??? (lol)....I'm planing to play around with the overclocking and see what frames I'll get......is it possible for you to run a test with the FSX and see what numbers you can get????

my system:
Gigabyte GA 945P-S3 (Rev. 3.3) mainboard
Intel Pentium 4, (540) 3.2 Ghz 800 FSB
2 GB memory
HD 500 GB sataII westernd digital
LG 1735 17" TFT monitor, VGA only........lol, no DVI input

I don't own that game, and besides that it would take just too long for me to test every card in every available game. Therefore we test only the most popular games, or those that make most sense. Concerning your setup, that Pentium 4 540 is not really the fastest CPU those days, maybe you gain some performance when pushing it past 4GHz, I'm quite sure your CPU can do that air cooled.

Comment from jim8 @ 2007/12/19

hhhmmm yes!!!!!........I've been told that before....about the Pentium 4, and I was suggested a Core 2 duo, prefferably one with more than 2GHz. could it be the cpu that limits the frames after all???..........I've tried lower rezolusions too and didn't have any improvement on the frames.........as if something is blocking the card from giving more frames. But anyway, do you know if fsx is actualy that heavy??? .....I've read some reviews of the game and they said that it's for next generation cards.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/12/19

FSX is a huge resource hog, it will require a lot of RAM, raw CPU power and high end VGA card to run half decent, running it under Vista will further degrade performance;

Comment from jim8 @ 2007/12/19

Daaaaaaaammmnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!......

Comment from jim8 @ 2007/12/22

hey hey hey.........guess what..........overclocking solved my problems eventualy.......even with no overclocking of the CPU, a small overclocking of the GPU and memory, with RivaTuner, to run from 513/1188/792 to 540/1242/810 gave me at least a playable frame rate (7 to 10 fps minimum on "heavy" scinery conditions). Your overclocking guide was most helpful, thanks

All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us.