Introduction:
The 8800GTX has been on the streets for a while now, and many of you may have read multiple reviews about this monster of a card. Well Planetx64 has not ignored the 8800GTX, in fact we have had one in the lab for a while now. The 8800GTX we have comes courtesy of Foxconn. Foxconn, traditionally the supplier of graphics cards to Leadtek, has decided to release their own contender into the 8800 ring. We made the decision to wait for our evaluation of this nVidian giant until we were able to fully test all of the claims made by the Big Green Giant. Although as of this writing we are not going to be able to show you full DX10 gaming, we will show you if NVs claim of "Vista Ready" and "Vista Essentials" are accurate or not.
So without much more fan fare let’s get into hammering on the 8800GTX.
Product: Foxconn FV-N88XMAD2-ON GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
Author: Sean Kalinich
Category: Enthusiast/ Gamer
Reviewed on: May 15th 2007
Product cost: $554.99
Manufacturer: Foxconn
Spelling and Grammatical Editors: Paul Mercer
{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories: 4.5 out of 5
When I first opened the box that the Foxconn 8800GTX shipped in I thought I was looking at a Salvador Dali painting. But since you cannot judge a book by its cover I reserved my laughing at the graphics on the box and eagerly opened the box to see what was inside.
|
|
|
|
|
The inside is more Spartan but is very well put together.
As you can see the 8800GTX from Foxconn was well protected for its trip to me.
One very nice accessory that shipped with the 8800GTX from Foxconn is a USB game controller. This little PS2-like controller turned out to be quite a nice little addition and one that has found a permanent place on my workbench (and the gaming bench too 
)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
{mospagebreak title=Features}
Features: 4.3 out of 5
The 8800GTX does come with a few nice features. Dual Dual-Link DVI is one that jumps to mind, but this is nothing new for nVidia high-end cards. Foxconn has also thrown in a few lights to keep you stimulated. In fact the entire heatsink has blue LEDs around it. (it’s vury purty)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For the rest of the features of the card, here are the specs from Foxconn’s website.
|
GPU： |
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX |
|
Core： |
G80 |
|
CoreClock： |
575MHz |
|
Pixel Pipeline： |
128 Stream processors running at 1.35GHz |
|
Vertex Pipeline： |
128 Stream processors running at 1.35GHz |
|
RAMDACs： |
400MHz |
|
Memory Type： |
GDDR3 |
|
Memory Size： |
768MB |
|
Memory Clock： |
1800MHz |
|
Memory Interface： |
384-bit |
|
Graphics Bus Technology： |
PCI Express x16 |
|
Cooler： |
Fansink |
|
Connectors： |
Dual Dual-Link DVI + HDTV-out |
|
Special Features： |
NVIDIA? PureVideo? HD Support |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The software bundle was a little odd; I would have thought a game or a video editing tool would have been more appropriate. But I suppose these tools can be put to some use in a gamers system.
|
|
{mospagebreak title=Testing Methods}
Testing methodology:
PlanetX64.com’s testing methodology can be stated very simply. We test to see how well hardware performs on a "common" system. To this end we will install the most current drivers available; we do not use BETA drivers (unless they are the only publicly available drivers). We will also use the most current BIOS on each system. Each test platform will be a fresh install, with all of the latest patches installed, we also use commonly installed applications (Office, Antivirus software etc), and this will give us a good impression as to how well a given piece of hardware will run on a system. Also, other than 3DMark (currently 3DMark06) we will only use in-game tests using FRAPS (version 2.8) for graphics card testing.
{mospagebreak title=Performance The System}
Performance: 4.9 out of 5
The Systems:
I chose these two system as they represent (to me at least) what you would find in a high end gaming system, minus the small HDD size.. I also wanted to show performance on different chipsets. The drivers used for the ATi card were Cat 7.1 for the 8800GTX I used Forceware 100.54.
Test system 1
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
Asus P5W DH
Kingston HyperX KHX6400D2LLK2/2GN (2x 1GB PC-6400)
2 x Western Digital 74GB Raptors 10k RPM
SilverStone Zeus 750 Watt PSU
Generic 16x DVD ROM
Generic 1.44M Floppy
Foxconn FV-N88XMAD2-ON GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
ATi X1950XTX Crossfire Edition.
