NVIDIA put a smile on gamers around the world with its release of the G92 graphics core. Thus far, competition from the AMD camp has been pretty light, even though it has refreshed its product lineup recently. The NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT GPU offers gamers exceptional performance for a relatively low price point, and we think of all graphics cores on the market today it has the best value. At the moment there are two G92 based products from NVIDIA, the GeForce 8800 GT and GTS. Most of the attention has been focused on the GeForce 8800 GT simply because it's slightly cheaper, and many GeForce 8800 GT video cards have no problem overclocking to GTS speeds. - PCStats

ASUS Extreme N8800 GT 512MB TOP Version Review

Finding an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT video card on the market isn't too hard, but expect these graphics cards to get snapped up rather quickly. Whether you like it or not, with Microsoft holding firm on its no DirectX 10 for Windows XP position, gamers have to upgrade to Windows Vista sooner or later. With DirectX 10 titles like BioShock, Unreal Tournament 3 and World in Conflict making waves the lure is certainly getting to strong to resist. For this, you need a killer fast DirectX 10 compliant videocard and a computer loaded with Windows Vista. Enter ASUS and a very strong contender for your cash, the Extreme N8800 GT TOP edition.

The GeForce 8800 GT class cards tend to overclock well, so it's no surprise that many come pre-overclocked from the factory floor. The ASUS Extreme N8800 GT TOP video card is tweaked to 700MHz core and 2000MHz memory, up from the default 600/1800MHz memory settings. Heck it's even faster than a GeForce 8800 GTS which is set at 650MHz core and 1944MHz default clock speed. The ASUS Extreme N8800 GT TOP version comes with 512MB of onboard memory and is priced at a reasonable $310. That's about the middle of the pack for the GT cards, and well below the price of the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB models.

The ASUS Extreme N8800 GT TOP card comes from the factory very heavily overclocked with the core at 700MHz and the memory at 2000MHz. Of course that doesn't mean the Extreme N8800 GT TOP is going to be spared our overclocking tests. Starting with the GeForce 8800 GT core first, the clock speed was increased in small 5MHz increments. Unfortunately the core didn't go very far and hit its top speed at 717MHz. Anything higher and nTune would complain that the video card failed its internal test. The memory reached its maximum speed at just 2040MHz and again if we pushed it harder nTune would complain.

NVIDIA is essentially competing with itself in the video card market right now. At the forefront is its G92 based GeForce 8800 GT GPU. The Geforce 8800 GT is such a great value that it's stealing sales from the GeForce 8600 GTS and the higher end GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra models too. Heck if we were in the market for a new video card, we would only be gunning for a GeForce 8800 GT based card. AUS has put together what may be the most powerful GeForce 8800 GT on the market. Its Extreme N8800 GT TOP version comes heavily clocked at 700MHz core and 2000MHz memory clock speed.

The ASUS Extreme N8800 GT TOP card didn't overclock very well at all. That's alright, it's already heavily overclocked from stock speeds by the ASUS factory. In fact we're quite surprised to see just how far ASUS was willing to push things, it's definitely one of the fastest GeForce 8800 GT's out there. If you're looking for a new PCI Express video card, right now the GeForce 8800 GT series is where the smart gamers are going. The ASUS Exteme N8800 GT TOP version is a great video card, so consider it for your next computer upgrade.