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published: 11/08/2006 last updated: 11/08/2006 The second of NVIDIA’s new cards that are launching today is the GeForce 8800 GTS. The 8800 GTS shares the same features and abilities for the most part as the 8800 GTX. The main differences are lower clock speeds and less shader units. How well does the 8800 GTS perform? Read on to find out.

The features of the 8800 GTS are the same as the 8800 GTX I have reviewed today as well, rather than reinvent the wheel I will simply refer you to the 8800 GTX review for a features list and background information on the 8800 GTS and 8800 GTX.

The differences between the 8800 GTS and the 8800 GTS are few, though they affect performance of the cards significantly. The 8800 GTS has 96 stream processors compared to the 8800 GTX’s 128 stream processors. The 96 stream processors of the 8800 GTS are clocked at 1.2 GHz as compared to the 1.35 GHz clock for the 8800 GTX. The 8800 GTS also only requires one PCI Express power connector and has one SLI connector per card.

Other differences between the two cards are the core and memory clock speeds. Whereas the 8800 GTX has a core clock of  575 MHz and a memory clock of 900 MHz, the 8800 GTS has a core clock of 500 MHz and a memory clock of 800 MHz. The full specifications of the 8800 GTS are as follows:

• Fabrication process- 90 nm
• Number of Transistors- 681 million
• Core clock- 500 MHz
• Shader Clock- 1200 MHz
• Stream Processors- 96
• Memory Clock/ Data Rate- 800 MHz/1600
• Memory Interface- 320 bits
• Memory Bandwidth- 64 GB/s
• ROPs- 20
• Frame Buffer Size- 640 MB
• Texture Fill Rate- 24 GT/s
• RAMDACs- 400 MHz
• Bus Technology- PCI Express

Benchmarking the 8800 GTS

I used the same series of games and tests for the 8800 GTS as I used for the 8800 GTX allowing us to directly compare the two cards. I used 3DMark06, FEAR, Oblivion, Quake 4, and Battlefield 2142. I used the same test system for the 8800 GTS that I used for the 8800 GTX and the specifications are as follows:

• CPU: Intel X6800 Core 2 Extreme liquid cooled
• Mainboard: abit AW9D-Max
• RAM: 2GB Crucial DDR2 PC2-8000
• PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700W
• HDD: 1x 74Gb Raptor, 1x 750 GB Seagate

3DMark2006

To get the final numbers I am showing here for 3DMark06, I ran three test runs at default card and 3DMark06 settings and took the middle test set for the review. The results of the 3DMark06 tests on the 8800 GTS are as follows:

• 3D Marks- 8554
• SM2.0- 3742
• HDR/SM3.0- 3760
• CPU- 2285

To compare here are the 8800 GTX numbers:

• 3D Marks- 10,355
• SM2.0- 4796
• HDR/SM3- 4870
• CPU- 2288

As I also noted previously in the 8800 GTX review, when I reviewed the XFX NVIDIA 7950 GX2 quad SLI graphics system on a test machine using an AMD FX-62 the quad SLI system scored 8448 3D Marks. The difference in CPU speed is what puts the 8800 GTS over the top, but the numbers are still very close to the same with a single 8800 GTS performing nearly as well as the former top of the line 7950 GX2 quad SLI system.

Battlefield 2142

My new favorite game and replacement for BF2 is EA’s recently released BF2142. I used BF 2142 on the “Fall of Berlin” map to test how well the 8800 GTS could perform with the game and used FRAPS to record frame rate data during the game. For the first game run, I chose the following settings:

• Screen Resolution: 1600 x 1200
• All sliders on high
• AA- 4x

At these settings FRAPS recorded the following frame rate information:

• Min- 27
• Max- 97
• Avg- 76.746

For the second BF2142 test run I left the in game options the same and went to the NVIDIA control panel to select 4x AA and 16x AF at the same 1600 x 1200 screen resolution. FRAPS recorded the following frame rate data:

• Min- 34
• Max- 99
• Avg- 70.202

Just like its big brother the 8800 GTX, the 8800 GTS from XFX ran flawlessly in BF 2142 at the highest settings you can get in game, and you barely take a performance hit by using 16x AF, but you absolutely notice the AF in game.

FEAR

To test FEAR on the 8800 GTS I turned all the in game options to max settings and choose a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200. FEAR is a game that is traditionally very tough on graphics cards, but the 8800 GTS shrugged the game off like nothing. Using the in game test loop, I gathered the following numbers:

• Min Frame Rate- 26
• Avg Frame Rate- 50
• Max Frame Rate- 104

Percentage wise the 8800 GTS’ performance looked like this; 0% of the time was less than 25 fps, 41% of the time frame rates were 25 – 40 fps and 59% of the time frame rates were above 40 fps. The 8800 GTS looked FEAR in the eye and farted in its general direction.

Oblivion

Personally I think Oblivion is still the single hardest game on PC hardware and the one game that proves the biggest challenge for most graphics cards. For my Oblivion tests I used a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200, set all sliders to max, turned all options on and choose 8x AA and bloom for the effects. I used FRAPS to record frame rate data on an outdoor portion of the map with lots of visible water. FRAPS recorded the following frame rate data:

• Min- 8 fps
• Max- 64 fps
• Avg- 55 fps

I didn’t notice the frame rate dipping as low as FRAPS noted, the game seemed silky smooth and absolutely playable at these settings. My quad SLI system would be working up quite a sweat at these settings and my ATI X1900 CrossFire rig would have passed out long ago.

I went back into Oblivion for a second test run at the same settings on the in game options menu, but added 16x AF via the NVIDIA control panel. I used FRAPS again to record frame rate data in the same out door area as the previous run. FRAPS recorded the following frame rate data:

• Min- 29
• Max- 61
• Avg- 34.955

Quake 4

My final test series on the 8800 GTS was with Quake 4. I turned the in game settings to ultra quality, 1920 x 1200 resolution, multi-core CPU on and 8x AF. I used FRAPS to record the following frame rate data:

• Min- 12 fps
• Max- 63 fps
• Avg- 41.827

The 8800 GTS didn’t really break a sweat playing Quake 4 at these settings. Gameplay was silky smooth and no problems were noticed at this graphics settings.

Verdict

The 8800 GTS gives up quite a bit of performance to its big brother the 8800 GTX. However, the 8800 GTS runs neck and neck with the fastest multiple card graphics systems on the market, with one single card. Put a pair of these 8800 GTS card in SLI mode and the only thing that will beat your performance is a pair of 8800 GTX’s. Though the 8800 GTS is down on performance to the 8800 GTX, the GTS is quite a bit cheaper than the GTX. The MSRP for the XFX NVIDIA 8800 GTS I am reviewing here is $449, which is a virtual steal if you ask me for the performance you get.

Test System Specifications:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme Edition X6800
• RAM: 2GB Crucial PC2-8000
• Chassis: Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 w/ 8 120mm fans
• Mainboard: Abit AW9D-Max
• HDD: 1- 74GB Raptor, 1- 750GB Seagate Barracuda
• Video: ATI X1900 CrossFire