XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB XXX Video Card

Introduction

Over the past couple of months we’ve been singing the praises of NVIDIA’s 8800 series of video card and rightfully so. They offer performance that can’t be matched by anything else on the market and many times even a single 8800 GTX is faster than ATI’s X1950 CrossFire and NVIDIA’s own 7900 GTX SLI. The only problem thus far has been that only the well heeled enthusiasts have been able to get their hands on them because they are priced so high. Starting at $400 not a lot of people can afford even one of these cards, let alone two.

Enter the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB. While it shares most of its name with a card already on the market, the 320MB gets its name from the difference in memory size. In order to offer customers close to the same great performance of the very expensive cards, NVIDIA has decided to cut the memory size on the card in half, from 640MB to 320MB. You may be thinking to yourself that 320MB isn’t much any more in the way of video card memory but the performance on the pages that follow will quickly put your mind at ease. The 8800 GTS 320MB is not some hacked up stripped down card, let’s call it streamlined and trimmed in just the right places to save your wallet from cardiac arrest. So without further ado, here is the 8800 GTS 320MB!

Coming in at an MSRP of $299 is the XFX reference edition 8800 GTS 320MB video card. Clocked at 500MHz on the core and 1.6GHz memory, it represents the least expensive way to get into a new world of performance that far surpasses anything that has come before it. Most card partners will be offering overclocked cards as well with varying price points. XFX will have two such overclocked cards, the Extreme model will come at speeds of 560MHz core speed and 1.7GHz memory speed with a launch price of $310.

The card that we hold in our hands however is the always tasty XXX Edtion. This naughty little number comes with a core clocked at 580MHz while the memory checks in at 1.8GHz. All of this adds up to some serious performance gains over what NVIDIA intended the 320MB card to be. With a launch price of $335 it comes in at the top of the 320MB food chain promising some serious bang for the buck.

Since we weren’t provided with a reference model, I have down clocked our XXX to those speeds to show just how much difference there is in our performance tests.