The first quarter of 2007 is bound to be a very eventful and interesting one for NVIDIA. For three months now NVIDIA's GeForce 8 series has had the pleasure of being the only DirectX 10 graphics hardware on the market. With ATI's previous generation X1950XTX as the only partially capable competitor to NVIDIA's new line of hardware, the GeForce 8 series hasn't faced any true next generation competition. This is all about to change, however. With the final release of AMD's ATI R600 GPU creeping closer and closer, NVIDIA is preparing for what we expect will be an AMD onslaught. The first move NVIDIA has made to counter the R600 GPU is to expand its DirectX 10 graphics product line.

So far, only two versions of the GeForce 8 series have been released; NVIDIA's flagship product, the GeForce 8800 GTX, and the slightly downscaled GeForce 8800 GTS. The pricing of these cards don’t fall into the price range of all consumers. Top of the line 8800 GTX video cards are priced around $550, and even the downscaled 8800 GTS will cost you around $400. In response to the impending launch of the R600, NVIDIA has begun gradually introducing new versions of the 8800 series.

Although it will be a while before NVIDIA has a complete lineup of video cards based on its new architecture with a video card for every market segment, today we will be looking at NVIDIA’s next version of the GeForce 8800 series, the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB.

The GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB comes at a perfect time for NVIDIA. DirectX 10 along with Windows Vista has been available since the end of January, and next generation game titles, although not released just yet, are right around the corner. More and more developers are starting to adopt DirectX 10 for their next generation games, and many PC gamers are looking for a path to upgrade their video cards to DirectX 10 hardware. This presents a large barrier for many of us who don’t have very large budgets.

This is where the GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB steps into the picture. The new part from NVIDIA has half the memory of the GeForce 8800 GTS, which was released in November. The 320 MB GTS, however, does not have any less memory chips than the 640 MB GTS. Instead, NVIDIA chose to reduce each memory chip’s density. Using this approach, NVIDIA has been able to maintain the 320bit memory bus-width of the 640 MB 8800 GTS. All other technical aspects of the card are identical to the GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB version; only the memory density of each memory chip has been reduced.

As is evident in the table, nothing other than the amount of memory chips has been changed in the move from the 640 MB GTS to the 320 MB GTS. This aspect alone will make this review very interesting since we will be able to directly see the effect memory density has on performance. Since there is such little difference between the 8800 GTS 640 MB and the 8800 GTS 320 MB, there is little need in completely reintroducing the architecture of the video card. If you would like to read a brief recap of the GeForce 8800 architecture, please refer to our previous article.

The Gainward Bliss 8800 GTS 320 MB sample that was sent to us for review had already been overclocked significantly by Gainward. The core had been overclocked to 550 MHz, only 15 MHz less than stock speeds. The 320 MB of memory had also been overclocked to 880 MHz, 1,760 MHz effective. The overclock is 160 MHz faster than the default 1,600 MHz memory speed of the reference board.

Gainward is not the only NVIDIA partner that has decided to ship factory overclocked 8800 GTS 320 MB video cards. In fact, many manufacturers have overclocked their video cards in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the competition.

The card itself isn’t very different in terms of layout or design. It uses the default NVIDIA reference board layout, and has a cooling solution to match it. The card still requires a 6-pin PCIe power input, for which the connector can be seen in the top right of the first photograph. As can be expected the card also features an SLI connector. Even though the card is overclocked, evidently Gainward doesn’t believe the overclock warrants a different cooling solution, and so again we have a standard NVIDIA cooling design. This is similar to what we saw in a previous review over the XFX overclocked 8800 GTX/GTS video cards.

Gainward packages a couple of accessories with its card, however, the supplied equipment is nothing very noteworthy. Gainward was kind enough to include Cyberlink’s PowerDVD 6 and DVD Solution, a driver CD, and two DVI-to-VGA adapters. In addition, a Molex to 6-pin PCIe power input connector is also included along with an installation manual and a composite video connector.

To calculate the power consumption of the video cards, we measured the power draw of the entire system. We used the same exact hardware for each test platform. The components are listed below:

• motherboard: Abit AW9D-Max ( Intel 975X chipset)
• memory: Corsair CM2X1024 6400 (3-4-3-9) @ 800 MHz; 2x1 Gbyte
• hard disk: Western Digital WD1600JS - Serial ATA - 7.200 rpm, 160 Gbytes
• processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
• power supply unit: Tagan TurboJet TG1100-U95 (1,100 Watt)

We tested the power consumption at two power states; idle and full load. Idle consisted of a blank desktop loaded in Windows XP Service Pack 2.0 with the bare minimums of processes running. Full Load tests were calculated with ScienceMark 2.1 running at a resolution of 2560x1600.

