Verdict: Supposedly the fastest PCI-E 2.0 graphics card.
Conventional wisdom says that almost any technological device given more power and pushed harder should be better. More rpm in an engine, more fuel into a jet afterburner, more pressure in a steam locomotive and, of course, higher clock speeds on a graphics card. All these adjustments yield more performance and are therefore good. You just have to balance that extra power against the risk of a serious failure, which, while often impressively spectacular, is generally considered to be bad. However, factory-overclocked cards, such as this BFG, are guaranteed to run happily at faster than usual speeds without suffering catastrophic failure; that has to be a win.
The BFG 8800 GTS OC is based on the Nvidia G92 GPU, rather than the aging G80 chip. The giveaway is the 512MB of GDDR3 RAM, as the old G80-based GTS cards have 320MB or 640MB. This means that the 8800 GTS OC supports PCI-E 2.0 and uses 65nm transistors for greater power efficiency. As this card is a new G92 GeForce 8800 GTS, it has 128 stream processors, compared to the 96 of old GeForce 8800 GTS cards, as well as faster standard clock speeds.
While Nvidia specified its new GeForce 8800 GTS card to have a core speed of 650MHz, this card pushes its core to 675MHz. BFG has also increased the speed of the stream processors from 1.625GHz to 1.675GHz, so the entire GPU runs 3-4 per cent faster than Nvidia says it should. BFG hasn't touched the memory clocks, so the 512MB runs at 970MHz (1.94GHz effective) over a 256-bit memory bus. Despite the BFG sticker, the cooler is a reference model and close to silent, despite the extra heat created by the increased clock speeds.
Even with the improvements made to the G92 series, the BFG 8800 GTS OC still feels rather leaden for a card costing more than £200. The Call of Duty 4 test proved that it can handle the game at maximum settings up to a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, producing a minimum frame rate of 30fps but it isn't the only card that can do this. Dogging its steps with a minimum of 28fps is the Asus GeForce EN8800GT TOP 512MB. The EN8800GT TOP is another pre-overclocked card, but with the supposedly lesser Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT GPU. However, Asus has pushed that GPU to within an inch of its life, making a card that's comparably fast but costs £36 less.
The BFG 8800 GTS OC cruised through Need for Speed: Pro Street without any problems. However, once again, it was tailgated by the cheaper Asus EN8800GT TOP with similar speeds from both cards. While the minimum frame rate was an identical 39fps in our 1,920 x 1,200 test, the Asus scored a 54fps average compared to the 52fps average from the BFG.
Crysis proved to be equally tricky to render on both cards. In the easiest test, which uses High detail settings and a 1,024 x 768 resolution, neither card could provide a playable minimum of 25fps. However, the BFG, with a minimum of 23fps and an average of 36fps, is very close to the Asus card, which managed a minimum score of 24fps and an average of 34fps. That said, we're still unsure whether or not Nvidia's drivers for the new GeForce 8800 GTS and Crysis are mature enough, as we saw odd results in our graphics card Labs last month.
Overclocking the BFG 8800 GTS OC resulted in a core speed of 700MHz and a 2.1GHz effective RAM speed, and this bought us slightly less than 10 per cent more speed in the Call of Duty 4 test. It provides a little more headroom to distinguish the BFG 8800 GTS OC from the cheaper Asus EN8800GT TOP, and should also make the game less susceptible to jittery frame rate crashes.
Conclusion
With the new GeForce 8800 GTS and the GeForce 8800 GT based on similar GPUs, we expected to need more time to deliberate scores and prices before deciding which was best. However, cards such as the Asus EN8800GT TOP clarify the matter: a heavily overclocked GeForce 8800 GT is just as fast as a GeForce 8800 GTS and costs less.
You might lose the dual-height cooler of the GTS, and it's direct venting of hot air, but you save £30 and still have similar performance, plus one or two new games. The only reason you might want this card is the quieter cooler and the possibility of coaxing a bigger overclock out of your card than we managed with our review sample.
