GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Roundup – Albatron, eVGA and XFX

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The Albatron, EVGA and XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB video cards are all great cards that can play all the current games and overclock like no other. As you saw from the testing the different core clock, memory clock and shader clock frequencies vary from card to card and did impact performance. Higher clock frequencies did improve performance as the XFX card took the lead in nearly every single benchmark.

Brand	Model	Core Clock	Mem Clock	Shader Clock	Bundled Game	Price
Albatron	8800GTS-512X	650MHz	1944MHz	1625MHz	None	$385.94
eVGA	512-P3-N841-A3	670MHz	1944MHz	1674MHz	Crysis	$349.90
XFX	PV-T88G-YDD4	678MHz	1972MHz	1700MHz	Lost Planet	$349.99

When it comes to pricing the eVGA and XFX cards lead the pack and also come with full DVD copies of DirectX 10 game titles which makes both of them a good choice to pick up. The Albatron 8800GTS-512X is hard to find in North America, so it is priced higher than the others and doesn’t feature any games. If Albatron could get the price down and toss a game into the bundle it would be in the mix.

When it comes to warranties, XFX has a great warranty program where they will repair and service your GeForce 8800 GTS Series Graphics Card for as long as you live. Even for those of you who know how to push their cards to the limits, if anything goes wrong, XFX will service it free of charge. All you have to do is register the card with XFX online. If you ever decide to sell or give the card away to someone, XFX will still honor the protection plan for the second owner as well. They just need to register the card with XFX. You get the protection AND the added value of being able to pass along a full warranty. XFX is one of the few companies that has a no BS warranty and that is a big thumbs up for those that like to overclock or have bad luck with computer hardware.

EVGA, on the other hand, provides a limited lifetime warranty to the original purchaser of each retail product that the product will not suffer, in material or workmanship, from any defect that adversely affects the performance of the product. This limited lifetime warranty is valid for the life of the retail product, so long as the original purchaser owns the product. EVGA requires that the product be registered within 30 days from ORIGINAL DATE OF PURCHASE to receive limited lifetime warranty. (All products not registered within 30 days will ONLY receive a 1 year limited warranty.) EVGA will cover all return shipping back to the customer for the RMA replacement with free ground shipping through UPS in the United States and free FedEX Ground shipping to Canadian Customers. While the warranty program might not sound as good as what XFX offers, EVGA also offers the 90-day Step-Up Program. Step-Up participants are allowed, for one time only, to trade in their existing EVGA video card and upgrade to a select greater performing video card. The EVGA Step-up Program is available to all EVGA graphics card customers who are within 90 days of their original purchase date (based upon their invoice date).

The benchmark results are too close to call a winner, the overclocking results are nearly identical and the price is within a dollar of each other. XFX and EVGA both have put together great retail boxed video cards and in the end which one you want to buy is up to you. Would you rather have a no BS warranty or the ability to Step-Up your card? Would you rather have Crysis or Lost Planet? Those are some things you have to answer on your own. Both of these cards get the thumbs up from us!

Legit Bottom Line: The GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB video card rocks and Albatron, EVGA and XFX all have great cards on the market. Grab the one you like and overclock it on your own for even more performance!