Windows XP Professional/ Windows Vista x64 Edition
Test system 2
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700
eVGA 122-CK-NF68 nVidia 680i
Kingston HyperX KHX6400D2LLK2/2GN (2x 1GB PC-6400)
2 x Western Digital 74GB Raptors 10k RPM
SilverStone Zeus 750 Watt PSU/ PC Power and Cooling 1KW PSU for Overclocking tests.
Generic 16x DVD ROM
Generic 1.44M Floppy
Foxconn FV-N88XMAD2-ON GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
ATi X1950XTX Crossfire Edition.
Windows XP Professional/ Windows Vista x64 Edition
{mospagebreak title=Performance Part I }
System Tests:
All games were run at 1600×1200 with AA enabled (x4) and 16x AF. Max detail settings were also used.
3DMark06:
Here we have our one and only synthetic test. 3DMark06 is used not only to placate the number fiends out there but also to give you an idea of how well the system should perform under 3D intensive application.
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
Wow, as you can see the days of a single card hitting the "10k" mark at stock are here. I guess we should keep our eye out for 3DMark08 now.
The 8800GTX simply runs rings around the X1950XTX on any platform.
HalfLife2 Episode 1:
Valve reinvented the concept of the first person shooter with the release of the original HalfLife many years ago, pitting an Indiana Jones like scientist against hostile aliens and elite shadow ops troops against each other in a complex and diverse environment. Valve has again reinvented our notions of what a 1st person shooter should be like with HalfLife 2 Episode 1. In this game you again play the character of Gordon Freeman, but this time you appear to be free of the control of the G-Man. Your objective this time, to save your own life and that of Alyx by getting out of City 17 as before the citadel of the combine explodes. But, it is not going to be an easy ride; Valve has upped the AI and included new and more lethal enemies to block your path. This chapter in the HalfLife series is as fun to play as it is hard on your system. For my testing I ran the Lowlife level from entry in the parking garage to your escape in the elevator from the hordes of zombies. As will all the other games I tested the resolution was 1600×1200 with 4xAA and 16x AF, all other settings were at their maximum level. The numbers here are telling.
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
The 8800GTX simply cleans up. There is no comparison to its performance in HalfLife 2 Episode One. There was something interesting though; I found that the Intel 975 chipset showed a performance increase when running Vista x64 (6.38%) This was not true on the 680i where I saw a 15.13% performance decrease. This could be due to immature drivers for the 680i but it is something to keep in mind when configuring your system.
Battlefield 2142:
Here is another game in the Battlefield line, but un-like others in this series Battlefield 2142 does not have fast-paces single player action. It is demanding on a GPU though. For my testing I ran the Fall of Berlin level, this one seemed to have the best blend of objects, particles (snow) and shader usage. I played until the level was over (I usually lost). The resolution was set to 1600×1200 with AA at 4x and AF at 16x all other settings were set to their highest level.
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
Again with BF 2142 the 8800GTX simply walks away, granted the margins are not as big as they were with HalfLife 2 Episode One but they are still impressive. For Vista x64 gaming we saw a performance decrease across the board. Although the X1950XTX did not take as much of a hit as the 8800GTX did. The 8800GTX took a whopping 14.92% performance hit on the Intel 975 and a 7.2% hit on the 680i. The X1950XTX lost 4.24% and 2.83% respectively.
F.E.A.R.:
F.E.A.R., while not a current game is still one that can have an impact on your system. In terms of particle effects, shadows, and other graphical workload F.E.A.R. still ranks up there. While we will be moving to the newer Extraction Point for future testing but I still like the game-play and feel of this Monolith game. For my testing level I chose the Interval 01 Insertion level, this level takes you through a few nice little fire-fights with multiple enemies and plenty of opportunities for particle effects to come into play. Again resolution was at 1600×1200 with 4x AA and 16x AF. Volumetric lighting and soft shadows were enabled. All other settings were at maximum.
