For NVIDIA the year 2007 was rather successful with the introduction of many new series and various models, covering all range of users, from the typical one to the enthusiast. The recent update of the G92 GPU bring us the GeForce 8800 GTS with 512MB of memory that promises high performance at an affordable price. The prices of the new cards ranging from $299 to $349 and the most noticeable update is the new PCI Express 2.0 support and the second generation of NVIDIA's PureVideo HD. Compared to the original GeForce 8800 GTS with 96 stream processors, the new version gives a further boost in performance with 128 stream processors and higher clock settings. - CDRInfo

XFX GeForce 8800 GTS XXX Alpha Dog Board Review

The XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB XXX card is actually an improved version of NVIDIA's generic GeForce 8800 GTS with a massive of 678MHz core, 1700MHz of shader and 1944MHz of memory clocks that place it above the GeForce 8800 GT and close to the GTX series. More over it has 512MB of on-board memory with 256-bits of bandwidth. The XFX's GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB retail package is rather small and follows the usual design of XFX for their graphics card models. There are several logos in front that separate this product from others with the most noticeable being the Alpha Dog edition label.

The XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512 Alpha Dog edition comes pre-overclocked. This doesn't mean you can't give it a further boost. The easiest way to do so, is by using RivaTuner or PowerStrip which are both very capable overclocking tools. We managed to get the card working up to 752/2018MHz with the shader set at 1886MHz with normal fan speed and much higher with the fan working at full speed. With the higher fan speed, we did reach 802/2096MHz with the shader running at 2006MHz. Most of the time, the noise produced by the card's fan was normal and the cooling system is efficient to keep the GPU cool even at full load.

With an 678MHz core, 1944MHz memory and 1700MHz shader clocks it's very fast or close to the GeForce 8800 GTX series? Yes that's correct. We expected the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MHz to perform much higher at least compared to the generic GeForce 8800 GT series. We've seen an increased performance, but with the GeForce 8800 GT overclocked cards we had already checked out before, we witnessed similar and even equal performance. The only case we achieved much higher frame rates was at the game Crysis, but then again we used a newer drivers that supposed to fix the performance after all.

The XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Alpha Dog retail package is a full with the Lost Planet retail game included as well as cables and converters. The performance difference is not that high, but possible users should keep in mind that the GeForce 8800 GT series do seem to suffer from heat problems and the possibility to have a good and stable overclocked card is rather unlikely. On the other hand, the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB series is using a dual slot cooling system and it's proved to be easily overclocked. Again we are satisfied with the new GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB series, but expected a higher performance.