MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD-OC review
Author: Vedran Dakic
Date: 03 Sep 2007

With most of the 8800 cards out there things look pretty the same - same specification, same frequencies, same cooler, the only difference being different sticker on cards. In a way, that makes our job a bit less interesting but there are still a few manufacturers that want to do something "on their own" - like pre-overclocked cards. We already had a chance to play around with ASUS Aquatank and Point of View 8800GTX XO, two pre-overclocked 8800GTX cards. Now it's time to see how NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD-OC by MSI does against regular, stock 8800GTS 640.

If we take a short look at the card specs, basics go like this: 575MHz core and 1700MHz DDR3-memory - a nice improvement from regular, stock 500/1600MHz. We might call this card a bit differently, though - we feel that "almost 8800GTX with less memory" is pretty much appropriate. Of course, you can't skip the usual MSI bundle - drivers, additional applications, games, DVI/VGA adapter, PCI-E power converter, S-Video cable and HDTV video-out cable. We kind of always liked MSI bundles because they're not lacking anything while not over-doing things. And this product's packaging isn't as big as some manufacturers - do people really think that everyone has room for a box that can fit a small person inside?

From the very beginning, we had a pretty safe bet where this card should end up in testing results - it should beat the regular 640 in lower AA/AF/resolution settings, while the 640MB version should be better when we move to 8xAA and higher resolutions.

We decided to use our faithful-slash-usual testbed to test this card:
- EVGA 680i motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
- OCZ Platinum XTC PC2-8000 2x1GB
- OCZ Vindicator cooler
- OCZ GameXstream 1010W PSU
- WD RaptorX 150GB HDD
- HP LP3065 30" LCD monitor