 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
||||
 |
|
|
| Introduction & Specifications | |||||||||
|
When we first took a look at the GeForce 8800 Ultra, back in May, we were left with some mixed feelings. On one hand it was, and still is, the undisputed graphics champ. On the other hand, it didn't introduce any new features and it wasn't a whole lot faster than its significantly cheaper sibling, and former graphics champ, the 8800 GTX. The nearly $250 price delta between the Ultra and the GTX was hard to justify since the Ultra is essentially just an overclocked GTX with a larger cooling apparatus.
Anyone looking for screaming top-end performance that isn't hell-bent on owning the absolute fastest graphics card on the market has a bevy of 8800 GTX cards to choose from. Although no GTX can match the Ultra in core clock, memory and shader clock frequency right out of the box, several factory overclocked 8800 GTXs come pretty close and a couple even manage to exceed the Ultra's stock frequency in one of the three areas. The PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC is one such product.
PNY Technologies currently offers a full range of GeForce 8 series graphics cards from an affordable 8500 GT to a factory overclocked 8800 Ultra. Possibly the most interesting product in their entire product range is their factory overclocked 8800 GTX. The XLR8 8800 GTX OC is factory overclocked to near Ultra speeds and even exceeds the Ultra's stock core clock frequency, yet it's one of the cheapest factory overclocked GTXs currently available. We're putting PNY's XLR8 8800 GTX OC on our test bench and through its paces to find out if we can really get GeForce 8800 Ultra level performance for a GeForce 8800 GTX price.
The PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC has a list price of $579.99 and it is one of the more affordable factory overclocked 8800 GTXs currently available. The XL8 has its core, shader, and memory clock frequencies all overclocked at the factory, so it's ready to rumble right out of the box. It receives a 100MHz (200MHz effective) memory overclock, 108MHz shader overclock and a nice 46MHz overclock to its core. While 46MHz doesn't seem like a whole lot, consider that it makes the XLR8 9MHz faster than a stock 8800 Ultra. All this for about $120 off the price of the cheapest 8800 Ultras, which can currently be found for about $700.
Overall, the XLR8's generous factory overclock could give it the muscle it needs to keep pace with a geniune 8800 Ultra.
As previously mentioned, the XL8 isn't just well endowed for a 8800 GTX, but it also happens to be a good value in comparison to other GTXs. We had suspected that PNY skimpted on the packaging and bundle to bring the price down, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn't true. While you won't find any fancy peripherals or free software titles here, all of the essentials are included and the packaging is some of the best we have seen. The box's matte black finish with the gold leaf lettering looks great and the thick, metal-braced, double-boxed construction feels quite sturdy. Everything about the packaging speaks of class and exclusitivity, belying the XLR8's modest price (for a 8800GTX).
Although the bundle doesn't include any free games or software, the essentials are all here and you're provided with everything you need to get going. Included in the bundle is a short S-video cable, two DVI-to-VGA adapters, two dual-molex to 6-pin PCI-E power adapters and an VIVO adapter that has component video outputs . A suspiciously beefy "quick start" guide and a driver CD are also included in the package along with a coupon for System Mechanic 7 by Iolo Technologies. Just like the accessory bundle, the driver disk has all the essentials. Included on the disk are drivers, Aadobe Acrobat Reader, DirectX 9, NVIDIA's Adrianne demo and a handfull of high resolution wallpapers. Also included on the driver disk is a collection of documentation in PDF format such as a digital version of the user guide and NVIDIA documentation such as driver release notes. |
| Design and Features |
|
Almost every GeForce 8800 GTX currently available is an identical copy of the NVIDIA reference design, generally differing only in the stickers that adorn their coolers and the color of their PCBs. PNY's XLR8 8800 GTX is no exception. One of the reasons for the reference design's mass adoption, besides to save on development costs, is that the reference design's cooler is effective and quiet enough for most applications. The 8800 GTX's monsterous GPU also runs far too hot for single slot or passive solutions to be viable.
PNY's version of the NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTX reference design is a near exact replica. A side-by-side comparison reveals that they are identical and even the PCB's layout and color appears to be unchanged.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
Like the reference design and most other 8800 GTXs, the PNY XLR8 has dual-link, HDCP compatible DVI ports for primary output as well as a VIVO S-video port that can be connected to an adapter that will allow it to also output video component cables. The card has dual SLI 'fingers' and it draws power from two 6-pin PCI Express power receptacles. |
| Our Test Systems & 3DMark06 | ||||||||||||||
|
HOW WE CONFIGURED THE TEST SYSTEMS:
We tested all of the graphics cards used in this article on an nForce 680i SLI motherboard powered by a Core 2 Duo E6400 dual-core processor and 1GB of low-latency Corsair RAM. The first thing we did when configuring the test system was enter the BIOS and set all values to their 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 XP Pro with SP2 and the April '07 DX9 update was installed. When the installation was complete, we then installed the latest chipset drivers available, installed all of the other drivers necessary for the rest of our components, and removed Windows Messenger from the system. Auto-Updating and System Restore were also disabled, the hard drive was defragmented, and a 1024MB permanent page file was created on the same partition as the Windows installation. Lastly, we set Windows XP's Visual Effects to "best performance," installed all of the benchmarking software, and ran the tests.
