As the GeForce 8800 GTX has no competitors, the Radeon HD 2900 XT is a step lower, we continue to examine the fastest production line graphics cards for games. Today we will examine the card from ASUS. But it's not just a reference card in the ASUS box, this card is significantly modified. The highlight of this product is its liquid cooling system from Thermaltake. That is a water cooler. Operating frequencies of the card were raised owing to this highly efficient cooling system, so this product bears the TOP title. It's one of the fastest graphics cards to date but for the GeForce 8800 Ultra, which is actually the next step up on the NVIDIA ladder. - Digit-Life

ASUS Extreme N8800 GTX AquaTank Edition Review

We can see well that the graphics card itself is of the reference design. That is the card is still manufactured at the third party plant by NVIDIA's orders, and ASUS has nothing to do with its manufacturing. But the cooling system is another matter, and made by Thermaltake. The device consists of two main parts, an internal unit mounted on the graphics card and an external unit that does the cooling. The internal unit, installed on the graphics card, is reinforced with a heatsink and a low speed turbine. They should help the main cooling device, because the heatsink on the graphics card is very large.

The ASUS Extreme N8800 GTX TOP AquaTank is actually the fastest graphics card to date, if we don't take the GeForce 8800 Ultra into account, which is not much faster than this product, but is much more expensive. So we can recommend this product from ASUS to all users who like to have the fastest and the most advanced hardware. You don't even have to overclock the card, it already operates at the increased frequencies. The only drawback is its bulky cooling system. You will need a capacious PC case and a vacant slot in your motherboard. Another problem is potential leakage of the coolant.

However, such accidents are very rare, they don't happen systematically. Everything else is an advantage, plus a very quiet cooling system when the turbine rotates at reduced speed. What concerns the notorious problems with the quality of NVIDIA drivers, we can already see some positive changes. Although they are still far from perfect. The current situation is much better than the crying shame that was happening in the beginning of the year. The choice is up to our readers, as always. We can only inform you about this or that product. But we do not give direct instructions which products to choose.