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| Introduction | ||||||
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Late last year, NVIDIA released a pair of new 8800-series graphics cards based on their G92 GPU. The new cards were designed to keep NVIDIA's products at the top of the food chain at their respective price points, while also being a bit more affordable. The first of the two was the GeForce 8800 GT. It brought high-end performance to the mainstream crowd mostly due to its 112 stream processor configuration and 65m G92 GPU. The G92's shrink to 65nm from TSMC's 90nm process used with the G80, brings with it lower power usage, but also lower prices due to a reduced die size, enabling NVIDIA to set the MSRP for the 8800 GT in the range of $200-250. One thing we noticed in the launch piece for the 8800 GT was the odd number of stream processors enabled in the GPU. We explained the 8800 GT's 112 stream processor configuration by pointing out that there were only 7 groups of SPs enabled, rather than the 8 used in the G80, and speculated another cluster of unused SPs was lurking inside the GPU. Then a month later, the 8800 GTS was refreshed and our suspicions were proved true. The new 8800 GTS 512 has more in common with the 8800 GT than the previous cards in the 8800-series because of its new PCB design and the G92 as its core, but with the newly refreshed GTS all 8 groups of stream processors were enabled, for a grand total of 128. Rather than offering 320MB and 640MB frame buffers though, the new 8800 GTS 512, as its name suggests, comes with 512MB of memory due to its 256-bit memory interface. Core and memory clock speeds were also raised as well to keep fill rate and bandwidth as high as possible. And today we're going to look at an 8800 GTS 512 in full retail trim courtesy of PNY Technologies.
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| Inspecting the PNY 8800 GTS 512MB |
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Now that we have set the stage, we will take a closer look at the card itself. A quick look at the card reveals a dual-slot cooling system with a rear-mounted heatsink - nearly identical to NVIDIA's original reference design albeit with PNY's XLR8 logo and graphics stickered on top.
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| Test System and 3DMark06 Results | ||||||||||||||
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HOW WE CONFIGURED THE TEST SYSTEM: We tested all of the graphics cards used in this article on an MSI P6N Diamond nForce 680i SLI motherboard powered by a Core 2 Duo E6300 processor and 2GB of low-latency Corsair RAM. The first thing we did when configuring our test systems was enter into the BIOS and set all values to their "optimized" or "performance" default settings. Then we manually configured the memory timings and disabled any integrated peripherals that wouldn't be put to use. The hard drive was then formatted, and Windows Vista Ultimate was installed. When the installation was complete we fully updated the OS, and installed the latest DX10 redist and various hotfixes along with the necessary drivers and applications.
Although the 8800 GTX has greater memory bandwidth than the newer 8800 GTS 512, the card's higher core and memory clock speeds propel the GTS to the head of the pack in most of the 3DMark06 testing, and it ends up with a 68 point lead overall. The GeForce cards, in general, were better performers with regards to HDR rendering, while Shader Model 2 went in favor of the ATI Radeon HD 3870. The slower clocked HD 3850 was between 15-25% behind in all of the tests. |
| Half-Life 2: Episode 2 | ||||||
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In Half-Life 2: Episode 2, the PNY 8800 GTS 512 manages to beat out the 8800 GTX by roughly two frames per second at each resolution, making it the top performer overall. Even with 4X Anti-aliasing enabled, the GeForce cards are producing close to 90 frames per second. In this test, at least, the cards from ATI really can't keep up, posting frame rates 15-30 fps behind at 1280x1024, and 20-35 fps behind at 1600x1200. |
| Company of Heroes | ||||||
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Company of Heroes is the first of our DirectX 10 suite of games, and the performance difference is quite noticeable. Even higher-end cards find it difficult to maintain the higher frame rates that we saw with the DX9-based Half-Life 2. With 4xAA and Aniso enabled, and all graphics set to their highest quality, the extra memory bandwidth afforded to the 8800 GTX allow it to render the scenes quicker, and post the highest frame rates, although the difference at 1600x1200 was minimal. |
| Enemy Territory: Quake Wars | ||||||
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NVIDIA-powered cards have typically fared very well in id produced OpenGL titles, and we saw no difference with their latest title, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The 8800s, and the GTX in particular, are running more than a third faster at the lower resolution than ATI's offerings. The delta between the GeForce cards and the Radeons is much less pronounced at higher resolutions, with the delta nearly halved. |
| Crysis | ||||||
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Even without at any anti-aliasing, the frame rates in Crysis are relatively low with only the 8800 GTX able to break the 30 fps barrier at 1280x1024. PNY's 8800 GTS 512 tries to keep pace with the powerful GTX, but remains 2-3 frames behind at either resolution. |
| Bioshock | ||||||
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Surprising, considering the performance of the other DX10 games, Bioshock plays and looks great. Frame rates rebounded back to levels we would expect from the current crop of graphics cards, especially for NVIDIA's pair. The 8800 GTX and 8800 GTS 512 were within a hair of each other at either resolution, with one test going for the GTX and the other for the GTS 512. |
| PT Boats: Knights of the Sea | ||||||
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In the final game of our benchmark suite, we once again saw a 1-2 punch from NVIDIA's 8800 cards. Here the variance was so slight - less than a frame in both runs - that we will have to call this a virtual tie. The 8800 GTS 512 balances its lower memory bandwidth with higher clock speeds to keep a level playing field with the 8800 GTX. |
| Overclocking Results | ||||
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Before we concluded our testing, we also spent some time overclocking the PNY GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB card using the GPU core and memory clock frequency sliders that become available within NVIDIA's Forceware drivers when nTune is installed.
With the extra 155MHz we added to the core speed on the PNY 8800 GTS 512, we expected to break the stalemate so far between the two GeForce 8800 cards. Re-running Half Life 2: Episode 2 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars showed that the additional performance gained in both engines made the card about 8% faster than the stock 8800 GTX. |
| Performance Summary and Conclusion | ||||
So, in our opinion going with an 8800 GTS 512 seems like a good idea in terms of overall value. If we focus solely on PNY's offering, however, we're a bit underwhelmed. A few of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB cards we've already looked at are pre-overclocked, and come with a game thrown in to the bundle for good measure. PNY's XLR8 GeForce 8800 GTS 512 card, however, doesn't fall too far from the NVIDIA tree in terms of speed, cooling, or accoutrements. And at about $339, it's priced approximately the same or higher than many of its brethren, including some faster cards that ship with higher default speeds and include a game. Overall, the PNY XLR8 GeForce 8800 GTS 512 is a solid piece of hardware, but there are just some better values out there if you shop around.
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