NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS Refresh: Asus and XFX
The GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB’s GPU and memory configuration put the card in an interesting position in relation to NVIDIA’s current GeForce 8800 series offerings.
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GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB |
GeForce 8800 GTX
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GeForce 8800 GTS |
GeForce 8800 GT |
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GPU Core Clock
650MHz 575MHz 500MHz 600MHz GPU Shader Clock
1625MHz 1350MHz 1200MHz 1500MHz Memory Clock 970MHz
900MHz 800MHz 900MHz Fill Rate
41.6 GT/s
36.8 GT/s 24 GT/s 33.6 GT/s Memory Bandwidth
62.1GB/s 86.4 GB/s
64 GB/s 57.6 GB/s Stream Processors
128 128 96 112 Memory Interface
256-bit 384-bit 320-bit 256-bit Fab Process
65nm 90nm 90nm 65nm Number of Transistors
754M 681M 681M 754M Street Price or MSRP $299 - $349 MSRP $520 street $380 street $199 - $249 MSRP |
With its clock speeds set to NVIDIA’s reference specifications, the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB’s fill rate ends up being higher than the GeForce 8800 GTX. Due to its narrower memory bus, however, the GTS 512MB can’t touch the GTX’s theoretical peak memory bandwidth, despite having a clock speed advantage. And its smaller frame buffer (512MB vs. 768MB) should limit the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB card’s performance relative to the GTX in some situations as well.
But what these numbers do tell us is that the new GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB should theoretically outperform the more expensive 8800 GTX when fillrate and shader processing are the limiting performance factors.
As has been the case for all of NVIDIA’s product launches over the last couple of years, today’s is a ‘hard launch’ and cards should be available for purchase immediately. As such, we performed our testing with cards that arrived in full retail trim.
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The first GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB we’ll be showing you here is the Asus EN8800GTS TOP. The Asus EN8800GTS TOP ships in a massive, bright-green colored box adorned with an Asian warrior princess chick. Included with the card itself are a couple of DVDs that contain the necessary drivers to get the card up and running, and a number of proprietary Asus applications like GamerOSD and SmartDoctor. There was also a leather DVD case included in the box, along with a DVI-to-VGA adapter, a dual Molex-to-6-Pin PCI Express power adapter, and a video component output dongle. Sorry folks, no cutting-edge games to be found.
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The Asus EN8800GTS TOP
The Asus EN8800GTS TOP card itself doesn’t differ from NVIDIA’s reference design in any major way. It has the same dual-slot cooler, PCB and the same dual dual-link DVI outputs, video output, and single SLI connector. Where the Asus EN8800GTS TOP does differ from NVIDIA’s reference design, however, is in regard to frequencies. This card actually runs at a 740MHz GPU core clock with 1035MHz memory. Those are significant increases to NVIDIA’s recommended 650MHz / 970MHz. We should probably mention that the decals affixed to the fan shroud and fan barrel are different than NVIDIA’s too; go figure. Expect street prices for the Asus EN8800GTS TOP to fall somewhere in between $375 - $400, with a non-"TOP", lower clocked version to arrive at a somewhat lower price point.
