Gainward is back with a new GeForce 8800 GTS card. The card is branded as Golden Sample and it works at 560MHz, some 60MHz faster than NVIDIA's reference clock. This was the plan. NVIDIA launched the GeForce 8800 GTS with 320MB of memory on Monday this week and comes at 500MHz core and 1600MHz memory clock speed. This is how the reference cards are clocked. Gainward wanted to squeeze out some more performance and announced the Gainward BLISS 8800 GTS 320MB Golden Sample with 560MHz core clock and 1760MHz memory clock. And the only change from the previous GTS is to the cut in memory frame buffer. - The Inquirer

Gainward GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB Golden Review

The company is using 1.1ns memory so the memory clock was not the issue. It can also support the cards at these speeds and it says that overclocking up to more than 560MHz can just increase the number returned to manufacturer. The card looks the same as the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB, at least with the cooler on. Once you strip away the cooler you can see the big G80 chip with 10 memory modules. The GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB has as well 10 chips, but of 64MB each. The cards can overclock even more we would not recommend going crazy on overclocking, as the card might die on you.

Gainward's card is fast. It can keep up with 640MB bigger and more expensive brother clocked at same clocks. It beats the reference card at €50 extra cost. The 320MB card becomes breathless above 1600x1200 but only in some high demanding games such as F.E.A.R. or Oblivion. You can assume that this might happen in future games as well. So for the lower resolutions this might be the perfect card for you, at least for the time being.