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Geforce 8800 GTS 320Mb Review - Does 640Mb matter?

Videocards/VGA Reviews by geoffrey @ 2007-02-12

With the introduction of the Geforce 8800 GTS NVIDIA made available an affordable high end DX10 video card, now they´ve slashed its memory in half, reduced the price, to make it even better deal. Can the new GTS keep up with its memory-loaded brother? We find out.

Introduction

Introduction

Near the end of 2006 NVIDIA released the 8800GTX, a high-end 3D rendering monster which bested every other video card out there. As usual, you had to pay a higher price to get the fastest frame per seconds in games, for the more budget minded people NVIDIA added the GTS to the G80 line-up. This slightly degraded video card still offers awesome performance, now NVIDIA is lowering the price of the GTS by cutting the available memory in half, the 320Mb is introduced today, the original GTS comes with double the amount. How does this reduction affect gaming performance? Let’s find out.

This review has been made possible thanks to Sparkle who provided us with a sample of each 8800 GTS version

Sparkle has been into pc graphics for many years now. As an official NVIDIA partner they also released their version the 8800 back in November 2006. Currently Sparkle has 2 GeForce 8800 products available for everyone out there:

GeForce 8800 GTX | 768MB GDDR3 | 384-Bit | PCI-Express 16x

GeForce 8800 GTS | 640MB GDDR3 | 320-Bit | PCI-Express 16x

Madshrimps (c)

Sparkle GeForce 8800GTS 640Mb

Today Sparkle adds one more video card to add to that list:

GeForce 8800 GTS | 320MB GDDR3 | 320-Bit | PCI-Express 16x

Madshrimps (c)

Sparkle GeForce 8800GTS 320Mb

Both their 8800 GTS cards use the same PCB and heatsink, the only main difference is the amount of memory. While the older GTS comes with 640MB GDDR3, the newest version comes with only half if that. It helps to reduce the price, will it also reduce the performance?

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/02/12

going right after [H] last stronghold with those graphs done with THE SAME SETTINGS, evil evil geoffrey

I would like even more graphs of the AA tests because that's what matters not the number.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/02/12

we've been using squiggly charts since December 2005

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=get...&articID=4 13

Comment from Sidney @ 2007/02/12

Nice article

Comment from Wolf2000me @ 2007/02/13

300$ for a 320mb 8800GTS is tempting. Well worth considering although I'd prefer to wait for ATI's R600 cards. If those fit in my case, that is

Although it's a nice article there are a few spelling errors. Namely in the specs table here:
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=get...&articID=5 43

Frequency is spelled in three different ways of which only one is the correct one.

Comment from geoffrey @ 2007/02/13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolf2000me

300$ for a 320mb 8800GTS is tempting. Well worth considering although I'd prefer to wait for ATI's R600 cards. If those fit in my case, that is

Oops

Fixed it, thx

Comment from jmke @ 2007/02/13

couldn't get to the spelling errors at noon, sorry

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