Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512

Rounding things up

Nvidia has impressed us again with this launch, delivering performance that’s very similar to the GeForce 8800 GTX in scenarios where the GeFoce 8800 GTS 512 is not starved of memory bandwidth. It does this while fitting right in between the GeForce 8800 GT’s and 8800 GTX’s price points and from what Nvidia and its partners have told us, the cards should retail for around £220 (inc. VAT).

The reason I’m saying should is because retailers are still expecting customers to pay much as 15-to-20 percent more than the MSRP for Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GT with the cheapest we've found the card at being £172 (inc. VAT) if you can get hold of one at that price.

In fact, the cheapest we’ve found a GeForce 8800 GT card in stock for is just under £185 (inc. VAT) for Gainward’s stock-clocked 8800 GT Bliss. Meanwhile, the GeForce 8800 GTX currently sells for around £285 (inc. VAT), so if the retailers start charging a premium for the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 and if it edges closer to the £250 mark, the GeForce 8800 GTX comes into play.

The problem Nvidia has is that G92 is already in short supply because GeForce 8800 GT stock is so low across the board. Adding another product that uses the same GPU into the mix is surely going to make supply even tighter, and as a result prices of both products could quite easily skyrocket. If that does happen we could have a situation where the GeForce 8800 GTX becomes a more attractive proposition than it was when Nvidia dropped a GeForce 8800 GT-shaped bomb on it back at the end of October.

Even though we’ve got our fair share of scepticism, Nvidia has assured us that there are lots of G92 chips coming through from the fabs as we speak. This should help to ease the problems of keeping both the GeForce 8800 GT and GeForce 8800 GTS 512 in stock and as a result should help to keep prices reasonable, but I’m going to have to wait and see whether it actually materialises or not.

Final Thoughts…

Despite its horribly confusing naming scheme, Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTS 512 is a good product at face value, as it delivers unprecedented performance at the price point Nvidia is trying to hit. However, the problem Nvidia has is that if it doesn’t manage to hit the price point it’s given to us and the price edges up towards the £250 mark, it brings the GeForce 8800 GTX back into play.

That said, if the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 hits the ~£220 retail price we’ve been given, it will hit a sweetspot that will make it a viable alternative to a stock-clocked GeForce 8800 GT and should make it much better value than most of the pre-overclocked 8800 GTs out there. We said the GeForce 8800 GT delivered performance that rivalled the GeForce 8800 GTX, but the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 manages to take the fight to the GeForce 8800 GTX and in many scenarios it’s actually faster.

It’s worth making it clear that the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 is not a GeForce 8800 GTX killer and the GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra will still continue to rule the roost at high resolutions with anti-aliasing enabled. However, what Nvidia has done is made a similar level of performance available to those with monitors around 1680x1050 at a much lower price point – if you're looking at playing games on a 1920x1200 (or higher) screen, we'd still recommend the 8800 GTX.

Ultimately the decision of whether to buy the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 will come down to how much retailers want to charge for it. That’s something that Nvidia unfortunately cannot control, but it could easily be both the making and downfall of this product.

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What do these scores mean?

Cards from other partners:

As we mentioned during the review, we were also sent pre-overclocked cards from Asus and BFGTech in the run up to the launch, but unfortunately we didn't have time to benchmark them in time for this review. We've got some shots of the cards, boxes and specifications below and we'll be looking at them in the near future!

Asus EN8800GTS TOP/HTDP/512M

• Core Clock: 740MHz
  
• Shader Clock: 1800MHz
  
• Memory Clock: 2070MHz (effective)

BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB

• Core Clock: 675MHz
  
• Shader Clock: 1674MHz
  
• Memory Clock: 1940MHz (effective)
  
• Price: £256.01 (inc. VAT)