Our 3DMark benchmarks show that the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC is no slouch. It clearly out performs the vanilla 8800 GTX and puts up a good fight against the 8800 Ultra, just barely edging it out to take first place overall. A quick look at the Shader Model 2.0 test reveals that the XLR8's highly overclocked core gave it the edge over the Ultra. However, the Ultra's higher shader clock enabled it to oust the XLR8 in the Shader Model 3.0 test. This is a great start for the XLR8 but 3DMark is a synthatic benchmark. |
| Half-Life 2: Episode 1 | ||||||
|
Half-Life 2, Episode 1 is our first "real-world" test and the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC doesn't dissapoint. Just like in our synthetic 3DMark test, the XLR8 dominates the stock 8800 GTX and puts up a good fight against the 8800 Ultra. Unlike in our 3DMark tests, the XLR8 ends up losing to the 8800 Ultra, this time. All three of the GeForce 8800 cards ended up with similar scores at both resolutions. The Radeon X1950 XT had a strong showing here as well since this benchmark tends to favor ATI cards. Despite that, the X1950 XT is still left in the dust by the 8800s.
|
| FarCry v1.4 | ||||||
|
Our FarCry test shows a similar story as the Half-Life 2 test. Once again, the XLR8 stomps the standard 8800 GTX and loses to the 8800 Ultra. This time, there is more seperation between the three 8800 cards, especially at 1280x1024. |
| F.E.A.R. v1.08 | ||||||
|
Our F.E.A.R. test gives us a slightly different picture than what we saw with the previous benchmarks. Like in our synthetic 3DMark test, at 1280x1024 the XLR8 takes first place, beating out the standard 8800 GTX and the 8800 Ultra. However, at 1600x1200, the XLR8 is edged out by the 8800 Ultra, although it still stomps all over the vanilla 8800 GTX. As with our previous benchmarks, the Radeon X1950 XT and the GeForce 7900 GT, which we have included in our tests for the sake of comparison, are thoroughly defeated.
|
| Quake 4 v1.4 | ||||||
|
OpenGL performance has always been a strong point for NVIDIA-based cards and Quake 4 is no exception. Here we see the GeForce 7900 GT close the gap between it and the Radeon X1950 XT. As expected, the XLR8 once again beats the vanilla 8800 GTX, but is edged out by the significantly more expensive 8800 Ultra. Quake 4 is one of the biggest wins for the 8800 Ultra. In every other benchmark so far, the XLR8 has either won outright or only lost to the 8800 Ultra by a FPS or two.
|
| Prey v1.3 | ||||||
|
Since both Quake 4 and Prey are built upon the Doom 3 engine, our Prey benchmark shows a very similar picture as our Quake 4 test. The XLR8 has certainly proved its superiority over the standard 8800 GTX in this and previous benchmarks. The 8800 Ultra takes overall first place in our Prey test, just like in our Quake 4 test. Despite the 8800 Ultra being slightly faster, many would consider the XLR8 to be the real winner, considering the $120 price difference between the two cards.
|
| Overclocking | ||||
|
Before we concluded our testing, we spent a little time overclocking the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC using the clock frequency slider available within the NVIDIA control panel after the nTune utility had been installed. To find the card's peak core and memory frequencies, we slowly raised their respective sliders until we begun to see visual artifacts on-screen while running a game or benchmark, or until our test system was no longer stable. nTune currently doesn't allow individual modification of the shader clock.
After some time, we finally arrived at a final overclock of 630 MHz for the core (up from 621 MHz) and 1100 MHz for the memory (up from 1000 MHz). This was the highest overclock we were able to achieve with perfect stability. Attempting to raise the core or memory frequency higher, even by 2-3MHz resulted in crashs and lock-ups during full-load scenarios such as benchmarking. Overall, we are quite impressed with the overclock we achieved.
PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC Overclocked:
630MHz GPU / 1.1GHz Memory
While we had the card overclocked, we re-ran a coupe of benchmarks to see how the higher clocks affected performance. Despite having already recieved a substantial overclock at the factory, the XLR8 still had quite a bit of headroom left. Our final overclock gave us core, shader and memory frequencies that were all substantially higher than those possessed by the vanilla 8800 GTX. The overclock even allowed the XLR8 to overtake the Ultra in clock frequency. Since there are no differences between the 8800 GTX and the 8800 Ultra, besides frequency, our overclocked XLR8 is superior in every way. The overclock allowed it to overtake the much more expensive 8800 Ultra in our Prey test, where it had previously lost to the Ultra. The XLR8 also consolidates its lead on the Ultra in our synthetic 3DMark test.
|
| Performance Analysis & Conclusion | ||||
|
Performance Summary:
In all of our benchmarks, the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC performed well, cranking out high scores throughout. The core, shader and memory factory overclocks the XLR8 feature gave it an undisputed edge over the vanilla 8800 GTX and allowed it to outpace the more expensive 8800 Ultra in several benchmarks. Overall, the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC's out-of-the-box performance is excellent and was only rivaled by the significantly more expensive 8800 Ultra in our tests.
PNY's decision to produce a relatively 'cheap' factory overclocked GeForce 8800 GTX was a good one in our opinion. The XLR8 8800 GTX OC performs very well right out of the box and it's one of the cheapest factory overclocked 8800 GTXs currently available. Although it doesn't have the highest factory overclock you can currently get on a 8800 GTX, the XLR8 gets pretty close and is highly competative, especially when you consider its price. Our unit also has some headroom left to spare, as we found out in our overclocking tests and it was able to achieve a final overclock that was just a tad faster than an 8800 Ultra.
Overall, we really liked the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC. The XLR8 offers near 8800 Ultra performance while managing to be one of the cheaper 8800 GTXs around. Despite its somewhat spartan bundle which lacks the usual free game or application, it isn't missing any essentials and everything you need to hook it up and get fragging is included in the box. If you're in the market for top-end performance but you can't quite stomach the 8800 Ultra's top-end price tag, check out the PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC for a no frills, all thrills alternative.
|
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
