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Asus GeForce EN8800GT TOP 512MB
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Verdict: Faster and cheaper than a 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS.
Nvidia's GeForce 8800 graphics card range is almost indecipherable at the moment. The confusion is caused mostly by the outgoing 320MB and 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS cards still cluttering up the shelves. Both of these cards have now been effectively replaced by the GeForce 8800 GT range, and a new £200 GeForce 8800 GTS that has 512MB of memory.
This Asus EN8800GT TOP is an overclocked 512MB GeForce 8800 GT, so it should rival the more expensive GTS for speed, while costing £25 less.
Considering that the Asus is only around £15 more expensive than a standard 8800 GT, it looks like a bargain. The card's massive box includes Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, the standalone expansion for the excellent RTS of 2006. Play.com is happily selling this game for £25, and Opposing Fronts is worth a play, even if you aren't an RTS fan. The box also mentions the inclusion of an Asus-made app called GamerOSD that promises to overclock your card on the fly without having to exit the game. We couldn't get this to work, however.
Disappointingly, the card looks like a vanilla 512MB 8800 GT with a standard cooler - albeit with an Opposing Fronts sticker. However, underneath the cooler, everything runs faster than it should.
The card has a core clock speed of 700MHz, 100MHz faster than a standard 512MB 8800 GT. The 512MB of GDDR3 memory has also been overclocked from 900MHz (1.8GHz effective) to 1GHz (2GHz effective), increasing the memory bandwidth from 57.6GB/sec to 64GB/sec. This matches the memory bandwidth of the costlier 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS.
Asus' next tweak is altogether more interesting though. A stock 512MB GeForce 8800 GT has its 112 stream processors clocked at 1.5GHz, but the EN8800GT TOP's stream processors have been ramped up to 1.75GHz. This is faster than the 1.625GHz stream processors in the 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS, even though the latter has 128 processors. Overclocking Nvidia stream processors yourself is a tricky process, involving editing and reflashing a card's BIOS using a tool such as NiBiTor, so it's great that Asus has done this for you. Ultimately, the EN8800GT TOP seems to be a match for the more expensive 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS on paper, and should therefore prove to be a great purchase.
The card performed well in Call of Duty 4, and we were able to play at 1,920 x 1,200 using 4x AA and maximum AF with a smooth minimum frame rate of 28fps. The Asus matches the speed of the £200 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS in this game.
Crysis, not surprisingly, was a tougher proposition. We've long since abandoned hope of any of the current crop of cards being able to handle Very High detail settings, so we run our Crysis test with all the graphics settings set to High. Even so, the game proved to be too much for the Asus - as it does for all but the most extravagant cards. Even at the lowly resolution of 1,024 x 768 without using any AA or AF, it only managed an unconvincing minimum frame rate of 25fps.
However, the Asus again equalled the impressive performance of a standard 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS in the Need for Speed: Pro Street test. A solid minimum frame rate of 39fps and a high average of 54fps in the 1,920 x 1,200 test is especially smooth in a racing game, so there was no chance of a jitter sending us careering off the road. A stock 512MB GeForce 8800 GT manages a minimum of 36fps and an average of 50fps, while the more expensive 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS delivers a 38fps minimum and 54fps average, which is a touch slower than the cheaper Asus.
Overclocking the card any further was a fruitless exercise. The card's fan whined as it tried to expel heat at its stock speeds, and even minor clock increases made the card unstable, indicating that Asus has been as aggressive as possible in its overclocking laboratory.
Conclusion
The Asus EN8800GT TOP offers the same performance as a reference 512MB 8800 GTS for £25 less. You also acquire a good game with it that would cost roughly £25 if you were to buy it separately. If you aren't overly bothered by the possibility of a whining fan (either because you crank up your speakers to 11 or fancy fitting a custom cooler) then this card is fantastic.
User Reviews
Spend wisely grasshopper, spend wisely...
"like so many "overclocked edition" cards, the Asus isn't worth the premium. The best thing to do is buy yourself a cheaper card with a dual-slot cooler - or a 1GB version for the same money - and overclock it yourself."
I've always been a bit dubious about paying a premium for reay-overclocked cards. Not because I'm stingy..well, maybe partly because of that but with the number of decent overclocking software available (and soon to be) on the market for free, the only thing that factory overclocked cards have going for them is the warranty covers them at that overclocked speed. I ordered one of these in April to go in my second PC which would be used to do additional CAD work and rendering and maybe the odd bit of game play. The GT is a quite impressive range, power consumption and heat are down while horsepower is up thanks to a faster GPU and shader units. But after a week I swapped it for a Gainward model with a dual-slot cooler quite simply because even though my case has two side fans to flow cool air over the card, with only a single-slot reference cooler, there's nowhere for the warm air to go, whereas obviously with the dual-slot, the warm air gets pushed out the back, letting your system run cooler in general. This isn't a major consideration, as the Asus does run 8* cooler than my older 640Mb 8800GTS, but the dual-slot cooler shaves off another 4* from the card temp and a further 2* from my system temp, which although, not amazing enough to have you running for the toilet, does provide you with a bit of piece of mind, and you can turn your fans down a bit! Also, since the Gainward isn't overclocked, it is cheaper and thanks to their Xpertool (which actually works on any nVidia 8 or 9 series card, regardless of the brand), I can o/c it as and when I need to, and because it runs cooler than the Asus, I can overclock it to the same level without worry. And still have £25 to go down the pub with. Plus to add insult to injury, Gainward and a few other manufacturers offer models with 1Gb of RAM as well as the dual-slot cooler for the same amount of money as this card, which to be honest appeal more knowing that Xpertool or nTune will help you plug any speed gaps between those cards and this but then again you shouldn't need to as the extra memory will help with frame rates and line-drawing etc. All in all, the 8800GT makes a decent CAD/DCC card and can also crack a good few games too while offering low running costs due to better power efficiency. It's a shame the range doesn't benefit from nVidia's new power management systems that are in place on its new 780 motherboards and 9800 series cards (or the new 280/260). But for the money you won't find a better all-round card. Just don't pay the premium for a bit of overclocking. Spend the money on a 1Gb model with a dual-slot cooler, get nTune or Xpertool, do a little reading-up if you're not savvy on overclocking and do it yourself.
Review by: EdArch
Average User Rating:
70%
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