A few weeks ago, NVIDIA unleashed the relatively affordable 320MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS on the world. On launch day, we took a look at a pre-overclocked 320MB card from XFX and ended up giving it an very high rating due to its feature set, performance, and overall value. Today, we are going to shine the spotlight on another retail ready GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB card, but this one comes by way of ASUS. Unlike XFX's card, the ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS 320MB version is not pre-overclocked from the factory. It does ship with a decent accessory bundle however, that includes a couple of full version games and some extra applications. - HotHardware

ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS 320MB Video Card Review

The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB shares many of the same features as the GeForce 8800 GTX, but the two cards physically differ in a number of ways. For one, the GeForce 8800 GTS is built upon a shorter PCB. And the GTS cards also requires less power; NVIDIA recommends a 400W power supply. As such the GTS has only one 6-pin PCI Express power receptacle, whereas the more powerful GTX has two. The GTS also has only a single SLI edge connector, so at some point in the future the GTX is likely to offer a few additional features when running in SLI mode.

Underneath the card's cooler, which is identical to the one used on other GTS cards save for the custom ASUS decal, lies a G80 GPU clocked at 513MHz and 320MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1584MHz. Please note that the GTS 320MB has the same 96 stream processors enabled in the GPU as the 640MB cards, and its memory has the same 320-bit interface. The GTX, however, has 128 stream processors and a 384-bit memory interface. The fan is variable speed and will spin up or down based on the temperature of the GPU. We found it to be relatively quiet most of the time.

When all was said and done, we were able to take the ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS up from its default GPU core and memory frequencies of 513/1584MHz all the way up to 648/1880MHz. While we had the card overclocked, we re-ran a couple of benchmarks to show you all just how performance had increased. As we can see, the performance increases were quite significant. They allowed the ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS to pull ahead of the XFX card by a few frame rates in our tests. It wasn't quite enough of a boost to catch the more powerful GeForce 8800 GTX, but who cares. Free performance is free performance.

The ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS 320MB performed on-par with a similarly clocked GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB reference card, but behind a pre-overclocked card from XFX. We like the Extreme N8800 GTS 320MB on many different levels. This card, and other similarly configured GeForce 8 series cards, satisfy the needs of a large segment of the market in our opinion. Their performance is high enough at mainstream resolutions that its worth upgrading to a card like this from virtually any last-gen product, and you'd end up with the added benefits of full HDCP and DirectX 10 support, and a more complete feature set overall.

At about $300, the Extreme N8800 GTS does fall at the upper end of the price range for standard clocked GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB cards by about $25, but the software bundle does offset the slightly higher price. ASUS' warranty is also shorter than some others at 3 years, and it is not transferable, so that is something to take into consideration as well. Overall though, we suspect anyone in the market for a graphics card in this price range will be pleased by the ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS 320MB. This card is fast, has plenty of next-gen features, and it's relatively affordable.