GeForce 8800 Roundup: The Best of the Best
by Josh Venning on November 13, 2006 11:04 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Leadtek Winfast 8800 GTX
Moving on we have the Leadtek Winfast 8800 GTX. As is the trend today, we see very little difference between the Leadtek Winfast 8800 GTX and NVIDIA's reference 8800 GTX, aside from the Leadtek graphics stuck to the heatsink. We were able to find prices for many of the cards we have in this review, but the Leadtek Winfast 8800 GTX was one of the few we couldn't find for sale anywhere at the time of publication. Most of the other 8800 GTXs are going for about $650, so once we start seeing this card on the shelf we can expect to see a similar price.
ASUS GeForce EN8800 GTX
ASUS got us its 8800 GTX for our roundup and once again it's a reference card. The design on the HSF of the 8800 GTX we were given is nearly indistinguishable from the reference NVIDIA HSF design, but because we were given very early 8800 samples from manufacturers, small items like graphics and logos on the heatsink will be different for some of these same units when bought off the shelf.
XFX GeForce 8800 GTS
The last 8800 we have for this review is from XFX, and unlike the rest, it happens to be an 8800 GTS. As we mentioned in our launch article, the 8800 GTS runs at lower clocks and has fewer stream processors than the GTX. From a card standpoint, the 8800 GTS is shorter than the GTX and only features a single PCIe power connector.
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JarredWalton - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
Derek already addressed the major problem with measuring GPU power draw on its own. However, given similar performance we can say that the cards are the primary difference in the power testing, so you get GTX cards using 1-6w more power at idle, and the Calibre uses up to 15W more. At load, the power differences cover a 10W spread, with the Calibre using up to 24W more.If we were to compare idle power with IGP and an 8800 card, we could reasonably compare how much power the card requires at idle. However, doing so at full load is impossible without some customized hardware, and such a measurement isn't really all that meaningful anyway if the card is going to make the rest of the system draw more power anyway. To that end, we feel the system power draw numbers are about the most useful representation of power requirements. If all other components are kept constant on a testbed, the power differences we should should stay consistent as well. How much less power would an E6400 with one of these cards require? Probably somewhere in the range of 10-15W at most be likely.
IKeelU - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
Nice roundup. One comment about the first page, last paragraph:"HDMI outputs are still not very common on PC graphics cards and thus HDCP is supported on each card."
Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but it sounds like you are saying that HDCP is present *instead* of HDMI. The two are independent of each other. HDMI is the electrical/physical interface, whereas HDCP is the type of DRM with which the information will be encrypted.
Josh Venning - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
The sentence has been reworked. We meant to say HDCP is supported through DVI on each card. Thanks.TigerFlash - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
Does anyone know if the Evga WITH ACS3 is what is on retail right now? Evga's website seems to be the only place that distinguishes the difference. Everyone else is just selling an "8800 GTX."Thanks.
Josh Venning - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
The ACS3 version of the EVGA 8800 GTX we had for this review is apparently not available yet anywhere, and we couldn't find any info on their website about it. Right now we are only seeing the reference design 8800 GTX for sale from EVGA, but the ACS3 should be out soon. The price for this part may be a bit higher, but our sample has the same clock speeds as the reference part.SithSolo1 - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
They have two different heat sinks so I assume one could tell by looking at the product picture. I know a lot of sites use the product picture from the manfacture's site but I think they would use the one of the ASC3 if that's the one they had. I also assume they would charge a little more for it.imaheadcase - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
Would love to see how these cards performance in Vista, even RC2 would be great.I know the graphics drivers for nivdia are terrible, i mean terrible, in vista atm but when they at least get a final out for 8800 a RC2 or a Vista final roundup vs winxp SP@ would be great :D
DerekWilson - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
Vista won't be that interesting until we see a DX10 driver from NVIDIA -- which we haven't yet and don't expect for a while. We'll certainly test it and see what happens though.imaheadcase - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
Oh the current drivers for the 8800 beta do not support DX10? Is that the new detX drivers I read about Nvidia working on are for?peternelson - Saturday, November 25, 2006 - link
I'd be interested to know if the 8800 drivers even support SLI yet? The initial ones I heard of did not.