XFX GeForce 8800 GT XXX 512MB Alpha Dog Edition Review - Page 1 of 6
Article By Jonathan Martini - January 14, 2008
INTRODUCTION
It's been over two months since NVIDIA has launched the GeForce 8800 GT. The new Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has ushered in a new era of performance within the midrange market. An era, where a video card with an MSRP of $259 can be neck and neck with the GeForce 8800 GTX, a card with an MSRP nearly double that of the 8800 GT. It's easy to understand why these cards have been flying off the shelves.
XFX 8800 GT XXX Alpha Dog Edition
The 8800 GT, while being part of the GeForce 8 Series, is based off a new core, dubbed the G92. Among the changes that the new card has ushered into the 8 Series is the 65nm manufacturing process, which allows NVIDIA to pack more transistors into a smaller space, all while running cooler and consuming less power than the 80nm and 90nm manufacturing process of the current 8 Series GPUs.
Specifications Comparison
The evolution of the GPU core has also allowed higher core clock speeds, while increasing the speed of the stream processors. The additional transistors packed into the core account for an upgraded PureVideo engine, which now allows full hardware acceleration for High Definition (H.264 & VC-1) Blu-ray and HD DVD video, integrated HDMI support and PCI Express 2.0 support. NVIDIA has also rolled the external video processing engine known as NVIO, found on the high-end GeForce 8 Series cards, into the new core.
GPU-Z Information
Today, we're examining the XFX GeForce 8800 GT XXX 512MB Alpha Dog Edition. XFX manufactures a variety of cards based on the GeForce 8800 GT GPU with 512MB or RAM; the PV-T88P-YDF4 follows the reference speeds of 600MHz for the core and 1.8GHz on the memory, the PV-T88P-YDQ4, a slightly faster card with a 625 MHz core clock, the PV-T88P-YDE4 (aka Extreme) which sports a 640 MHz core and a 1.9GHz memory speed, and lastly the PV-T88P-YDD4 (aka XXX) which reigns over the others with a 670 MHz core and a memory speed of 1.95 GHz. The XXX version also cranks up the shader clock speed to 1.7 GHz, up from 1.5 GHz.
Additional Product Information
Let's take a closer look at what this card has to offer...