XFX GeForce 8800 GTX Extreme 768MB PCI-E
MSI NX8800GTX OC Liquid 768MB PCI-E
ASUS EN8800GTS 320MB PCI-E

Conclusions

XFX GeForce 8800 GTX Extreme 768MB PCI-E is rather powerful, judging by its results. But a reference card is always a reference card. The increased frequencies give it some advantage. The bundle is poor. It includes an old game, which can be disregarded. Everything depends on the price. In other respects, it's a decent product, considering that the quality of NVIDIA drivers is growing gradually. BUT... We should mention a strange situation with DVI scaling under Windows XP, which allows per-pixel video output without distortions to displays with non-standard resolutions. This option works ONLY in unofficial beta 100.87. Despite the time the product has been available in the market. NVIDIA hasn't demonstrated such an ugly approach to fixing bugs for a long time. We can only hope that this text will help users who bought such videocards.

MSI NX8800GTX OC Liquid 768MB PCI-E - everything written above applies to this product as well. Plus the unquestionable advantage of the MSI card in frequencies, efficient cooling system (being relatively noiseless). But there may be some problems with installing the expansion box inside your system unit. The pipes are not long enough to give much flexibility in the issue. It must be taken into account.

ASUS EN8800GTS 320MB PCI-E is also a reference card. This card differs only by its bundle that has several bonuses. But on the whole, the 8800 GTS 320MB is actually one of the most expedient cards. However, it suffers from the aforementioned drivers problem as well.

On the whole, all videocards worked well, we had no hardware problems. They are reference cards, after all.

Note that you should watch the prices. All our conclusions may become wrong, if, for example, the 8800 GTS 640MB gets cheaper than the 8800 GTS 320MB. By the way, speaking of competition with RADEON X1950, don't forget that although much cheaper, the latter does not support DirectX 10 in hardware. But this technology is the future.

And another thing that we are not tired to repeat from article to article. Having decided to choose a graphics card by yourself, you have to realize you're to change one of the fundamental PC parts, which might require additional tuning to improve performance or enable some qualitative features. This is not a finished product, but a component part. So, you must understand that in order to get the most from a new graphics card, you will have to acquire some basic knowledge of 3D graphics and graphics in general. If you are not ready for this, you should not perform upgrades by yourself. In this case it would be better to purchase a ready chassis with preset software (along with vendor's technical support,) or a gaming console that doesn't require any adjustments.

More comparative charts of this and other graphics cards are provided in our 3Digest.

ASUS EN8800GTS 320MB PCI-E gets the Excellent Package award (April):

Our Original Design award (April) goes to the MSI NX8800GTX OC Liquid 768MB PCI-E:

PSU for the testbed was kindly provided by TAGAN

The Dell 3007WFP monitor for the testbeds was kindly provided by NVIDIA

Prices:

• XFX GeForce 8800 GTX Extreme 768MB: check
• MSI NX8800GTX OC Liquid 768MB: check
• ASUS EN8800GTS 320MB: check