In both instances, we see the 320 MB GeForce 8800 GTS drawing in more power than the 640 MB GTS reference board. It is important to remember, however, that the 320 MB sample we were testing with had been clocked beyond the default frequencies. The reference 640 MB 8800 GTS, on the other hand, had not been overclocked.

To gain more of an idea of the true power consumption of the 320 MB 8800 GTS, we also included the power consumption of XFX’s overclocked 640 8800 GTS in our tests. The overclocked 640 MB XFX GTS card was running at the same GPU frequency as our 320 MB sample, while its memory was clocked 40 MHz higher. As can be seen, in both cases the overclocked 640 MB GeForce 8800 GTS consumed more power, and ended up consuming nearly 20 more Watts under full load.

The test system we chose is the same one that we have used in our recent video card reviews. We chose the fastest parts for our test system in order to impose as little a bottleneck as possible:

The chosen operating system was Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 updated with all fixes as of October 2006. For NVIDIA solutions we used Forceware 97.2 drivers while for ATI solutions we used Catalyst 6.11 drivers.

display Dell 3007WFP

A fundamental part of reviewing next generation video cards is the display, and so we chose to test using the Dell 3007WFP. We test using a variety of resolutions in this article, but the smallest resolution we test with is 1280x1024. Anisotropic filtering is always set at 16x, primarily because we want to stress these video cards as much as we possibly can.

Gainward Bliss 8800 GTS 320 Mbytes Golden Sample
overclocked frequencies

Gainward Bliss 8800 GTS 320 Mbytes Golden Sample
forcing it to standard Geforce 8800 GTS 320 Mbytes speeds also forces shader speed to be less than default values

As we discussed earlier in the article, the sample Gainward sent us had been pre-overclocked. Although we would have been able to lower the sample’s memory and core frequencies to default frequencies using Riva Station, this would have also resulted in the stream processors’ frequency also being automatically lowered to below default speeds. Because of this, we opted upon keeping the overclocked frequencies of the card throughout our tests.

The 3D Mark 2006 fill rate benchmark benefits from the greater clock frequencies of the Gainward 8800 GTS 320 MB. The benchmark performs better with the 320 MB card than with the 640 MB card, however, it is important to remember that the 320 MB card’s overclock is what gives it its lead in this test.

The two 8800 GTS cards perform nearly identically in the vertex shader tests. The picture changes in the pixel shader tests, and we see a slight performance advantage with the 320 MB 8800 GTS. Again, we strongly suspect this is a result of the overclock the 320 MB part has.

We ran the Shadermak 2.1 test full screen at a resolution of 2560x1600. The two GTS parts perform nearly identical to each other. As this test heavily focuses on the stream processors, memory barely makes a difference. Since both parts have stream processors that operate at the same frequency of 1.2 GHz, their performance ends up pretty much the same.

Since there is a built-in performance test in F.E.A.R., we simply used the built-in utility to test the video cards. We tested over a broad range of resolutions. Since 1280x1024 LCD displays are still quite common, we decided to also test a that resolution. The test was run on a 1.08 Version of F.E.A.R. Our first test consists of a combination of 4x AA and 16x AF, while our second test has Soft Shadows enabled.

At lower resolutions both GTS cards perform very similar to each other with F.E.A.R. having a very light performance advantage of 2 FPS at 1280x1024 with the 320 MB GTS. As we move to higher resolutions, it is easy to see that F.E.A.R. benefits from the extra 320 MB that the GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB has to offer as we see it perform around 10 FPS faster at 1600x1200 and 1900x1200. At the highest resolution nearly all test cards experience performance reductions, and again the two 8800 GTS cards perform similarly. None of the tested parts have playable performance at 2560x1600, and the Gainward GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB is no exception, coming in last at 15 FPS.

Average frame rates don't always tell the whole story, so to provide another aspect of the tests we also recorded the minimum FPS each card had while running the built-in time demo. A general trend for the 320 MB GTS is that the minimum FPS halves each time the resolution is increased. F.E.A.R. seemingly benefits quite a lot from extra memory at 1920x1200, as the 640 MB 8800 GTS' minimum FPS is 11 frames higher than the Gainward 320 MB GTS. Since the Gainward 320 MB 8800 GTS is actually faster than the 640 MB card, we can only point to the smaller memory as the source for the lower performance.

