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.