It wouldn't be stretching the truth to say that XFX are one of the most popular enthusiast GPU manufacturers in the world today and to keep this status, they have to continually release exciting new products. The hot product in the green camp at the moment is the GeForce 8800 GT, so guess which card we have from XFX? In fact XFX dares to go where the competition would like to, but can't. That's because, at XFX, they don't just create great digital video components but build mind blowing graphics cards and mainboards. Oh, and not only are they amazing, you don't have to live on dry noodles and peanut butter to afford them. And you can just the version that meets your needs. - XSReviews

XFX GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Alpha Dog XXX Review

The GeForce 8800 GT was codenamed G92 and is the first NVIDIA card to transition to a 65nm manufacturer process, GTX and Ultra cards of the same series are 90nm and the GeForce 8600 series cards are 80nm. It still features the same unified shader architecture as previous GeForce 8 series cards, but due to the size reduction, the power needs of the card are reduced, and by proxy its heat output, meaning that a single slot cooler will suffice. And perhaps even a quiet one during loaded operation. It is also the first NVIDIA card to make the jump to PCI Express 2.0 and one of the first to have the PureVideo 2.0 chip.

The Alpha Dog box is in the typical XFX lime green with an awesomely coloured sleeve featuring a close up picture of the XFX warrior dog looking mean. The front also states the name of the card, some features of the GeForce 8800 GT and a small picture of the bundled game. The back has a see through section to let you see the card inside and this is ringed by features and specifications of the GPU. There are also a couple of Crysis screenshots, designed to show you what the card is capable of rendering. Though of course, any GeForce 8 series card can render those scenes, but how many frames per second?

Overclocking the GeForce 8800 GT isn't the easiest of things to achieve. This Alpha Dog XXX version is already heavily overclocked to 670MHz on the core, and 1950MHz effective frequency on the memory. Using the ever useful ATITool we were able to raise the frequencies to 725MHz and 2150MHz respectively. However, this wasn't particularly stable and we had to lower the frequencies down to 695MHz and 2090MHz before the GPU was benchmark stable. Well, what can we say? NVIDIA have released a card that costs almost half the price of the GeForce 8800 GTX accelerator.

The GeForce 8800 GT is no giant leap in terms of high end performance, but my god what a jump for the mid-range. There are many versions of it out there too, with varying amounts of memory, various clock speeds, bundles and yes, varying price tags. However, even though the Alpha Dog XXX version costs around $25 more than some it's lower clocked, less memoried rivals, it looks good, cools well and comes with a decent bundled game. If you are looking to pick up a nice Christmas upgrade for yourself, make sure you snap up one of these.