Preceding the launch of the GeForce 8800 series, NVIDIA was having great trouble with “hard launching” its products. For many of its new graphics products the company simply ended up with humble “paper launches”—a launch in which there is no actual hardware available for sale. A number of factors contributed to these troubled launches. NVIDIA might have been facing manufacturing and fabrication problems, translating to a limited of supply of hardware for manufacturers. Manufacturers might have also received actual working samples just a few days in advance of the launch, meaning they weren’t able to get a product out in time.

Whatever the reason behind the paper launches, NVIDIA placed a lot of hard work into making sure its GeForce 8800 launch didn’t suffer from the same problems. This time around, manufacturers received working product samples weeks in advance of the actual product launch. These extra few weeks provided ample time for manufacturers to assemble the cards and create a large stock, effectively taking them out of a position in which they would be rushing up to the last minute to get a finished product out the door. The 8800 launch also focused on having products shipped to retailers in large quantities before the actual launch. This move meant that consumers were able to purchase cards immediately on launch day. For the GeForce 8800, NVIDIA had a total of 15 retailers, online and offline, which were launch partners.

Despite the nearly flawless launch, one thing that was missing from store shelves was an overclocked GeForce 8800GTX/GTS. Although the absence of an overclocked 8800 video card is not a very large problem for consumers with knowledge of overclocking, factory overclocked video cards are a good choice for people with little overclocking knowledge and experience. In addition, since manufacturers usually certify their factory overclocks, they fall under the manufacturer’s warranty. This gives the best of both worlds. A consumer can receive overclocked performance while still being protected by warranty. Manually overclocking, on the other hand, will usually void your manufacturer warranty and manufacturers rarely, if ever, refund you if you damage your video card attempting to overclock it.

The reason no manufacturers were selling factory overclocked cards at launch was simply because NVIDIA forbade them from doing so. As of the end of December NVIDIA has, however, changed its stance and begun allowing manufacturers to sell overclocked versions of the GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS.

There are a number of strong reasons behind why NVIDIA chose to initially ban manufacturer overclocking of the 8800 series. A lot of NVIDIA’s decision was made to prevent its newly released GPUs from malfunctioning. This is based off of some problems the company experienced with overclocked 7900 video cards. In the past couple of months, in fact, many owners of overclocked G70 and G71 GPU-based video cards have been complaining of erratic behavior of their factory overclocked video cards. The cards continue to perform poorly at their overclocked levels despite the overclocked frequencies being certified by their manufacturers. Because of this, NVIDA decided to allow a couple of months to pass before allowing the overclocking of its new series. This decision has helped separate overclocking problems to get mixed up with launch problems; NVIDIA didn’t want consumers mistaking overclocking issues with launch issues. In addition, the decision provided manufacturers with more time to choose chips with the greatest overclocking ability.

XFX is one of NVIDIA’s most active partners in overclocking its products, most of which are usually targeted at the high-end market segment. With NVIDIA now allowing factory overclocking, it is only expected for XFX to be among the first manufacturers to offer an overclocked GeForce 8800 product. The new overclocked series by XFX is indicated by “XXX”. Products are available in both GTX and GTS versions. The new “XXX” series by XFX comes at frequencies 10% higher than NVIDIA’s default 8800 speeds. As can be expected, the overclocked frequencies are covered by warranty, a point we touched on earlier.

We will be analyzing two XFX cards today that come factory overclocked. One is based on an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX GPU and the other is based on an 8800 GTS GPU. The two overclocked video cards will be compared against currently available ATI and NVIDIA solutions. We will also be comparing the two cards against a single 8800 GTX that runs at default frequencies from Foxconn. The card’s exact name is the Foxconn FV-N88XMAD2-ON.