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.