With today's introduction of GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB graphics boards, the GeForce 8 Series line-up now offers e-tail price points ranging from $599 to $299. The only difference between the 640MB and 320MB 8800 GTS is the frame buffer size and price. The current GeForce 8800 GTS has a 640MB frame buffer, while the new card’s frame buffer is half that size. Read on to see if the 8800 GTS 320M is the right card for you.
When it comes to performing well in today’s current games the XFX 8800 GTS 320MB XXX edition graphics card is no slouch. In some cases, it was very near the class leading 8800 GTX, which speaks volumes about the kind of gaming experience you can expect. I was more than a little skeptical when I first heard that NVIDIA planned to bring a card to market with half the memory size of the standard GTS but I have been thoroughly impressed with the performance of the XXX 320MB card. It delivers exactly where it counts, at resolutions the largest percentage of the market actually games.
If you water cool the card, I take it that it would use the same adapters and ram heat sinks as the other 8800 serise cards???????? That's about the only question I have right now.
Bio-Hazard wrote:If you water cool the card, I take it that it would use the same adapters and ram heat sinks as the other 8800 serise cards???????? That's about the only question I have right now.
Exactly. It's physically identical to the 640MB GTS. The only difference between the two cards are the IC's used. I've updated page 2 with a better description of the memory configuration.
"The 320MB card uses the same pair of 5x64-bit wide memory channels but lowers the density of the memory IC's from 64MB to 32MB."
So I'm assuming the regular 8800 GTS 320MB doesn't overclock as well as the XXX version of it? In other words, chances are if you don't get the XXX edition, 630/2070 speeds are very unlikely?
R3N3G4D3 wrote:So I'm assuming the regular 8800 GTS 320MB doesn't overclock as well as the XXX version of it? In other words, chances are if you don't get the XXX edition, 630/2070 speeds are very unlikely?
We actually can't begin to answer that as we don't have the regular $299 card. From my personal experience my XFX 8800 GTX can't overclock to where the XFX 8800 GTX XXX can on the memory side of things. I'm not sure if this holds true on this series, but if it does then what you said is highly likely. It all depends on the memory screening.
DMB2000uk wrote:Does the reduced RAM have much effect on power consumption?
Dan
That's the one thing that didn't get tested. I'm going to say no just because the number of memory IC's hasn't changed, only the density. I will test this out for you tonight if I we don't get wiped out by the incoming ice/snow storm.
The way I see it right now with todays games and the rez I play at, the card is about the perfact choice............ If it will be the perfact choice with DX10 games that are coming out later this year remains to be seen though.