It's just the beginning of a new year and already we have seen rumors about the new graphics products upcoming from the two big chipmakers. NVIDIA looks to consolidate an excellent 2007 by reinforcing its mainstream offerings with a GeForce 8800 GS, supposedly with an even more stripped down G92 core. With such heavy reliance on the G92 core, the Taiwanese fabs that NVIDIA is counting on to produce the chip better be working double and triple shifts to meet demand. ATI meanwhile has promised its dual-GPU R680 graphics card in the first quarter and we really hope that this time, ATI will have a performer capable of giving NVIDIA's high-end cards some proper competition. - Hardware Zone

MSI GeForce 8800 GT 256MB OverClock Card Review

So how do these developments relate to consumers now? Well, it's usually the case that the new cutting technologies slowly filter down to the mainstream segment and the recent 256MB version of the GeForce 8800 GT is probably a good example of this trend. And for those with more modest budgets and requirements, a 256MB, DirectX 10 capable graphics card remains a very viable option and to convince us, we have the MSI's overclocked GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. With higher than usual clock speeds and a custom cooler, can this win over the $250 market and emulate the achievements of its 512MB compatriot?

While the standard 256MB and also 512MB versions of the GeForce 8800 GT are mostly identical in appearance, MSI's new GeForce 8800 GT 256MB is easily distinguished from the reference model, thanks to a different heatsink fan design and the red PCB. Thankfully, it remains a single slot graphics card and all the memory chips are still cooled directly by the heatsink, with thick thermal pads covering the surface of each chip. Although we don't consider the fan on this MSI card noisy, it is however slightly noisier than the reference cooler, well at least according to our less than scientific ears.

On to its overclocked specifications, you should know that this MSI GeForce 8800 GT has a core clock speed of 660MHz, 60MHz more than the default. Its memory clock is also increased to 1900MHz. That is quite a significant amount compared to the official 1400MHz. Since the other GeForce 8800 GT 256MB that we had seen, it does appear that NVIDIA's specifications are quite conservative and the retail versions are probably going to be much higher. The stream processors on this card have also received a boost to 1650MHz from the normal 1500MHz, we are expecting a performance increase to match its overclocking.

A check with retailers both of the brick and mortar variety and their online counterparts showed that 256MB versions of the GeForce 8800 GT have not exactly dominated retail shelves or online catalogs. This is not surprising as the trend pushed by both hardware and software developers have been towards large widescreen display supported by more powerful computing hardware. Confronted by such photo realistic demos, enthusiasts naturally go for the hardware capable of reproducing such visuals and while the GeForce 8800 GT is a very capable chipset, the 256MB version is however constrained by its memory.

MSI has tried to put a positive spin on the product by overclocking it to quite an extent and essentially putting it on par with some of the overclocked 512MB cards in terms of clock speeds. To sweeten the deal further, there's also a decent cooler that managed to lower the temperatures found on the typical GeForce 8800 GT. What they can't do of course is to give it more memory and with only 256MB, the card naturally faltered at higher resolutions but also with higher visual details and effects. Anti-aliasing will generally have an adverse effect on performance, though differences are not as significant for older games.

Alternatively, there are also ATI's Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards that can deliver more stable high resolution performance, albeit slower than this MSI card in less taxing game scenarios. If however you're certain you won't ever need HD resolutions, then by all means get a 256MB card. Given its retail price of $240, the MSI GeForce 8800 GT skates dangerously close to the average $275 price tag for a 512MB, making it a niche product that will appeal to users unconcerned with heavy anti-aliasing or less for the near future. Unless you're really strapped for cash, we highly recommend the 512MB for its longevity.