XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS Graphics Card Review

NVIDIA is launching two new DirectX 10 compliant graphics cards, the 8800 GTX, which I covered in a separate review, and the 8800 GTS, which I will cover here. These two cards have all the same features and only difference is in some specifications and performance. Due to the similarities of the two cards, I will not cover the features of the 8800 GTS in detail here; rather I will refer you to the 8800 GTX review for more specifics. I will cover the differences between the two cards in the review, read on to find out more.

Specifications of the XFX 8800 GTS

I will start the XFX 8800 GTS review out with a list of the specification of the 8800 GTS, the numbers in parenthesis are for the 8800 GTX for comparison:

• Fabrication Process: 90 nm (90 nm)
• Number of Transistors: 681 million (681 m)
• Core clock: 500 MHz (575 MHz)
• Shader Clock: 1200 MHz (1350 MHz)
• Stream Processors: 96 (128)
• Memory clock/ data rate: 800 MHz/1600 (900 MHz/1800)
• Memory Interface: 320 bits (384 bits)
• Memory Bandwidth: 64 BG/s (86.4 GB/s)
• ROPs: 20 (24)
• Frame Buffer Size: 640 MB (768 MB)
• Texture Fill Rate: 24 GT/s (36.8 GT/s)
• RAMDACs: 400 MHz (400 MHz)
• Bus Technology: PCI Express (PCI Express)

The specifications above are the only differences between the XFX NVIDIA 8800 GTX and the XFX NVIDIA 8800 GTS. Again, please see the XFX 8800 GTX review for a full list of features of both cards.

Benchmarking the XFX NVIDIA 8800 GTS

I again am using my standard benchmarking suite consisting of 3DMark06, FEAR, Quake 4 and now adding Battlefield 2142 to test the performance of the 8800 GTS. The test system specifications for this review are as follows:

• CPU: Intel X6800 Core 2 Extreme
• Mainboard: abit AW9D-Max
• RAM: Crucial PC2-8000 2 x 1GB
• PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700W
• HDD: 1x Raptor 74 GB, 1x 750 GB Seagate

3DMark06

I made three runs with 3DMark06 and discarded the high and low scores to get the numbers listed here for 3Dark06. I used the default settings for both 3DMark06 and for the XFX 8800 GTS in the NVIDIA control panel. The results of the 3DMark06 test are as follows, the numbers in parenthesis are the results for the 8800 GTX:

• 3D Marks: 8554 (10355)
• SM 2.0: 3742 (4796)
• HDR/SM3.0: 3760 (4870)
• CPU: 2285 (2288)

Quake 4

The next test up was with Quake 4. I used FRAPS to get frame rate information on Quake 4 with the settings at ultra detail, 1920 x 1200 screen resolution, 8x AA and all other settings on high as well as mutli-core enabled. The frame rate data was as follows:

• Min: 12
• Max: 63
• Avg: 41.827

As you can see the 8800 GTS performed very well on this test., not as well as it’s big brother the 8800 GTX, but much better than most other graphics cards.

FEAR

The next gaming test up was FEAR. I turned all the settings up to maximum levels on FEAR at a screen resolution of 1920 x 1280 and ran the FEAR in game test loop. The frame rate results were as follows:

• Min: 26
• Avg: 50
• Max 104

The percentages tell a better story, 0% of the time frame rates were below 25 fps, 41% of the time frame rates were 25 – 40 fps and 59% of the time frame rates were greater than 40 FPS. Great performance on FEAR lets see how well the 8800 GTS does on the final test, Battlefield 2142.

Battlefield 2142

This is the newest addition to my test suite and BF 2142 is a good graphically challenging game for testing graphics cards. I used FRAPS to record frame rate data while I played the map “Fall of Berlin.” The frame rate data is as follows with all settings on high, 1600 x 1200 screen resolution and 4x AA:

• Min: 27
• Max: 97
• Avg: 76.746

I went back for a second run with BF 2142 using the NVIDIA control panel to override the in game settings for more eye candy. Leaving all settings the same in game, I added 16 x AF via the control panel and recorded the following frame rate data with FRAPS on the same map:

• Min: 29
• Max: 94
• Avg: 70.202

Final Thoughts on the XFX 8800 GTS

At the end of the day, the XFX NVIDIA 8800 GTS is a fantastic performer. The only card that really outperforms it is its big brother the 8800 GTX. The single 8800 GTS will perform better than many dual graphics card solutions and is fully DirectX 10 compliant. Even though it is down significantly on performance to the 8800 GTX, the 8800 GTS carries an MSRP of a mere $449. That my friend is a phenomenal price for the performance you are getting. Add a second 8800 GTS for SLI and you get an even bigger bang for your buck.