GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Roundup – Albatron, eVGA and XFX

The XFX PV-T88G-YDD4 Video Card

The XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Alpha Dog XXX Edition is factory overclocked card and is the fastest GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB card that XFX has to offer. The XFX GeForce 8800GTS 512MB we have on the test bench today is model number T88G-YDD4.

The back of the XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Alpha Dog XXX Edition Graphics Card shows off the green PCB, which means that our sample is made by NVIDIA. Eventually XFX will have their own black PCB, but the initial cards will feature this snappy NVIDIA green PCB. Since there are no heat sinks or covers on the back there isn’t too much to talk about!

The XFX card that we have here today runs at higher clock speeds than Nvidia’s recommended frequencies. The core clock is 678MHz, the shader clock is 1700MHz, and the memory clock is at 986MHz. Not bad at all considering reference clock frequencies on the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB cards are 650MHz core clock, 970MHz memory clock and a shader clock of 1625MHz. XFX is the only company of the three that we are looking at today that increased the GPU clock, memory clock and shader clock frequencies. It should also be pointed out that XFX was using BIOS version 62.92.16.00.40 and has the highest memory bandwidth at 63.1GB per second.

Inside the box, one will find the expected bundle that comes with all brands of video cards. The bundle included with the XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Alpha Dog includes two DVI-to-VGA adapters, HDTV dongle, an S-Video cable and installation instructions. Also included it the full DVD version of CAPCOM’s game title Lost Planet. The Driver disc included NVIDIA Forceware driver version 169.06 and some other software like CoolBits for unlocking overclocking features. The bundle also includes the ‘Do Not Disturb’ door hanger like the other Alpha Dog series cards. The bundle of the XFX card rivals that of the EVGA and really differs with just the game title.