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
Score another win for the 8800GTX; again on both of the platforms I tested the 8800GTX from Foxconn takes the crown. Here the performance decrease between XP Pro and Vista x64 was closer between the two cards with the exception of the X9150XTX on the Asus P5W DH (A staggering 29.53% performance loss) the average performance hit was about 18.4%.
Need for Speed Carbon:
Need for Speed Carbon is a good example of a third person perspective game and with its reflections, rain, motion blur and other effects can have a heavy impact on your frame rates. For testing I ran the Checkpoint Bronze challenge in the challenge series section.
Resolution was set to 1600×1200 with 4x AA and texture filtering set to ?Anisotropic?. All other visual effects were enabled or set to high. V-Sync was disabled.
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
In Need for Speed Carbon the performance gap between the X1950XTX and the 8800GTX is a little less pronounced but still there. So chalk up another win for the Foxconn 8800GTX. For Vista x64 Need for Speed Carbon turns out to be another game that is faster in Vista x64 than in XP Pro (7.86% faster). This performance improvement is only seen on the Asus P5W DH. When I moved to the 680i board I took an 8.55% performance hit.
{mospagebreak title=Performance Part II}
Call of Duty 2:
My favorite bar-fight game is Call of Duty 2. This game hits you with everything it has right from the start. Never mind fancy friendly tactics or cunning enemies. No Call of Duty not only throws particle effects and physics at you but also mobs of enemies and the occasional friendly that runs right in front of you while you are shooting. But all of that aside Call of Duty 2 has always been hard on graphics cards and continues to be so. For testing I ran the Basic Training level from just after you pick up the submachine gun to the end of the level. This opening act throws enemies at you en masse from the start to the finish. Resolution was 1600×1200 AA was 4x AF filtering was enabled. One item of note; while testing in Vista x64 on the 8800GTX I could not use the in-game AA settings. I had to disable AA and turn it on in the nVidia control panel. If I set it in-game I would get nothing but a grey screen.
|
|
|
I talked to the guys over at nVidia and they say this is an issue with the game and Vista. I find this an interesting statement considering this issue was not present on the X1950XTX CF edition card I used. All other settings were at their maximum settings (number of corpses which was set to "insane").
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
Call of Duty 2 sees another win for the 8800GTX, but as with Need for Speed to margin of victory is small. But hey a win is a win. For Vista x64 we see another game where the 8800GTX enjoys a performance boost from Vista. Again only on the Asus P5W DH board, but at least this time the performance numbers are virtually even on the 680i with a performance hit of only .33%.
Company of Heroes:
Company of Heroes is a new game to your testing and turned out to be quiet addictive.
It combines the difficulties of a real time strategy game with the fast paced action of a third person shooter. All the while giving some of the most impressive graphics and effects I have seen in a RTS game. For testing I ran the Normandy campaign to just after the ?88′s? were destroyed on the hill. I completed all of the objectives for each mission.
Resolution was at 1600×1200 AA was enabled (there were no levels just enabled or disabled) texture filtering was set to Ultra. All other settings were at their highest level.
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
And in Company of Heroes the 8800GTX takes the prize again (I know big surprise there). In Vista x64 we see a uniform performance loss of 3.3% to 7.2% with the only notable exception being the X1950XTX on the 680i board this enjoyed a performance gain of 10.35%.
Hitman Blood Money:
Hitman Blood Money is a graphically stunning game, the backgrounds and characters in game are brilliantly rendered. I wish the same could be said for the quality of the dialog and story line. I think the guys at Eidos need to get out more and spend less time watching the telly! Fortunately the negatives brought about from watching too many extremely bad movies about life in an American "hood" are over shadowed by some good third-person "sneaker" play. Testing was done on the "Death of a Showman" level.
