Continuing on with more coverage of the new GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, we have with us a pair of GeForce 8800 GTS G92 based cards from ASUS. The two cards are slightly different from each other. We have a standard GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB which isn't something too out of the ordinary. The other card is part of the TOP series from ASUS which comes pre-overclocked out of the box. The main goal would be to see the real difference of both versions, and mainly put our focus on the actual gaming performance. In the end that is where it all comes down to, and where the TOP edition should show to be worth the extra money. So, time to start the digg in and find out. - TweakTown

ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS TOP Edition Board Review

ASUS continue with the big box we have seen them use for a while on their high-end cards. The front of the box for both cards is actually the same, with the only difference being that one mentions TOP which is of course the overclocked model. Turning the box over we have some more specific details of what's on offer from the card. We also see some of the more exclusive features that ASUS offer on their lineup of cards. Both cards share the same package and it's disappointing to see the lack of a full version game. High-end AMD offerings have been coming with Black Box and Company of Heroes lately.

Moving onto the cards they both look exactly the same which is disappointing as we really think the TOP should have differed slightly from the standard clocked model. Both cards use the same standard dual slot heatsink that we saw on our other GeForce 8800 GTS from the mystery company. There isn't much to say about the front of the card as the giant heatsink covers the majority of the card. Now, if we take a quick spin around the card we can see the 6-pin PCI Express connector at the back of the card which we saw on the GeForce 8800 GT, this will be giving some extra power on top of the normal PCI Express bus.

Heading to the top of the card we have a single SLI connector which means that the cards won't support the new Tri-SLI technology, at least that's what logic tells us. This is quite disappointing as the GeForce 8800 GT and GTS represent quite good value for money when compared to the older GTX and Ultra which do carry the necessary dual SLI connectors. The standard model comes with standard clocks as you would expect. The core comes in at 650MHz with a 1625MHz shader clock. The 512MB of GDDR3 memory also comes in carrying the stock speeds of 1940MHz effective.

The TOP edition on the other hand gets a bump in both the memory and core clock. The core clocks comes in at 740MHz which is quite a significant increase along with the shader clock moving to 1800MHz. The 512MB of GDDR3 memory also gets a nice little bump being taken to 2070MHz effective. ASUS generally seems to have done a very good job with the Extreme N8800 GTS TOP. The standard model is well just that, a standard model. There isn't much you can say about it. The problem is the same which can be said for the TOP package, we have become used to getting some more recent games included.

The performance increase is certainly there over the standard GeForce 8800 GT, and if you're not willing to overclock or just plain don't want to you can see why you would go for this card. However, as we witnessed recently, if you're willing to do a bit of overclocking the GeForce 8800 GT represents some excellent value for money. The real question is what will the price be like and how is stock going to go? Well, we still won't know for probably another week but hopefully it isn't too bad and fingers crossed there's plenty of stock. ASUS continue to make a decent graphics cards but there is no denying about that at all.

Ultimately though, the biggest thing for these graphics cards are performance and the TOP manages to give you a nice little boost at the higher resolutions which could probably justify the slight price premium. The GeForce 8800 GTS G92 based card is a good graphics card, but not great. NVIDIA really seemed to have dug themselves a hole by putting the GeForce 8800GT out. It represents excellent performance and a nice price tag to boot, when companies aren't taking advantage of the limited stock that is.