XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB & 8800 GTX XXX Editions

Name: XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB & 8800 GTX XXX Editions - Page 11
Brand: XFX

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 08:00 AM EDT

For our next batch of tests, we broke out the 30" Dell 3007 WFP and tested the card at XHD resolutions of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.

Performance Comparisons with Half-Life 2: Episode 1 XHD

Details: http://www.half-life2.com/

Half Life 2: Episode 1

Thanks to the dedication of hardcore PC gamers and a huge mod-community, the original Half-Life became one of the most successful first person shooters of all time. So, when Valve announced Half-Life 2 was close to completion, gamers the world over sat in eager anticipation. Upon its release, HL2 was universally lauded, and the sequel won an array of "Game of the Year" awards. Armed with the latest episodic update to HL2, Episode 1, we benchmarked the game with a long, custom-recorded timedemo that takes us through both outdoor and indoor environments. These tests were run at resolutions of 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1600 with 4X anti-aliasing and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled concurrently, and with color correction and HDR rendering enabled in the game engine as well.

At 1920x1200, the performance trend in Episode 1 looks much like earlier results. The XFX cards were faster than their reference-clocked counterparts. Once the resolution was increased to 2560x1600, however, the 320MB GeForce 8800 GTS cards' performance dropped off considerably. At an ultra-high resolution like this, especially when high-levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are used, large frame buffers are a necessity.

Tags: GeForce, XFX, GTX, GTS, edition, force, fx, 320, GT

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com