Resolution was 1600×1200 with 4xAA 16xAF and all other settings at their maximum levels. I did run into something interesting with Vista x64 and Hitman Blood Money. When I first installed the game and tried to run it I was greeted by an error saying there was a missing file msvcr71.dll. When I first saw this I was quite annoyed. However the fix turned out to be very simple. All I needed to do was to copy that file from Windows XP Professional and paste it into the Hitman Blood Money directory and I was off and running.
|
X1950XTX |
8800GTX |
|
|
|
|
X6800 |
QX6700 |
|
|
|
Here we see the 8800GTX scoring almost twice what the X1950XTX does. This is a rather impressive feat. It also would seem that HitMan Blood Money favors Vista x64 showing a performance gain across the board with the most impressive gain of 22.99% with the 8800GTX on the 680i mainboard.
{mospagebreak title=Gaming Observations}
Gaming Observations:
The 8800GTX will give a good kick to any game you throw at it. Even older games that I have not played in a while felt new. The image quality also brought out new details and with the improvements made in AntiAliasing and texture filtering there opens up a new avenue in gaming realism. Another pleasant surprise was the performance shown in Vista x64. With all of the doom and gloom predictions saying that just using Vista will hit you with a 15% performance loss it was nice to see that in more than half the games we used for testing the 8800GTX showed an improvement. In those that did not the loss was less than the stated 15% with the average performance hit being around 8%. To be honest with you I do not think you would notice an 8% difference since in most cases this was a matter of 4 or 5 frames per second. So it looks like the gaming future of Vista and Vista x64 does not look so dark. I would recommend the Foxconn 8800GTX for your Vista x64 gaming needs.
{mospagebreak title=Overclocking}
Overclocking:
The Foxconn 8800GTX actually turned out to be a pretty decent overclocker.
I was able to push the one I have to 650 core and 2010 Memory. This was on the eVGA 680i Mainboard listed above.
The benefits of this overclocking were not amazing and only 3DMark06 saw a huge improvement in performance. There is, as of yet, no overclocking in Vista x64. I attempted to use nTune , however, anything over the stock memory and core speed would fail the test when I tried to apply the setting.
{mospagebreak title=Price/Warranty}
Price/Warranty: 4.3 out of 5
Price:
The Foxconn 8800GTX runs around $554.99 (from Newegg.com), this is the standard price for one of these and with the performance you get from one it is a good price. The added USB game controller does some to add to the value. One addition I would have liked to see would have been a current game title, but even without one it is still a good buy.
Warranty:
Foxconn warrants its graphics cards against defects in material and workmanship under normal use for 3 years, during the first year it is a no questions asked, "real-time" warranty.
http://www.foxconnchannel.com/
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
In the end the Foxconn 8800GTX is a very nice card. I had no problems with running this card in XP Pro or in Vista x64. The speed was quite nice outpacing the X1950XTX Crossfire edition easily in XP Pro and still managing to squeak by in Vista x64. The odd fact that the 8800GTX was (in the majority of games) faster on the 975 chipset than on the 680i was quite interesting. Granted the QX6700 is not as fast as the X6800 but still at 1600×1200 the CPU speed should not make that much of a difference. Also the 680i overclocks the PCIe but to 125MHz with a 7900GTX or above so we should have seen a slight performance improvement while on the 680i, we did not. Otherwise the gaming performance was outstanding; the image quality has clearly gone up a notch. I cannot wait to see DX 10 titles on these cards. But with ATi?s R600 looming somewhere on the horizon (If AMD/ATi can ever get it launched.) there may be some competition in this market.
For your high-end gaming money the Foxconn 8800GTX is a great buy and one you would be sorry to pass up.
Pros:
VERY fast
Nice look
Included game controller
Good overclocking
Good cooling
Good Vista x64 performance
Cons:
Needs two PCI-e power connectors
WHQL drivers do not include desktop overlay
No Vista x64 overclocking
Scores:
Packaging and Accessories: 4.5 out of 5
Features: 4.3 out of 5
Performance: 4.9 out of 5
Price/warranty: 4.3 out of 5
Total: out of 18.0 out of 20
With its good combination of features performance and price the Foxconn 8800GTX earns our
|
{mosimage} |
Discuss this eval here
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank Isaac Poon at Foxconn for providing the 8800GTX for this evaluation