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Reinventing the G80 - the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB

By Vincent Chang - 29 Oct 2007

The New Slim Shady

The New Slim Shady

With the holiday season almost upon us, the new releases for PC games are starting to resemble a flood of who's who in the gaming industry. Titles like Gears of Wars, Hellgate: London, Unreal Tournament 3 and Crysis are slated to be released in the next month or so. More importantly, these are highly anticipated A-list titles DirectX 10 supported games that Microsoft is probably betting the bank on to jumpstart its Games For Vista initiative. Similarly for the graphics cards industry, some of these games are the 'killer apps' that everyone is hoping will lead to greater adoption of DirectX 10 hardware.

There's no questioning its performance. The GeForce 8800 GT combines the power of the 8800 series with the PureVideo capabilities of the GeForce 8600/8500, making it a compact, albeit warm solution for all purposes.


Which means that almost a year after the first DirectX 10 graphics card, the G80 was unveiled, the early adopters that had gotten the GeForce 8800 GTS/GTX will finally get a spread of DirectX 10 games to choose from. And if that's not enough of a slap to early adopters, NVIDIA's new GeForce 8800 GT threatens to undercut their prized and expensive purchases. No doubt, the higher bandwidth and slightly superior hardware of the GeForce 8800 GTX will continue to have its place at the top of the charts. What the GeForce 8800 GT has shown us today, is that there is competition even at the top, with scores that are almost at the level of a GeForce 8800 GTX in all but the highest resolutions and settings. As for the GeForce 8800 GTS, forget about it. Only the most extremely overclocked ones, like the XFX Fatal1ty edition might survive the impending purge.

And this is solely from a performance aspect. What about the additional PureVideo HD hardware that is found on the GeForce 8800 GT but not on older GeForce 8800 cards? Lower CPU utilization rates for HD content is a definite plus and arguably more useful now, with the specter of lower prices for Blu-ray and HD DVD media and hardware, compared to a year before. Not to mention that HDCP over dual link, a desired requirement for HDCP content playback at the highest of resolutions (2560 x 1600), is supported by the GeForce 8800 GT, but not on the GeForce 8800 GTS/GTX. With the exception of being warmer than expected for a 65nm core (not like it's stopping the overclockers and the GeForce 8800 GTX better fear the overclocked GeForce 8800 GT), the GeForce 8800 GT is the slimmer, more attractive option.

The contrast is especially stark when you consider the US$259 price point that NVIDIA has mandated for the 512MB edition of the GeForce 8800 GT. NVIDIA expects 256MB versions to be released in the next few weeks, with a recommended price of US$199. Meanwhile, retail availability looks good, with stocks already in stores as we speak. For those who do not have large displays (read 24-inch and above LCD monitor sizes), the 256MB edition is adequate - for current games at least. We can't yet write-off the fact that newer games might have much higher frame buffer requirements and for those planning ahead, you would be better off topping up US$50 more for the 512MB edition. Compared to the US$500 that you can expect to pay for a GeForce 8800 GTX and one may wonder why not get two GeForce 8800 GT instead and try out SLI? ATI will probably be feeling very anxious about its upcoming high-end Radeon HD 3800 since NVIDIA has certainly played its card here with the GeForce 8800 GT and it's looking like an ace.

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