Soft Shadows has always had a large performance hit on GPUs, but we see an overall increase in performance here since we have disabled anti-aliasing and anisotropic-filtering. GeForce 8800 GPUs perform well with this setting enabled, and this test confirms that trait. F.E.A.R. performs nearly identically with the two 8800 GTS cards, and there is a very small performance difference between the two cards throughout the tests. At 1600x1200, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600 the Gainward 320 MB 8800 GTS holds a very small lead in FPS, often hovering at a small 1 FPS advantage. At the highest resolution, however, we see its lead slip and the card fall behind the reference board 1 FPS. For the most part, these performance differences are negligible.

Oblivion is a very demanding game when it comes to graphics power, and thus one of our favorite titles to test cards with. Since there is no built-in benchmarking utility, we had to resort to FRAPS to observe the frames per second. All quality settings were placed at their maximum levels, the only exception being HDR which we left disabled.

With 4x anti-aliasing along with 16x anisotropic filtering enabled, the 320 MB 8800 GTS cannot offer any playable performance at 2560x1600. Its average frames per second are 1/3 that of the 640 MB 8800 GTS, and since the 640 MB version actually runs at slower operating frequencies, the larger memory size is the only advantage the default 640 MB 8800 GTS holds over the 320 MB version that is able to result in increased performance.

It is important to take note that there might be slight differences in how the in-game Oblivion tests were executed for each card. Although we made sure to keep the tests as consistent as possible, there might have been small variations betwen each test as it is nearly impossible to perform each test identically. On the whole, however, the tests were very similar.

As can be seen in the results, for the most part there weren't many large shifts in frames per second for the 320 MB 8800 GTS. The frame rate stayed betweeen 10 and 15 throughout the course of the entire test.

We also tested at 2560x1600 with no anti-aliasing enabled, therefore making performance less dependant on memory size.

Anti-aliasing is definitely a feature that is very dependant on the memory size. The picture changes completely when AA is disabled. Performance peaks near 70 frames per second, and for only two seconds it goes under 40 FPS. For the most part the frame rate is in the range of 51.4 frames per second.

Lowering the resolution to 1600x1200 and placing anti-aliasing at 4x, we are able to see just how much performance is impacted by using higher resolutions. With anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering both enabled, Oblivion still performs better with the 320 MB GeForce 8800 GTS than it would have at 2560x1600 with no AA and 16xAF. High resolutions and anti-aliasing are both memory hungry, and so either AA should be turned off if a higher resolution is desired, or 1600x1200 should be used if enabling anti-aliasing is preferred.

For our Half-Life 2 benchmarks we tested at a variety of resolutions, including 1280x1024, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. The first and second tests on this page were tested with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering enabled. The second test on the page was run with HDR enabled along with 16x anisotropic filtering. The demo we used for the Half-Life 2 Episode 1 tests was trdem1 provided by The TechReport. Performance was tested with Half-Life 2: Loast Coast using HOCBench at resolutions of 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.

The results are definitely very interesting. When 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic are enabled in Half-Life 2 Episode 1, the game actually performs better with the 320 MB 8800 GTS at lower resolutions. However, as we move to 2560x1600 we see a large drop in performance, and the 320 MB 8800 GTS ends up at 48.6 frames per second, 105.4 frames per second less than at 1920x1200. The terrible performance scaling seen here as the video card moves on to higher resolutions is no doubt a downside of the smaller memory the card comes equipped with. With anti-aliasing enabled at such high resolutions, the 320 MB 8800 GTS cannot handle the stress as efficiently as the 640 MB card.

With HDR enabled and AA disabled, the picture changes significantly for the 320 MB 8800 GTS. In fact, the video card is able to outperform the 640 MB 8800 GTS at every resolution, including 2560x1600. The card's victory can be accredited to its faster core/memory frequencies, and since Half-Life 2 is less memory intensive with AA disabled, the card is able to perform quite well at 2560x1600. Performance scaling is also improved, and although we still do see a drop in FPS, it is on par with the 640 MB 8800 GTS' performance.

With Lost Coast, the picture changes completely for the 320 MB 8800 GTS yet again. Enabling 4x AA and 16x AF creates an extreme bottleneck for the 320 MB card, and the game has a large drop in performance moving from 1280x1024 to 1920x1200. Performance stays relatively the same in the move to 1600x1200, but setting the resolution to 2560x1600 drops performance all the way down to 14 frames per second. Interestingly enough, though, the 320 MB 8800 GTS actually ends up with lesser performance than the GeForce 7900 GTX, which is only a 256 MB part.

Prey - X3 Reunion - Splinter Cell Chaos Theory

Our copy of Prey was a retail version of the game, and we benchmarked using HOCBench with the hwzone demo. We tested at 1280x1024, 1600x1200 and 2560x1600 with 4x AA and 16 AF.

