XFX GeFORCE 8800GTX XXX Review - PAGE 9

Power Consumption

The XFX GeFORCE 8800 GTX XXX power consumption is the highest of any Nvidia card I've seen -- it even overcomes ATI's notorious video card power consumption. The BFG GeFORCE 8800 GTS runs with significantly less power so make sure you have a efficient power supply if you plan on getting a XXX (or three).  NVIDIA's minimum requirements state a 450W PSU for a single 8800 GTX but right on the box XFX recommends at least a 625W for a single XXX and 800W or greater (!) for SLI GTX XXX cards.  So those of you scoffing at 850W PSU's like the OCZ GameXStream and Cooler Master Real Power 850W might want to reconsider your position on the issue.

Final Thoughts

The XFX GeFORCE GTX XXX doesn't disappoint with its superior performance over the competition. During the course of testing, there were some hiccups with X3 possibly due to some game designs and driver issues but the XFX comes out on top for the most part. With some games such as Counter Strike Source, we didn't include the test scores because we were getting max FPS (constant 255FPS) on all resolutions. And in newer games such as Company of Heroes, a G80 is absolutely necessary if you want to play at the highest possible settings with decent framerates. The 79XX series can hardly run COH at all. The difference between the XXX and GTS at 1600x1200 high res were substantial in some game testing cases (Prey, Quake 4, etc.) but the GTS remained competitive.

Aside from the card's stellar gaming performance, the G80 core series boasts quite a bit of new features that make it a good buy over the previous generation -- even with its higher price. XHD, PureVideo etc. are all part of the G80 package with this card and should be a quintessential component of any new system with extreme HD functionality in mind. In addtion to the new features, the redesign of the unified shader architecture with stream processors in place of vertex and pixel shaders has really taken the G80 two steps forward.

The only kink in the G80's future is the eminent release of the ATI-AMD R600 core. Although it was first reported to have arrived even before this article was published, the powers that be have decided to delay the R600 in ordered to make more competitive with the G80. Right now the tentative release date for the R600 is March of 2007. If you are willing to roll on whether the R600 is better than the G80, you have a lot of patience and faith in ATI designers to match Nvidia's incredible feat with the G80. Currently (January 2007), with speculation of R600 at its peak and suggested X2800 XT(X) specs of 750MHz-1.0GHz core speeds with 512-1024MB GDDR4 RAM, DX10 compliance and "ATI's HyperMemory technology to tap into system RAM", it maybe a good idea to hold off an video card purchase until the R600 release.

In all honesty, there is going to be little fluctuation between performance from different card manufacturers. Between XFX, ASUS, BFG, PNY and whatever other acronym you can think of, when buying an 8800 GTX from any one of these companies you'll get performance that is relatively the same. In most cases, you should be more concerned with build quality and warrenties. However I can say, without a doubt, that XFX's XXX version of the 8800 GTX is the fastest card that I've ever seen. How much faster than the rest? Minimal in most cases. I'll highly recommend this card and the vanilla GTX version but it's upto the consumer to decide whether the $50 premium (MSRP $649) is worth knowing that they had the fastest card available for a month or so until other "deluxe" 8800 GTXs start showing up on retail shelves.  All in all, XFX have put together an excellent product backed by one of the best "no hassle" warranties in the business, and the 8800GTX XXX edition is definitely worth putting on your "check it out" list.