Performance Scaling with OCZ's 8800 GTX

Power, Heat, and Noise

We normally prefer to retest power heat and noise for every article. The problem with comparing tests from different times and places is that they are very dependent on the environment in which the test is performed. Even the time of day can affect the outcome. As we don't have all the cards we originally tested, this time we had to improvise.

The MSI NX8800 GTX and the XFX GeForce 8800 GTS were retested in our current environment, along with the OCZ GeForce 8800 GTX. In looking at the percent differences between the old and new data for the MSI and XFX parts, we were able to determine how to scale the OCZ data to fit in with the rest of our numbers.

Some of our data went through multiple conversions to different units to perform the calculations in order to maintain as much accuracy as possible. To determine relationships in temperature, Kelvin was used, while SPL data was converted from dB to pressure in pascals (assuming 20 micropascals as the reference pressure). After scaling our converted data for the OCZ hardware, numbers were converted back to Celsius and dB.

Please keep in mind that this is not as reliable as retesting all of our parts, but it does give us a good idea of where things fall. Add to that the fact that the OCZ 8800 GTX is based on the reference design, and we can be fairly certain that our numbers check out as they make sense compared to the rest of the hardware based on the same design.





Our power numbers put the OCZ 8800 GTX where we would expect a reference based 8800 GTX to fall. Load power is a little higher than most of the other cards, but one Watt really isn't going to make much difference.





There isn't really anything spectacular to report about our temperature data. As we would expect, the OCZ hardware falls in line with the rest.



Within 1 dB, there is no chance that any human can hear an audible difference between most of these 8800 parts.