Instead of coming up with a new video card that will make whatever cards you have in tandem unnecessary, it has come up with a card that most people can think about affording, and that makes the competition (both Intel and AMD) think twice about completely gaining the mass market.

fast, cool, stable, efficient - what more could you want? Well, hardcore gamers will want 2.

The 8800 GT is a card built on a smaller process than its like numbered brethren, which means, for many, it will not suck the very last watt from your power supply, or put out such heat that your case fans will have to sound like the helicopter from ‘Another Brick in the Wall’.

that slogan works for video now, as well as games!

The card, with all 754 million transistors, will outperform any of the current line from AMD, including the 2900 XT, it includes all of the full motion video acceleration capabilities that were omitted from the 8800 line until now. This is good news to those, like me, who bought an 8600GTS, because video performance was more important than ultimate gaming performance. nVidia seems to get this now, but it remains to be explained why it took so long for the company to wake to this fact. Perhaps all the talk about Intel, and its unwillingness to be an also-ran in the graphics arena has spurred the heads at nVidia to reassess what allows innovation. It’s all the dollars made from Joe Average, and his purchase of what becomes middle of the road.

Perhaps, in a single stroke, with a single card designation, nVidia has reinvented what is known as middle-of-the-road, and moved the price and performance points incrementally upward. This has the effect of making the company more money, as many will upgrade immediately to this new middle ground, and others who have been put below middle with this card will move further up the chain. It also puts onboard graphics well out of the mainstream for any gaming whatsoever, effectively assuring upgrades from almost all home users of light gaming and home theater machines. The benefits of the speed of this card on big displays, like the Gateway XHD3000, will make small room home theater a beautiful experience.

The benchmarks are impressive…

SINGLE-CARD BENCHMARKS   RADEON 2900 XT (512MB) GEFORCE 8800 GT 512MB
3DMARK06 GAME 1 (FPS)       22.6                                  26.4
3DMARK06 GAME 2 (FPS)       21.0                                  20.3
QUAKE (FPS)                          85.6                                  83.7
FEAR (FPS)                             66.0                                  71.0
SUPREME COMMANDER (FPS)  27.9                                   29.1

DUAL-CARD BENCHMARKS     RADEON 2900 XT (512MB) GEFORCE 8800 GT 512MB
3DMARK06 GAME 1 (FPS)       44.1                                  47.0
3DMARK06 GAME 2 (FPS)       42.3                                  37.2
QUAKE (FPS)                        145.7                                101.3
FEAR (FPS)                           113.0                                120.0
SUPREME COMMANDER (FPS)  44.7                                  33.4

…and anyone who has seen the video performance of the 8500 and 8600 series knows how much this changes things when choosing a card for video performance.

AMD, Intel, and S3 (if that company still cares) all have a big jump to make to catch up to this one.

-

Tags: nvidia, 8800gt, full motion video acceleration, 65 nm process, home theater, amd, 2900 xt, efficiency, thermal load