Gainward's 8800GT - new high-end best buy card? (Part 1)
Author: Luka Rakamaric
Date: 29 Oct 2007

NVIDIA's 8800 series has been around for almost a year now, and has established itself as a leader in market sales in the high-end segment. A lot of this success is due to the introduction of an affordable 8800GTS 320. The 8800GT is a successor to this model, which has now been withdrawn from the market. So, what is the news 8800GT brings us?

First of all, let?s look at the card?s specifications. The new GPU has 112 stream processors. An odd number for sure, but it is in fact a standard 128 SP GPU with 16 of them disabled. This allows for higher yields of chips, and helps keep the price of the card low. The GPU operates at 600 MHz, which is more than the 8800GTX, and the SPs at 1.5 GHz. The total processing power of the GPU is 336 Megaflops, and the maximum fill rate of the 56 texture processors is 33.6 gigatexels. There is also 16 ROPs (render back-end unit) with full support for 128 bit HDR and 16x Coverage Sampling Anti Aliasing (16xCSAA). The main difference compared to the rest of the 8800 lineup is the 256 bit memory interface, and 512 MB of memory, operating at 1800 MHz. These clocks exceed those of the 8800GTX, which is no wonder since the card is manufactured in the 65 nanometer production process, which enables lower power consumption. The chip itself has 754 million transistors, and that makes it the most complex GPU to date.