Looking for a bargain in a mid-range graphics card? We may have found just what
you have been looking for. Slated to replace the GeForce 6800 at a mid-range price point, the GeForce 6800 GS is closer in performance to the more powerful GeForce 6800 GT. While such performance attributes are currently overshadowed by the remarkable GeForce 7800 Series, the GeForce 6800 GS still may be a viable option for the cost-conscience gamer.
XFX GeForce 6800 GS XXX Edition
The NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS is designed around the NV42 core and is available in AGP8X and PCI-Express. This review is of the PCI-Express model, which is fabricated at 110nm with 12 pixel pipelines, 5 vertex shader units, and a 256-bit memory interface. The reference core is clocked at 425MHz with add-in graphics cards normally paired with 256MB of GDDR3 memory running at a frequency of 500MHz (1.0GHz effective).
XFX GeForce 6800 GS XXX Edition
The three X’s stand for eXtreme overclocking, eXtreme performance and eXtreme cooling. According to XFX, the XXX label represents a new level of graphics performance, which is achieved by only using parts from the top 10% yields. XFX offers two overclocked out-of-the-box GeForce 6800 GS PCI-Express models. The XFX GeForce 6800 GS DDR3 XXX Edition (PV-T42G-UAD7) runs at 485MHz with 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.1GHz effective), while the XFX GeForce 6800 GS DDR3 Extreme Edition (PV-T42G-UAF7) runs at 450MHz with 256MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.05GHz.
XFX provided nV News with the GeForce 6800 GS XXX Edition. The product will be examined from a gamer's perspective while testing some of the newer games along with a few games released during the past two years. In addition, team card is teamed with a reference GeForce 6800 GS in an SLI configuration.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
The XFX GeForce 6800 GS XXX Edition is based on NVIDIA's reference design and resembles the GeForce 6800 it will be replacing. It has a clean and lean appearance with a single slot design.
Differences from the reference design include a metal stiffening bar and plate across the side of the card, a smaller one located near the VGA Sub-D and DVI-I connectors, and the art on the fan shroud.
XFX vs. Reference GeForce 6800 GS
BUNDLE
The XFX GeForce 6800 GS XXX Edition is bundled with the following items:
