It's been a while since Nvidia released a new GPU, but over the past couple of months, the company has introduced several new models, including 256MB and 512MB versions of the 8800 GT.
The 8800 GT is Nvidia's first 65nm GPU, which means that despite being more complex than its predecessors, it consumes very little extra power. For example, the 256MB 8800 GT is more than twice as fast as the 8600 GTS in Need for Speed: Pro Street, but consumes only 6 per cent more power. The 256MB 8800 GT has the same GPU as that of the 512MB 8800 GT, so its stream processors run at 1.5GHz while the rest of the GPU hums along at 600MHz. However, its 256MB of RAM is clocked significantly lower than the RAM on the 512MB version - 700MHz (1.4GHz effective) compared to 900MHz (1.8GHz effective). Both versions of the 8800 GT support PCI-E 2.0, but aren't compatible with Shader Model 4.1 or DirectX 10.1. Like the 512MB 8800 GT the 256MB 8800 GT is also fitted with a relatively quiet single-slot cooler.
As the 256MB 8800 GT has less memory bandwidth than the 512MB version, it's significantly slower at high resolutions with lots of anti-aliasing. However, the 256MB 8800 GT has enough oomph to play most games smoothly at 1,680 x 1,050, which is the resolution of most 20in and 22in widescreen TFTs. Technically speaking, Crysis wasn't what we'd describe as consistently smooth (25fps or greater), but a small overclock would be enough to make this game run smoothly at 1,024 x 768, an incredible achievement given the low cost of the card.
In price, the nearest ATI-powered card to the 256MB 8800 GT is the slightly cheaper HD 3850. However, the HD 3850 is far slower than the 256MB 8800 GT, especially when you enable anti-aliasing - a must have when gaming at low resolutions. As such, the 256MB 8800 GT is clearly the card to buy if you have around £100 to spend on a new graphics card.
Author: James Gorbold
Nvidia GeForce 256MB 8800 GT