XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB XXX Edition Video Card

The GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Is Ready!

NVIDIA is launching another video card based off the ever popular G92 GPU this morning! The GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB is the latest video card in the NVIDIA line-up. The GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB delivers impressive new levels of performance in the $299-$349 price range and brings new features such as PCI Express 2.0 support and second-generation NVIDIA PureVideo HD with full H.264 video offload to the enthusiast segment. The original GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB and GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB video card configurations had 96 stream processors. The new 512MB configuration has 128 stream processors, support for PCI Express 2.0, dual-link HDCP support, and the second-generation PureVideo HD engine thanks to the updated core. So, in a sense, the new GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB boards should be better across the board thanks to the updated GPU. Let’s take a look at the XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB XXX Edition graphics card!

The original BFG Tech GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB OC video card is pictured above the new XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB XXX Edition graphics card. While the cards are the same length they are obviously very different. The clock frequiences on the reference 512MB cards are 650MHz/1940MHz with a sharder clock of 1625MHz, but XFX overclocked their XXX edition up to 678MHz on the core, 1972MHz on the memory and 1700MHz for the shader clock for even more performance. The XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Alpha Dog XXX Edition that Legit Reviews is looking at today comes with the part number PV-T88G-YDD4.

The reference GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB graphics card has a board power draw of less than 150W, so just a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector is present on the card. The GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB graphics cards require a minimum 400W or greater system power supply (with 12 V current rating of 26A) for single GPU operation. NVIDIA has not stated how big of a power supply would be needed for SLI, but if the board uses less than 150W adding another card would pit the power supply requirements at a minimum of 550W for a pair of cards. From this angle, you can also see that the front of the video card isn’t smooth, which is a bit different than before.

There is a single SLI connector on all of the 8800 GTS 512MB cards, which makes it possbile to do SLI. It should be noted that when NVIDIA does 3-way or 4-way SLI down the road with upcoming NVIDIA 780i chipsets that the GeForce 8800 GT and GeForce 8800 GTS cards will not be supported since it has just one connection.

The pair of dual-link DVI connections with a maximum resolution of up to 2560 x 1600 and the TV output connector on the XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB Alpha Dog are what one would expect on any GeForce 8800 GTS. The TV output is HDTV ready and the card does come with the proper cables to use the TV output as you will later see when we cover the bundle.

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! Let’s take a look at the bundle before we move on to testing.