GIGABYTE 8800GT TURBOFORCE

INTRODUCTION

If you've been watching any of the hoopla associated with the forthcoming Presidential election you have probably noticed that two of the larger issues issues being debated are change and energy conservation. Right now you're probably wondering if you have logged into the right forum and what in the world are we talking about! Hang in there for a minute and I think this will make sense to you as we continue. If you think about it these two terms transcend more than just the political arena and are quite applicable to many of the newer computer products being released today.

Most manufacturers tout the astounding new features each product bears in the form of marketing hype to create a certain buying frenzy for the product(s) they are readying for release to the consumer market. In many cases, especially with graphics cards, you're looking at a few tweaked features that are essentially added to a reference design. These features are generally performance enhancing and are superfluous to the other 99% of the features that remained standard. These performance enhancing features generally cost the owner not only in the initial price they pay, but also in their power bills. In most case better performance translates into higher energy consumption.

We at Bjorn3d have been awakened to a new measure, performance to power consumption ratio, which we feel in the coming years will become a very important statistic even for the extreme computer enthusiast in choosing the products they purchase. We have been doing some extensive reading regarding these improvements and have noted that GIGABYTE™ appears to be leading the way in this arena. They have released an entire new line of motherboards and graphics cards sporting their power saving enhancements. Needless to say when GIGABYTE offered us their newest 8800GT TurboForce edition graphics card for review we were elated. We plan to find out if extreme performance and energy savings are mutually exclusive of one another or if the two can effective coexist in harmony.

GIGABYTE:  The Company

GIGABYTE, one of the most well-known brands in the industry, started as a motherboard technology research laboratory with the passion of a few young engineers two decades ago. With the vision and insights to the market, GIGABYTE has become one of the world's largest motherboard manufacturers. On top of motherboards and graphics accelerators, GIGABYTE has further expanded its product portfolio to include notebook and desktop PC's, digital home entertainment appliances, networking servers, communications, mobile and handheld devices. GIGABYTE has rise from an eight man office to a world-class enterprise in the IT industry.

Today, GIGABYTE is a constant product winner of international design awards and professional media's most recognized IT provider. With employees across continents and sales channels in almost every country, GIGABYTE can tailor to the needs of its business partners and customers with online and on-site technical support and service centers. GIGABYTE has transformed its core technologies into a force to make your life better and easier.

For decades, GIGABYTE has been in the community to delight people with the latest digital innovations. Everyday, GIGABYTE members are fully engaged at work simply knowing they can create better life experiences for all customers. This is why GIGABYTE is always committed to research and development of the latest technology while striving for the highest quality in design innovation and customer services. GIGABYTE aims for customer's total satisfaction because that is what builds trust and adds values to the brand. Thus, the vision for the company to see people enjoy lives with GIGABYTE.