Having the fastest graphics card on the market is a real public relations coup for any manufacturer, but the real business comes from the mainstream sector. Enthusiast gamers will purchase the graphics card that gives them the best performance and features for their budget. Brand loyalty is not as prevalent in this area and from generation to generation it is the best value for money card which sells the most units. With the recent release of the Radeon HD 3850 and GeForce 8800 GS there is a new battle taking place for consumers with a budget of $125-150 and today we have such cards to check out, but really which one deserves your money and is worth it? - DriverHeaven

XFX GeForce 8800 GS 384MB XXX Video Card Review

XFX remain true to their standard GeForce 8800 series packaging and this means the tough looking dog makes a reappearance alongside some basic specification information and a XXX edition sticker. Inside the box we find the usual collection of cables including DVI to VGA dongles and video out. Manuals and the standard XFX door knob hanger are also included. The XFX branded GeForce 8800 GS looks very nice in the flesh. The black PCB with green DVI's looks good and the use of a single slot cooler is ideal for those with smaller cases or motherboards, but also better for the looks of this mainstream card.

A single PCI Express power connector is required and this faces out to the rear of the card rather than up. Underneath the cooler is a G92 core which is a 65nm part running at 680MHz, with a 1700MHz shader clock. There are 96 stream processors and it is a DirectX 10 capable part with PCI Express 2.0 support. Along the top edge of the card is a black metal bar which helps with the addition and removal of the card, the metal bar has a cut out section for the SLI connector. As there is only one of these connectors present the card is limited to SLI mode rather than the newer 3-Way SLI processing technology.

The GeForce XFX 8800 GS XXX editon is a very impressive product when we look at performance on its own. The enhanced clock speeds of this model mean it outperforms every other GeForce 8800 GS that we have seen. Additionally, the card looks great with its black PCB and green DVI's. We also liked the design of the XFX cooler with its solid copper heatsink within a single slot design, although in some situations the fan is a little too loud for our liking. It is when we take a look at the overall package that the shine is somewhat removed from this model. Of course it does remain a nice looking card, but could do even better.

Firstly XFX seem determined to overclock memory past its rated speed on many of their cards including this model which runs 100MHz above specification, in fact when overclocking we could only squeeze a further 8MHz from the memory, so it is right on the edge. That said, XFX do offer a two year warranty. The other major issue we have with the XXX variant of the GeForce 8800 GS is that the retail price drags it out of competition with the Radeon HD 3850 and into direct competition with the Radeon HD 3870, unfortunately the GS cannot compete with the higher specified ATI card and this pricing seems to be the major shortcoming today.

The card actually is a great piece of hardware, but we need to fair and unbiased when coming to our final conclusions, after all we are recommending hardware which you will be spending your hard earned cash on. If XFX can drop the price of this card by $15-25 then it immediately becomes much more desirable, however as it stands it is still an excellent purchase if you want the fastest GeForce 8800 GS model out there.