Zotac is a new player in the video card business. They are manufacturing only NVIDIA video cards and were established earlier this year. However, they have great potential because they are affiliated with PC Partner who supply cards to Sapphire for example too. Their GeForce 8800 GTX OC Edition is, as the name suggests, an overclocked version of the GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card. All specifications remain the same, except for the clock speeds which were raised by Zotac to 630MHz core and 2000MHz memory. The core clock is even higher than that of the GeForce 8800 Ultra, set at only 612MHz and which was released just a few days ago. - techPowerUp!

Zotac GeForce 8800 GTX OverClock Edition Review

Zotac's box has their green theme with a cartoon like character on the front. The front has a small blue sticker OC Edition which I didn't see immediately when looking at the package for the first time. The writing at lower part of the front still states GeForce 8800 GTX. The back has the usual specifications detailed in several languages, and we like the which graphics processor is right for you table there. The package feels pretty complete, maybe a basic instruction manual would be useful for novice users. Two included power adapters can come in very handy if you have an older power supply.

The card is manufactured by NVIDIA. Zotac buys the cards and picks the best overclocking samples to use on these GeForce 8800 GTX OC Edition series. Basically everything remains the same for this edition, except for the sticker on the cooler and the BIOS of the card. NVIDIA states that their GPU's need a lot of power, that's why two PCI Express power connectors are in place to not exceed the 75W maximum power draw per connector. You need to connect both power plugs for the card to work. If you connect only one or none, a loud beep will sound from the buzzer on the card.

Zotac increased only the engine and memory clock, the shader clock has not been touched and still runs at the default value of 1350MHz, that's also why the card is a bit slower than the EVGA KO ACS³ which has a shader clock of 1458MHz. We used ATITool to automatically find the maximum core and memory clocks of our card. In the end the card runs completely stable at 634MHz core and 2060MHz memory. These overclocks are really small, but you have to consider that the GeForce 8800 GTX OC Edition is already overclocked over NVIDIA's default clocks. The temperatures are fine, even when overclocked.

Zotac is selling their overclocked GeForce 8800 GTX OC Edition at $629 which is a premium of $20 over the regular GeForce 8800 GTX accelerator. Even though the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra was released recently, its price premium is certainly too high to be affordable for everybody. Based on the award winning GeForce 8800 GTX, Zotac created a new product which offers higher performance than the plain GTX, yet is not super expensive. Unlike other pre-overclocked GTX cards, the cooler has not been modified for improved cooling. This has very little effect though it seems, the card is still quiet and not getting too hot.

Zotac includes a warranty with their overclocked card, so you don't have to be scared of losing your warranty when overclocking, like you would on a normal GeForce 8800 GTX. In my opinion the extra money is a good investment for people who want a hassle free solution that works well, so that they won't have to invest their time overclocking and losing their warranty from doing so. On the other hand, if you are more experienced you could just get a normal GeForce 8800 GTX and overclock it yourself to reach a similar performance level.