The 320 MB Gainward 8800 GTS, although overall performance is less than the 640 MB counterpart, ends up performing very similar to the 640 MB 8800 GTS. The margin of difference is further reduced at 2560x1600, resulting in only a 2.6 frame per second difference.

The Rolling Demo of X3 Reunion, which is freely distributed, comes with a built-in benchmarking utility which captures the core compnonents of the game. We tested at 1280x1024, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 with 4x AA and 16x AF enabled.

For the most part the 320 MB 8800 GTS is able to perform similar to the 640 MB version, however, as the resolution is increased to 2560x1600 the performance drops significantly to 27.5 frames per second, 11 FPS less than the 640 MB 8800 GTS. Again, this drop can be accredited to the smaller amount of video memory.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory was tested at resolutions of 1280x1024, 1600x1200 and 2080x1536 with HDR enabled and anisotropic filtering set at 16x. Before testing , we applied the 1.05 patch and tested using the Lighthouse demo.

With HDR and anisotropic filtering both enabled we don't see much of a difference between the 320 MB and 640 MB card, and the Gainward 8800 GTS is actually faster at 2560x1600. This indicates that anti-aliasing enabled at high resolutions is usually the cause of a large performance penalty, but when disabled the bottleneck on the video card is effectively reduced resulting in higher performance at 2560x1600.

We tested in the Branchester scene of Serious Sam 2 with the Version 2.070 patch applied. All testing was done using the HOCBench utility at resolutions of 1280x1024, 1600x1200 and 2048x1536. In one case we had 4x AA and 16x AF enabled and in the other we had enabled HDR along with 16x AF.

In both cases the 320 MB 8800 GTS ends up performing quite less compared to the 640 MB version, however, with HDR enabled performance on the whole is much lower. The combination of HDR and 16x AF results in a large performance penalty at high resolutions, and overall the 320 MB 8800 GTS is the lowest performing part in the second test.

Based on the tests we ran today, the Gainward Bliss 8800 GTS 320 MB successfully lowers the price of DirectX 10 graphics and brings quality performance to the mid-range market segment. We tested at a variety of resolutions and settings, including 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1200 2080x1536, and 2560x1600, with anisotropic filtering, high dynamic range, or anisotropic filtering enabled. All in the entire card had solid performance throughout. There were some situations, however, in which the smaller amount of memory resulted in a performance penalty.

In most cases without anti-aliasing enabled the card is able to perform at playable frame rates. With anti-aliasing at 4x along with anisotropic filtering at 16x performance is greatly affected at higher resolutions, especially 2560x1600. This trait is reflected in our Oblivion tests. With no AA and 16x AF the card performs quite well in Oblivion at 2560x1600, only having occasional drops in FPS. Placing AA at 4x changes the picture completely. Performance greatly drops, and the average frames per second hovers at 13 with a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 16. This is definitely a downside of the reduced amount of onboard memory, which severely handicaps the card in this situation.

On the other hand, at lower resolutions such as 1280x1024, still a very popular resolution for gamers, the 320 MB 8800 GTS can handle pretty much any game with AA and AF. At this resolution setting, the 320 MB 8800 GTS is able to consistently perform well, and all average frames per seconds are playable. The card is even able to handle F.E.A.R. with soft shadows enabled at 1280x1024.

It is important to keep in mind that our test card was overclocked during all tests. In games that were less memory intensive, this characteristic sometimes was able to give the Gainward 320 8800 GTS MB an edge over the default 640 MB 8800 GTS, resulting in increased performance. Since we did not test at default speeds, we cannot guarantee that boards clocked at their default values will be able to have identical performance. As we stated earlier, however, many other manufacturers are also selling overclocked cards, which is something to look for if you decide to purchase this card.

For the most part, the 8800 GTS 320 MB proves to be an excellent value. Currently, the card is priced at $300, $100 less than the 8800 GTS 640 MB. In most cases the card performs on par with its bigger brother, the 8800 GTS 640 MB, but as we move to higher resolutions with AA enabled the demand for memory can at times overwhelm it. Despite this, the card still offers excellent performance for the price and should be able to satisfy most gamers who don't own extremely large monitors and run their games at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. Although you might be able to run some games at reasonable frame rates at even higher resolutions, don't expect to be able use AA at that level.

As the GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB is based on the G80 architecture, it also supports DirectX 10 adding more lasting value to it. This feature makes it a wise investment for gamers who already own Windows Vista and want to play DirectX 10 games once they begin making their way to the market. Unfortunately, no next generation game titles have been released yet, and so we are not able to actually test the future performance of this video card, or any other card for that matter. One more item that needs to be pointed out is that NVIDIA has yet to perfect drivers for the GeForce 8 series. This means that as the drivers mature, in some instances we might see the GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB make some gains in performance.