Information
Price
£457.00 inc.VAT
£457.00 inc.VAT
Manufacturer
EVGA
EVGA
Highlights
626MHz Core Clock, 2GHz Memory Clock
626MHz Core Clock, 2GHz Memory Clock
Lowlights
Full length fan
Full length fan
Related Links
www.evga.com
Reviews
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX ACS3
The EVGA 8800GTX ACS3 adds more power to the fastest card
The first GeForce 8800 GTX we saw deservedly received its performance crown from PC Plus a few months ago. Now the card has been out a while, cheaper variants with reduced clock speed, bandwidth and memory are on the market. EVGA is bucking this trend, since the 8800GTX ACS3 is an overclocked G80, shipping with a default memory speed of 2GHz and a core GPU clock of 626MHz. This is one of the fastest video cards we’ve seen yet.
EVGA has squeezed the extra megahertz out of the card, and kept stability by attaching a custom designed GPU heatsink. While this cooling solution is ugly and very large (make sure it will fit in your case), the same applies to the standard 8800 heatsink and fan. It offers enough cooling efficiency for EVGA to ship the card overclocked by default, with full warranty.
Aside from the new fan and increased clock speed, this is like any other GeForce 8800 GTX. That means 768MB of onboard GDDR3 memory, 128 unified stream processors, support for 16x antialiasing, 128-bit HDR rendering and a 384-bit wide memory bus.
As expected, the extra processing power results in higher frame rates than the already impressive performance of the stock 8800. With a 3DMark06 score of over 11,000, this GPU is undoubtedly capable of handling any 3D title out now, regardless of monitor resolution. The additional speed means you can raise the image quality at higher resolutions, while retaining respectable frame rates, enabling 16XAA at resolutions as high as 2560x1600.
The good news is that the price tag is not much higher than that of the standard GTX model, a difference of £70 as of writing. If you are going to spend the high premium commanded by the G80, you can push for more performance with some extra expenditure. But will you be happy with air cooling, when water cooling could have been more efficient?
Considering information is now trickling out about ATi’s R600 GPU, with some preliminary specifi cations that could push the GeForce 8800 into second place, a performance increase like this may help level the playing field. But until this next generation ATi chipset is in our hands, the EVGA 8800GTX ACS3 delivers yet another knockout blow to the competition’s line up.
EVGA has squeezed the extra megahertz out of the card, and kept stability by attaching a custom designed GPU heatsink. While this cooling solution is ugly and very large (make sure it will fit in your case), the same applies to the standard 8800 heatsink and fan. It offers enough cooling efficiency for EVGA to ship the card overclocked by default, with full warranty.
Aside from the new fan and increased clock speed, this is like any other GeForce 8800 GTX. That means 768MB of onboard GDDR3 memory, 128 unified stream processors, support for 16x antialiasing, 128-bit HDR rendering and a 384-bit wide memory bus.
As expected, the extra processing power results in higher frame rates than the already impressive performance of the stock 8800. With a 3DMark06 score of over 11,000, this GPU is undoubtedly capable of handling any 3D title out now, regardless of monitor resolution. The additional speed means you can raise the image quality at higher resolutions, while retaining respectable frame rates, enabling 16XAA at resolutions as high as 2560x1600.
The good news is that the price tag is not much higher than that of the standard GTX model, a difference of £70 as of writing. If you are going to spend the high premium commanded by the G80, you can push for more performance with some extra expenditure. But will you be happy with air cooling, when water cooling could have been more efficient?
Considering information is now trickling out about ATi’s R600 GPU, with some preliminary specifi cations that could push the GeForce 8800 into second place, a performance increase like this may help level the playing field. But until this next generation ATi chipset is in our hands, the EVGA 8800GTX ACS3 delivers yet another knockout blow to the competition’s line up.