Conclusion

It has taken Nvidia four and a quarter years to bring the 8800 series to market and it would seem from what we have shown today that this was time well spent. Whether it be playing through the latest game engines such as Company of Heroes or rendering games based on the older Source engine the 8800 series GPU’s provide exceptional performance when compared to the last generation of graphics products. In fact in all but two scenarios the 8800 GTX performs better than dual GPU solutions (in average frames per second) from the DirectX 9 era cards. Additionally, in one of those situations the GTX is still pumping out over 100fps so there would be no noticeable benefit to using the DX9 alternative.

As noted earlier in the review Nvidia have attempted to greatly increase the image quality of their cards in both 2D and 3D use. The score of 128 in the HQV benchmark, if it can be independently verified is outstanding. (From our own subjective testing we could see no noticeable video issues.) The inclusion of high quality anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering options within the driver are also great to see. For too long now Nvidia seem to have been accused of providing a lower quality image experience when compared to ATI ... however having seen the 8800 in action it is fair to say that this is no longer the case. The 8800 series, and specifically the GTX provide an unrivalled combination of performance and image quality. If you missed our image quality section we highly recommend you click back and view the screenshots and high definition videos.

When we reviewed the Intel Quad Core CPU last week we noted that the product performs very well, however there is great potential in the long term for additional performance benefits as more software is released which takes advantage of the design. The 8800 is in the same situation, though this is no bad thing. The 8800 series will need Windows Vista (as it incorporates DirectX 10) in order to perform to their full potential and as more software is released which are Vista exclusives (for example Alan Wake) we fully expect the product to become even more impressive. Interestingly the launch of the 8800 series is massively similar to that of ATI’s Radeon 9700. When that product first launched it was the first direct 9 part on the market and whilst it performed very well in DirectX 8 games it was the more advanced titles which later became available which allowed the product to truly shine. (Is it a coincidence that the 8800 began its development at almost the exact time the 9700 was released???)

The final major aspect of the 8800 series design is of course the stream processors. It would have been easy for Nvidia to implement a portion of the chip to deal specifically with Physics however there is a very good chance that the resources would have gone unused the vast majority of the time. Instead what we have is a product which is able to dynamically allocate the stream processors and in theory maximise performance at all times. This is a design decision Nvidia should be applauded for.

So we have 2 versions of the 8800 in for review today, which one is for you? From the performance and IQ perspective we are completely sure that whichever model you would choose there will be no disappointment experienced. The GTS offers a lower power requirement and reduced size which will appeal to those with more mid range systems or small form factor cases. The GTX will no doubt be more future proof due to its increased number of stream processors, larger memory bus and extra mb’s of memory. It does require a high spec PSU and roomy case though which may add extra cost to a system build.

Summary

The XFX Geforce 8800 series products provide exceptional image quality and unrivalled performance in today’s games and applications, with huge potential to shine in future titles. Both the GTS and GTX are exceptionally well designed products, each with their own benefits and are worthy winners of our Gold Award.

What do these awards mean?

 

The cards are shipping in the UK for around the following prices:
GTX £481 (inc vat) // GTS £364 (inc vat)