XFX NVIDIA 8800 GTX XXX Graphics Card Review

XFX is back with the first overclocked 8800 GTX on the market bearing the familiar XXX moniker. The XXX caries about a $50 price premium over the standard 8800 GTX.

If you are considering buying an 8800 GTX and want to know if the performance improvement is worth the extra $50 read on.

Gallery

3 images

Benchmarks

Last week I reviewed XFX 8800 GTX SLI and simply pointed you to the original XFX 8800 GTX single card review for the full details on the new and improved features XFX and NVIDIA have graced the 8800 GTX with. I will do the same thing for this review, if you want the full details on the 8800 GTX read the review here. Today we will just look at the performance improvements and compare the 8800 GTX XXX performance to the performance of the stock 8800 GTX. The only place that the 8800 GTX XXX differs from the stock 8800 GTX is in the clock speeds. The stock 8800 GTX is clocked at 575 MHz on the core and 1.8 GHz on the memory whereas the XXX version is clocked at 630 MHz on the core and 2GHz on the memory.

As always I used my standard testing battery for the 8800 GTX XXX consisting of 3DMark06, Oblivion, Battlefield 2142, and FEAR. The first test up was 3DMark06 which I ran at default settings in 3DMark06 and default settings in the NVIDIA control panel. The results looked like this:

• Total 3DMarks: 11138
• SM2.0: 5115
• SM3/HDR: 5216
• CPU: 2505
• Return to Proxycon: 42.531 fps
• Firefly Forest: 42.718 fps
• Canyon Flight: 47.908
• Deep Freeze: 56.409
• CPU1: 0.799
• CPU2: 1.255

To compare the standard 8800 GTX I reviewed previously scored 10,355 3DMarks and last week the 8800 GTX SLI system I reviewed scored 13012 total 3DMarks. The XXX 8800 GTX’s score of 11138 is a healthy gain over eth stock 8800 GTX and puts it nearly right in the middle performance wise from SLI and a single stock card.

The next test up was FEAR for testing with FEAR I turned all the sliders in the games setting menus to max and left the settings in the NVIDIA control panel alone with a 1920 x 1200 screen resolution. The frame rate data for the FEAR run was as follows:

• Min: 38 (Stock: 33)
• Avg: 69 (Stock: 67)
• Max: 115 (Stock: 157)

The percentages showed that never did the frame rate drop below 25fps, 8% of the time frame rates were 25 – 40 fps and 92% of the time frame rates were greater than 40 fps. I can’t really account for the drop in max frame rate other than to say the original card was reviewed on a different mainboard, the abit AW9D-Max and the patched version of FEAR I was using at the time was 1.07 and I now use 1.08 so perhaps those two factors contributed to the maximum frame rate drop we see there.

For the second run with FEAR I left the in game settings the same and turned on 16x AA and 16xQ AF in the NVIDIA control panel as well. The second run frame rate data looked like this:

• Min: 17
• Avg: 29
• Max: 72

This level of detail with FEAR was nearly too much for the XFX 8800 GTX XXX graphics card. A full 46% of the time frame rates were less than 25fps, 38% of the time frame rates were 25-40 fps and only 16% of the time were frame rates above 40 fps. If you want to run FEAR at this kind of quality you really need to be running 8800 GTX SLI.

The next test run was with Battlefield 2142 and since it is not super graphically demanding I went straight to the max settings for it with all in game settings on high and NVIDIA control panel set to 16xAA and 16xQAF at 1600 x 1200 screen resolution. The frame rate data was recorded via Fraps on the Fall of Berlin map.

• Min: 51
• Avg: 64.899
• Max: 92

The last game I tested with was Oblivion using an outdoor environment with water, trees, plants and clouds all in the same scene. To really challenge Oblivion I went in an turned all in game settings to high the NVIDIA control panel to 16x AA and 16xQ AF but didn’t run HDR like I did for the SLI review. The frame rate data was as follows:

• Min: 58
• Avg: 60.111
• Max: 63

Overall, the 8800 GTX XXX from XFX is a fantastic card, with lots of X’s in the product name. The XXX performs very well and offers some nice gains over the stock card for a mere $50 more in cost. If like most gamers you are more into the game than you are into tweaking your hardware the XFX 8800 GTX XXX card is a great option that is overclocked right out of the box and still carries a double lifetime warranty like all XFX graphics cards.

Verdict

Conclusion

Pros

• Factory overclocked and ready to run.
• Carries full double lifetime warranty

Cons

• Expensive

Verdict
Fantastic performance right out of the box and the XFX 8800 GTX XXX is the single fastest card you can get your hands on right now. The 8800 GTX XXX has gobs of performance and can play any game out currently at max settings with ease. The XFX XXX 8800 GTX is also the first factory overclocked 8800 GTX on the market making XFX first to offer the uber card for hard core gamers.

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