FOXCONN 8800GTS 320mb: OverClocking Edition!

INTRODUCTION

Ever since the launch of NVIDIA’s famous 8800GTX and 8800GTS cards, even diehard ATI fans had to admit that NVIDIA was offering some very powerful graphics cards. However to the dismay of most people, NVIDIA had launched these cards at a MSRP of $600 and $450 respectively, putting them out of reach and consideration for most. Ever since then enthusiasts have demanded a more affordable DX10 part for the masses, and in turn nVidia delivered with the 320mb 8800GTS.

The 320mb 8800GTS is identical in all respects to its 640mb predecessor, so now the only question left to answer is: ‘What do they want for it, and how much performance did it lose?’ To answer, at the time of writing there are quite a few brands of 320mb 8800GTS graphics cards selling below the $300 mark, and at least several with mail-in-rebates that bring the price just below $255 right now, which is about at the upper limit to the mainstream gamer market.

To answer the second half of that question, I’ll rather unfairly compare the FOXCONN 320mb 8800GTS Overclocked Edition I have today to the FOXCONN 512mb 7950GT Overclocked Edition graphics card. Will the almost standard 512mb RAM on the 7950GT give it a chance at XHD resolutions with Anti-Aliasing, where the onboard RAM size matters the most? What can you expect if you upgrade from a 7900-series card today? These are two of the questions I’ll answer in this review.

A third important question is what difference one can expect from a 320mb 8800GTS card when using an older or slower processor. Rumors about older systems, especially Pentium 4’s being CPU bound are aplenty, and I can confirm to this is mostly true with full 8800GTX cards. But how much different does it make with a 8800GTS? To answer this I’ll run a series of benchmarks with an E6300 at stock, and then overclock to 3.4ghz and rerun the same benchmarks again to find out what differences, if any, it will make.

While admittedly comparing a 7950GT card to an 8800GTS is not the best match up, before someone objects in our forums I’d like to point out that Bjorn3d has already previously reviewed over 12 other NVIDIA 8800-series based cards at the time of this writing. Over four different manufacturers and all three versions of the 8800-series have been compared to a plethora of cards, so I encourage you to browse around the site little!

FOXCONN: The Company

While FOXCONN is a relative newcomer to the retail graphics market they have actually been physically manufacturing graphics cards and motherboards for a very long time, and infact one of the few to actually make NVIDIA cards themselves. Regardless of exactly why, after Leadtek announced they were exiting the North American graphics card market FOXCONN, being the previous producer of Leadtek’s NVIDIA cards, decided they had what it took and jumped right in.

Foxconn is the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., a global leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of advanced computer, communications, and consumer electronics components, including motherboards, graphics cards, CPU coolers, barebone systems, and chassis for personal computer desktops and servers. With over three decades of demonstrated manufacturing excellence, Hon Hai sets the standard in the industry for product quality and reliability, customer support, and value. In 2005 Hon Hai had sales of $25 billion (USD).

The Channel Service Division (CSD), part of the PCE Business Group of Hon Hai, is Hon Hai's worldwide organization for servicing channel customers. Guided by the mantra "The Art of More", CSD is dedicated to making it simpler and more affordable for its customers to offer superior information systems to their consumer and enterprise customers. CSD serves a network of distributors and OEM customers in Asia, EMEA, and the Americas.