We've got three GeForce 8800 GT's on hand at the labs which would probably give us more GeForce 8800 GT's than any retail shop has seen. To say supply on the GeForce 8800 GT is pretty poor would be an understatement. Before you go and have a look for the second GeForce 8800 GT card we have looked at, we would better let you know that this is in fact the second, so while we have three in our labs we are yet to look at a third card. The victim today you ask? Well a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB from one of the more expensive NVIDIA partners, ASUS. We all know who ASUS is and what the GeForce 8800 GT is so let's see what exactly ASUS has done with the card. - TweakTown

ASUS Extreme N8800 GT 512MB Video Board Review

We continue to see large boxes from ASUS which are just a plain pain in the butt to take pictures of. The front of the box is covered primarily with a Company of Heroes picture along with the standard information. Apart from the Company of Heroes cover we can see that the card is an Extreme N8800 GT, comes with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and is PCI Express 2.0. There isn't a whole lot to the front of the box but we have everything important. Turning the box over we have some more details on the card along with details on some of the more exclusive features that ASUS offer on their card.

ASUS have chosen to use the standard cooler and simply place a sticker over the top of the card that continues to advertise the inclusion of Company of Heroes. The cooler really does cover the majority of the card and there isn't much to see from the front. Looking around the card we get to the hidden PCI Express power connector located at the back of the card. There is only a single one and if you don't have a PCI Express connector on your power supply we have a molex to PCI Express connector included in the package. Heading around to the top of the card we have the single SLI connector.

In the clocks department ASUS have decided to leave things stock, the card comes with the standard 600MHz core and 1800MHz efective memory clock. This will be the first default speed card we have tested so it will be interesting to see how it fairs. It's not all bad news for someone looking at getting something a bit more hardcore though. ASUS have already announced a TOP variation of the card which comes in with a slightly more significant 700MHz core and 2000MHz effective memory clock. Yes, that would be another story, and yes that means it will be for another day.

There's no doubt that overclocking tends to help a graphics card, and with the amount of pressure today's games place on the PCI Express based card small overclocks do tend to show us some significant gains. We did a bit of overclocking on the ASUS Extreme N8800 GT and it seemed to hit the same wall as the MSI one which was 660MHz on the core and 1900MHz effective on the memory. It will be interesting to see how the TOP edition card from ASUS goes in the near future, this coming with clock speeds of 700/2000MHz. Which means that it is beating the wall of 660MHz that we hit today.

Maybe the GeForce 8800 GT got off to a bit of an unfair start, we did compare an overclocked card to stock Radeon HD 2900 offerings initially. However, it's safe to say that with the numbers being pulled here today from the stock clocked ASUS card, our initial judgment of the card being a great performer is well justified. It doesn't come without its flaws though, we would have liked to see ASUS venture to a different cooler because in a word the current one is just crap and runs way too hot. Availability also isn't the best for the GeForce 8800 GT. With that said though, ASUS tend to be more expensive.

The card continues to tick all the right boxes, but how long it will last is anyone's guess at the moment. With new cards coming like the G92 based GeForce 8800 GTS and others set for a January and/or February release, it's pretty unsettling at the moment. With all of that said though, if you have some time off over Christmas and want to get into some gaming, the GeForce 8800 GT is going to be a great bang for buck card and with the disappointment that was with the recent Catalyst 7.11 drivers the GeForce 8800 GT will probably continue to stay on top of the to buy list.