In November 2006, NVIDIA launched their big time enthusiast video card, the GeForce 8800 GTX. The GeForce 8800 series took a real first step in graphics technology, including full support for DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4. Since then, there have been several different flavours of the G80 catering to enthusiasts to mainstream users. While the $200 to $250 price point did have options, there really wasn't a lot to get terribly excited about if you were a serious gamer. Fast forward a year later, where just last week NVIDIA unleashed their GeForce 8800 GT. Ticking in a hair under $300 on average, NVIDIA's latest barely fits under the mainstream, it offers the potential for enthusiast level performance. - Viper Lair

MSI GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB Video Board Review

Of note, the GeForce 8800 GTX has 128 stream processors and the GeForce 8800 GTS currently has 96. The latter number will change to match the GeForce 8800 GT's 112, but that is an interesting statistic considering the price. The memory and core speeds are also higher than both the GTS and GTX, though the memory interface is lower than both cards. We are going to look at the retail version of MSI's GeForce 8800 GT video card. The MSI product is based directly off of NVIDIA's reference design with MSI's own custom artwork on the cooler, so for now anyway, don't expect anything out of the ordinary visually in the package.

As the product name, MSI GeForce 8800 GT OC edition, implies, the card is overclocked out of the box. The GPU core is clocked at 660MHz, about 60MHz above reference. The shader clock is also overclocked, running 1650MHz, so 150MHz faster than the reference design. It is a PCI Express 2.0 design, which is forward thinking in upcoming board designs, but is also backwards compatible with current motherboards. The MSI GeForce 8800 GT is equipped with 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1900MHz and has a 256-bit memory interface. So again MSI speeds the memory along 100MHz above NVIDIA's reference settings.

The GPU itself is based on the 65nm fab process, a shrink from the 90nm of the G80 series. The hardware features a fully unified shader core which dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics, or pixel shading operation. High Dynamic Range lighting capability is present and will support 128-bit precision. This will obviously improve image quality and allow for more true to life lighting and shadows. Dark objects can appear very dark, and bright objects can be very bright, with visible details present at both extremes, in addition to rendering completely smooth gradients in between.

As impressive as +$600 video cards are, the level of performance and graphics quality are more or less expected when you are dropping down that much money on a video card. When spending half of that, expectations are generally lowered. It's safe to say when you're asking what video card we should buy under $300, the general answer is usually something that is a decent performer, but you'll need to sacrifice image quality and/or lower resolutions. The GeForce 8800 GT changes all of that. This is the first time in years we have been this impressed with a mainstream priced product.

We did try to push the card a bit higher and were met with rather uneventful results. Our particular sample was able to reach 695MHz core without any ill effects. We consulted with MSI who have been able to reach 700MHz in their labs, but we were unable to match those numbers. All that aside, we're really nitpicking here. For the money, we simply can't think of a better video card to buy. The MSI GeForce 8800 GT OC edition offers performance that matches cards which are a lot more expensive. That is an amazing value in our minds and if you're a serious gamer, you'd need to look no further than this.