So, can anyone tell me who has these cards how loud they really are? I can't get a card that sounds like an engine. What I would like is a card with a waterblock standard. Just hook up your hoses and go.

I pity those who rushed and bought the 8800 series. IMO it was a rushed product not ready for the market. If these people had waited for the product to mature, they'll be looking at either R600 or 8900 series right now. These two SHOULD AND MUST be a lot faster, more mature and better than the 8800 series. It's almost like those who rushed and bought 7800GTX 512, remember? That card lost it's appeal and quickly disappeared from the market.

I'm not sure I've ever had a warranty claim on any computer component besides a hard drive. It's solid state electronics. If it works the first time you turn it on, it will probably run fine for decades. Not to mention they're all the same card with a different bundle and sticker.

How long are you really going to keep a card? If you can blow $400-600 on a video card, obviously you've got money burning a hole in your pocket enough to buy a new one again in two years. If you don't, you'd probably be much smarter to spend less now so you can upgrade sooner later.

I don't get it. How did EVGA get a patent for their ACS cooler? How is it a new thing, or a unique innovation on an old thing, to use a metal plate to provide additional thermal transfer? Heck they're not even using any special heatsink! There's also not a "plurality" of thermal blocks as the patent refers to. Seriously, it's nothing but a heatsink without fins. And now it's radiating heat into your case on the outside of the shroud, instead of letting the main heatsink's airflow blow it out.

And that "thermal coupling" looks to be a single small heatpipe. Wow, I'm sure that helps the heat dissipation so much when connected over such a huge surface area to the metal plate. Oh wait, no, it obviously doesn't.

The back end of the shroud is also doing little other than reducing the air that's getting directed over the main heatsink, since a lot more of it (more than normal given the shroud isn't airtight) is now escaping the shroud and being blown right back into your system.

Sorry. I'm just tired of the "innovative" crap that's being done with video cards these days. The fact that now the manufacturers don't even have to MAKE the cards astounds me.

I'm disappointed that TechReport didn't test a standard resolution like 1280x1024 or 1920x1200 or 1600x1200. I wonder how many people have resolutions like 1920x1440?

I'm confused why this article references such overpriced cards, when Techreport have clearly shown an affiliation with Newegg before?

You can get an 8800GTS,640mb from EVGA - which offer the step up program and a free copy of Dark Messiah (20$ on ebay and not THAT bad) for about 360$ SHIPPED - after re-bate

Not bad at all!

There's also cards in the 285$ range in the 320mb series on Newegg.

Finally the GTX, who knows - I don't care because $ / Speed value - it's garbage, I don't even look at the prices.

Techreport guys.. you do realize that your GPU Load temps are completely and utterly wrong.

How can a 8800GTX have almost the same IDLE and LOAD temps? My EVGA w/ACS3 8800GTX (649/1018) has an idle of 55c but loads at 75c and thats considered excellent for air-cooled yet your results are completely illogical. U cannot have a 1-2c temp variance between IDLE and LOAD for such extreme GPUs. Can you correct? There is ZERO chance those are the correct LOAD temps.

I'd love to see a Palit card get included in one of these roundups. They are always the cheapest available here in the UK, and I can't help but wonder if they really are a great deal (I often see people talk about them being 'debadged' Gainwards) or if some corners have been cut somehow and they represent an inferior product.

Regardless of how "jaw dropping" these cards may seem at the moment, I can't help but think it's going to pay for most people to extend their patience for a few weeks until it becomes evident what sort of product the R600 is going to be. I'd hate to think I'd dropped a significant wad of cash on something just to see it become second string in two or three weeks...;) OTOH, if R600 doesn't measure up, then buying one of these 8800 cards at that time would seem to make a lot more sense as opposed to the immediate present.

Of course, none of this will matter to those whose money is burning holes in their pockets at the moment...;)

I have had enough of DX 10 Cards now can we have DX 11 cards ?? :ROFL: ;)

FYI, OMGWTFBFGSAUCE is presumably a reference to OMGWTFBBQ (yes, barbecue) which is typically an ironic or sarcastic form of the traditional "OMG WTF." Just thought I'd mention that...

Would be nice if the PNY card was more available, and it looks like the price on this bad boy is going up.

Shame you don't have a 30" too... ;)

Who really are overclocking these cards anyway, and why?

Seems like I remember someone saying a single stock 8800GTX on a dell 30" monitor was still more than enough. why void your warranty AND take the chance of trashing your $600 video card just for bragging rights?

How are you achieving such fine granularity overclocking?

According to Rivatuner monitoring, the 8800GTS clock generator seems to work in 9mhz increments with some multipliers unavailable.

468, 486, 504, 513, 540, 567, 576, 594, 612, 621, 648..

(Mine tops out at 648.)

What I got from the review is that it seems that nVidia is having no trouble at all getting good yields from it's manufacturing, hence the ability of all the cards to get some good overclocks. That's just impressive. Probably also means that they might be cherry-picking some extra-good chips to put into a 8900 or something for when r600 comes out. Lets just hope this time it will be more available than the 7800gtx 512mb ultra edition. (http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/geforce-7800gtx-512/index.x?pg=1)

Nice to see EVGA gave you a card this time.

Dug it.

Nice review, and I gotta agree with you.

Although I have been mainly a fan of BFG lately, XFX and PNY are good choices. A 5 year warranty is not bad at all for this card.

Please Digg, if you will:

http://digg.com/hardware/Seven_GeForce_8800_series_cards_compared