Asus GeForce EN8800GT TOP 512MB

Verdict: Faster and cheaper than a 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS.

Nvidia's GeForce 8800 graphics card range is almost indecipherable at the moment. The confusion is caused mostly by the outgoing 320MB and 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS cards still cluttering up the shelves. Both of these cards have now been effectively replaced by the GeForce 8800 GT range, and a new £200 GeForce 8800 GTS that has 512MB of memory.

This Asus EN8800GT TOP is an overclocked 512MB GeForce 8800 GT, so it should rival the more expensive GTS for speed, while costing £25 less.

Considering that the Asus is only around £15 more expensive than a standard 8800 GT, it looks like a bargain. The card's massive box includes Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, the standalone expansion for the excellent RTS of 2006. Play.com is happily selling this game for £25, and Opposing Fronts is worth a play, even if you aren't an RTS fan. The box also mentions the inclusion of an Asus-made app called GamerOSD that promises to overclock your card on the fly without having to exit the game. We couldn't get this to work, however.

Disappointingly, the card looks like a vanilla 512MB 8800 GT with a standard cooler - albeit with an Opposing Fronts sticker. However, underneath the cooler, everything runs faster than it should.

The card has a core clock speed of 700MHz, 100MHz faster than a standard 512MB 8800 GT. The 512MB of GDDR3 memory has also been overclocked from 900MHz (1.8GHz effective) to 1GHz (2GHz effective), increasing the memory bandwidth from 57.6GB/sec to 64GB/sec. This matches the memory bandwidth of the costlier 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS.

Asus' next tweak is altogether more interesting though. A stock 512MB GeForce 8800 GT has its 112 stream processors clocked at 1.5GHz, but the EN8800GT TOP's stream processors have been ramped up to 1.75GHz. This is faster than the 1.625GHz stream processors in the 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS, even though the latter has 128 processors. Overclocking Nvidia stream processors yourself is a tricky process, involving editing and reflashing a card's BIOS using a tool such as NiBiTor, so it's great that Asus has done this for you. Ultimately, the EN8800GT TOP seems to be a match for the more expensive 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS on paper, and should therefore prove to be a great purchase.

The card performed well in Call of Duty 4, and we were able to play at 1,920 x 1,200 using 4x AA and maximum AF with a smooth minimum frame rate of 28fps. The Asus matches the speed of the £200 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS in this game.

Crysis, not surprisingly, was a tougher proposition. We've long since abandoned hope of any of the current crop of cards being able to handle Very High detail settings, so we run our Crysis test with all the graphics settings set to High. Even so, the game proved to be too much for the Asus - as it does for all but the most extravagant cards. Even at the lowly resolution of 1,024 x 768 without using any AA or AF, it only managed an unconvincing minimum frame rate of 25fps.

However, the Asus again equalled the impressive performance of a standard 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS in the Need for Speed: Pro Street test. A solid minimum frame rate of 39fps and a high average of 54fps in the 1,920 x 1,200 test is especially smooth in a racing game, so there was no chance of a jitter sending us careering off the road. A stock 512MB GeForce 8800 GT manages a minimum of 36fps and an average of 50fps, while the more expensive 512MB GeForce 8800 GTS delivers a 38fps minimum and 54fps average, which is a touch slower than the cheaper Asus.

Overclocking the card any further was a fruitless exercise. The card's fan whined as it tried to expel heat at its stock speeds, and even minor clock increases made the card unstable, indicating that Asus has been as aggressive as possible in its overclocking laboratory.

Conclusion

The Asus EN8800GT TOP offers the same performance as a reference 512MB 8800 GTS for £25 less. You also acquire a good game with it that would cost roughly £25 if you were to buy it separately. If you aren't overly bothered by the possibility of a whining fan (either because you crank up your speakers to 11 or fancy fitting a custom cooler) then this card is fantastic.