Ever since the launch of NVIDIA's famous GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS cards, even diehard ATI fans had to admit that NVIDIA was offering some very powerful graphics cards. However to the dismay of most people, NVIDIA had launched these cards at a street price of $600 and $450 respectively, putting them out of reach and consideration for most. Ever since then enthusiasts have demanded a more affordable DirectX 10 part for the masses, and in turn NVIDIA delivered with the 320MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB is identical in all respects to its 640MB predecessor, so now the only question what do they want for it, and how much performance did it lose? - Bjorn3D

Foxconn GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB Card Review

To answer, at the time of writing there are quite a few brands of GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB graphics cards selling below the $300 mark, and at least several with mail-in-rebates that bring the price just below $255 right now, which is about at the upper limit to the mainstream gamer market. The Foxconn GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB OverClocked graphics card in this article is physically the same as the reference GeForce 8800 GTS design, except as of course only featuring half of the original 640MB of onboard RAM. Interesting to note however, is that this card is pre-overclocked to GeForce 8800 GTX speeds out of the box!

The original GeForce 8800 GTX launched clocked at 575MHz on the core and 1800MHz on the memory, which this card shares. Unfortunately for those wondering the shader clock is left at the reference GTS speed of 1200MHz, but currently shader clocks hold less importance than core and memory clock anyway. Since these tend to be lengthy cards, it seems only fitting to go with a lengthy packaging too, no? We are happy to say that we don't have any complaints on the integrity or safety of the packaging, the card and box contents are safely packaged enough to survive all but the worst parcel carrier handling.

We will keep it brief and say that as far as overclocking goes, we've been wondering if we might have been sent a cherry picked card, it's that good! That being said do not expect to purchase your own Foxconn GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB card and receive equivalent overclocking results as these; while faster overclocks on these cards have actually been recorded it is not a guarantee you will meet or exceed these overclocks on your own hardware. The system was stable and fully artifact free throughout our benchmark runs at 660/1950MHz.

The Foxconn GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB OC edition is currently the cheapest GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB card that comes pre-overclocked to GeForce 8800 GTX speeds. Infact it overclocked higher than what most GeForce 8800 GTX cards are even capable of reaching while staying quite cool in the process! While standard clocked GeForce 8800 GTS cards can be found as cheap as $255 in some cases, the high factory overclock alone, covered by a three year warranty policy and included bundle make this card both a great performer and a great value at just a mere $285.

More graphics cards from NVIDIA and a new line of DirectX 10 cards from ATI are launching within the next two months, so if you can wait then it will very likely be in your best interests to do so if just for the better prices, but if you can't or simply don't care to wait then this might just be the perfect card for you!