It's been close to a year since we first looked at NVIDIA's high-end GeForce 8800 GTX graphics, which remains top performer in today's games. Graphics cards based on the GeForce 8800 series of GPU's have retained much of their original value. Based on their history of launches, one might expect to be reading about a preview of NVIDIA's high-end successor to the GeForce 8 series. That does not happen to be the case today as key market events in the past year may have affected NVIDIA's launch strategy. However, with the launch of the GeForce 8800 GT, NVIDIA brings the high-end performance of the GeForce 8800 GTS and GTX to lower-priced graphics cards. - nV News

MSI GeForce 8800 GT OC Edition Video Card Review

Those of us familiar with NVIDIA's product cycles have come to expect new innovation between their annual GPU launches. In the past, the features and performance of a new generations mainstream GPU would typically meet or exceed that of the previous generations high-end GPU. The launch of the GeForce 8800 GT breaks the cycle since the GPU was primarily derived from the current generations GeForce 8 architecture. Performance wise, the overclocked GeForce 8800 GT, is close to matching the performance of the stock GeForce 8800 GTX while using less power.

The transition to a 65nm fabrication process is the key innovation at work here, which likely infleuenced the decision to revert back to a 256-bit memory bus. With the GeForce 8800 GT now in production, NVIDIA will be able to maximize the benefits that a die-shrink to 65nm will bring to their next generation high-end GPU. The MSI GeForce 8800 GT OC edition has a 256-bit memory bus and combined with a die shrink to 65nm, moderately overclocked clock speeds and an optimized shader and texturing architecture, it is able to compete with the stock GTX, which was designed with a more expensive 384-bit memory bus.

As the benchmarks show the GeForce 8800 GT is an excellent addition to MSI's GeForce 8800 arsenal and is destined to become their best selling graphics card during the upcoming holiday season and beyond. Add-in card manufacturers may experience sporadic inventory shortages however, as demand for the GeForce 8800 GT has exceeded supply since being launched. Unless the additional memory offered by the GeForce 8800 GTS or GeForce 8800 GTX is required, there is no question that the GeForce 8800 GT is the graphics card of choice for gamers that have a capable processor and wide screen moinitor.

One point worth considering is that we are not really sure what NVIDIA will be doing for an encore. By having released a blazingly fast mainstream GPU using 65nm technology, NVIDIA appears to be in a position to scale the performance upwards quickly should AMD's RV670 pose a threat. Keep in mind that the model tested in our article was overclocked. The $259 suggested price applies to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB with reference clock speeds, which is still a great value for the price although it will provide less performance. And, there is always a chance that overclocking a stock graphics card will prove to be beneficial.