Today NVIDIA announced their new GeForce 8800 GT series using the all new G92 GPU. The GPU is made on a 65nm process, based on the G80 of the GeForce 8800 GTX series. The card is set to replace the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB which will be phased out soon but the 640MB version will stay for now. A 65nm process allowed NVIDIA to manufacture the chip cheaper, with less heat output and to add additional features. For example the display output logic, which was on a separate chip on the GeForce 8800 GTX has been integrated into the GPU core. Also the new HD video decode acceleration features have been ported over from the G86 series for you to enjoy. - techPowerUp!

Zotac GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Graphics Card Review

Unlike the GeForce 8600 series, the GPU uses a 256-bit memory bus which doubles the available memory bandwidth for applications. The number of shaders has been set to 112 compared to 96 on the GeForce 8800 GTS. This should increase performance in modern games which use a lot of shaders. Zotac as one of NVIDIA's premier vendors took the GeForce 8800 GT reference design and increased the clock speed by 60MHz, for no extra price. Actually all Zotac GeForce 8800 GT cards will have those higher clocks which will give a nice performance advantage over the competition.

An AMP! Edition card will also be available which uses even higher clocks of 700MHz core and 2000MHz memory for a price premium of $10. Zotac uses their typical orange packaging which will definitely scream buy me when standing on a store shelf next to other graphics cards. The back has a list of specifications and a small window where you can take a closer look at the merchandise. The GeForce 8800 GT design looks extremely sexy, the whole card is covered by the heatsink which uses round edges and curves to make it look more sleek. Please also note that the print on the cooler is real print.

It seems NVIDIA has done everything right with the GeForce 8800 GT. The card offers plenty of power for all games, even at higher resolutions. Thanks to the 65nm fabrication process, the GPU has a lower heat output which allows the use of a cooler that uses only one slot. However it tends to be a little bit noisier than the other GeForce 8800 series cards with dual slot coolers. NVIDIA has not only done a great job in building a fine card, but it is also sold at a very affordable price point. Personally, we would never spend more than $300 or so for a video card, if a game is good it will be lots of fun on reduced details settings too.

Even though the price is great, ATI has a new product coming up too and if everything goes like in the recent past, ATI will offer their product cheaper than NVIDIA. Last Friday NVIDIA issued a new SLI driver to reviewers which enabled SLI on the GeForce 8800 GT. Since this is the first set of released drivers, SLI is not running that good yet on the GT. But I am confident NVIDIA is working hard on this and can resolve the problems in short time. The support for PCI Express 2.0 and the lack of DirectX 10.1 are both so unimportant for the near future that they should not affect your buying decision.