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nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB SLI Videocard Head On Comparison
nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB SLI Videocard Head On Comparison - PCSTATS
In this review PCSTATS will lay down the benchmarks and fiddle with the resolutions so you know for certain what choice, dual Geforce 8800GTS-340's or a single Geforce 8800GTX videocard offers the best bang.
 90% Rating:   
Filed under: Video Cards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: MSI May 04 2007   Max Page  
Home > Reviews > Video Cards > MSI Geforce 8800GTS

Alright, let's say you've got $600 US to spend on a kick ass videocard... or videocards. :-) What are you going to get!? The nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX is the undisputed king of graphics cards right now, but on the next notch down the GeForce 8800GTS 320MB offers a heck of a lot of value and that's hard to pass up. Doing the math, for the price of one super high end PCI Express videocard, you could have two 8800GTSs running in SLI! This is definitely an enticing option, but which route really is the faster choice?

In the past the question would have been an easy one to answer; go with the single faster videocard. Now a days, SLI has gained a lot of support from game developers and so the answer is not as clear. At lower resolutions a GeForce 8800GTX videocard would probably be faster due to its higher clock speeds, both core and memory, but in practical terms who buys a high end card to play at 1024x768?

In this review PCSTATS will lay down the benchmarks and fiddle with the resolutions so you know for certain what choice, dual Geforce 8800GTS-340's or a single Geforce 8800GTX videocard offers the best bang for your buck. When it comes to high resolutions, that is where gaming is headed.

nVidia Geforce 8800GTS-340 in SLI Videocard


Will two GeForce 8800GTS 320MB videocards outperform a single GeForce 8800GTX? That is the question.

Before we get started let's first meet the contestants. The tag team consists of the MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD-OC and Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC. Bot graphics cards rely upon the GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GPU, and both are overclocked slightly from the factory. When running in SLI, both cards will be operating at 575 MHz core and 1700 MHz memory. The MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD will represent the GeForce 8800GTX in all its mind blowing great framerate pushing goodness.

All GeForce 8800 series videocards use the nVidia G80 core, so technologically speaking, the differences between the GeForce 8800GTX and 8800GTS are quite subtle. There are two main differences between the two high end GPUs thought; the 8800GTX uses 128 Stream Processors while the 8800GTS has just 96 Stream processors.

The memory controller on the 8800GTX is 384 bits wide, but the 8800GTS memory bus width is only 320 bits wide. In other words, clock for clock the GeForce 8800GTS processes slower than the 8800GTX, at least on paper.

The current generation of DirectX 9 games do not require a lot of videocard memory, but everyone is expecting DirectX 10 games to chomp through memory like no tomorrow. Of the DirectX 10 videocards that are available, all pack in the videocard memory. It's a sign of things to come.

The GeForce 8800GTX has 768MB of onboard memory, while the GeForce 8800GTS comes in two flavors, 640MB and 320MB. Only when DirectX 10 benchmarks are available will we really know if the extra memory is really required. At the moment all that memory does little for DirectX 9 titles.

Alright let's get to the testing! Up next PCSTATS will be pitting the videocards against one another in a battle of titanic proportions. Place your bets, will dual Geforce 8800GTS videocards stack up under SLI against a lone Geforce 8800GTX?

Prelude to Benchmarks

The details of how the videocard test system was configured for benchmarking; the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions are indicated below. In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms these nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB based videocards in SLI are to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next page.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations
test system reference system
processor:

amd Athlon64 FX-62

Clock Speed:

14 x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz

Motherboards:

Asus M2-CROSSHAIR (NF 590 SLI)

Videocard: GeForce 8800GTS (SLI)

Asus EAX1900XTX/2DHTV/512M/A
Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A
MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD
Foxconn 8600GTS-256
MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE
Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC
MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD-OC
MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E
Gigabyte GV-NX76GT256D-RH
Biostar Sigma-Gate GeForce 7600GS

Memory:

Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C3

Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740
CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x
PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI
Heatsink: Athlon64 FX-62 Reference Heatsink
Software Setup:

Microsoft WindowsXP SP2
nVIDIA Forceware 6.70
nVIDIA Forceware 91.27
ATI Catalyst 7.2

Benchmarks:

3DMark05
3DMark06
FarCry
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Doom 3
Quake 4
FEAR

© 2023 PCSTATS.com Next Page >

 

Contents of Article: MSI Geforce 8800GTS
 Pg 1.  — nVidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB SLI Videocard Head On Comparison
 Pg 2.  SLI Videocard Benchmarks: 3DMark05, 3DMark06
 Pg 3.  SLI Videocard Benchmarks: FarCry, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
 Pg 4.  SLI Videocard Benchmarks: Doom 3, Quake 4
 Pg 5.  SLI Videocard Benchmarks: FEAR

 
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