XFX GeFORCE 8800GTS XXX 320MB Review - PAGE 4

Thats awesome, and its great that even one of the lower end 8800 cards can still top out at an average of 30 FPS at the highest resolution at 4xAA and 16xAF, but even now i only have the Radeon 9600 but if i was to upgrade i wouldn't bother going for that card just because it is $300 cheaper than the top dog, there is a reason the best card is so expensive and in time it will be there to reap the benefits of the power hungry games.

Its an awesome review and a great comparison of all the other cards, but i just can't help but feel that if i got this card that within a few months the first truly DX10 game will be released and that 320Mb will do nothing, even now GRAW would push that and thats a year old game.

I'm really confused about the Power consumption. The chart shows that the 320MB goes at about 180 W, but that atleast a 400W PSU is preferred. I'm thinking of getting the 320MB version, but I have a 375W PSU and now i'm wondering if I need to get a more powerful PSU. Am I missing something?

The chart isn't showing the power draw of just the card, that's the power draw of the entire system (not including monitor) as measured by a power meter at the wall socket.

Rather than recommending wattages video card manufacturers really should be recommending how many amps in specific rails you need, but this is harder for consumers to relate to. Bottom line is that if you have such a small PSU and you already have 2-3 hard drives, a CD-ROM, extra fans, and a relatively powerful CPU you want to make sure you don't overwork the PSU.

Hmm, so it appears I may be border line. I have 1 HD, a core2duo e6400, 2x512 667 RAM, 1 dvd-drive, a low-end sound card, and one main fan. That's assuming I can even fit the thing, gotta go measure. Otherwise I was considering a 256MB 7950GT. On Newegg I can get a Foxconn for $190 after rebate.

Yeah, the new G80 core is nice and the 8800 GTS is a strong card. But the lacking in extra memory only has that effect in the 1600x1200 and 2048x1536 resolutions. Not many people game at that high res, and you don't see much of a visual difference in graphics quality in higher res.

That 7950 card though could compete quite nicely with a GTS and would probably over clock to near the same speeds. Plus, you'll save a few bucks and some space in your case.

BFG 7900 GTX OC
Asus EN7950GT

The BFG card does perform a little better with the higher factory over clock. But running two of the Asus cards together would activate their LinkBoost feature and increase the bandwidth to them by up to 20%, which would probably out preform the BFG and come really close to the 8800 GTS.