XFX 8800GTS 640MB XXX Edition

A pricey GTS, is the extra squidge of factory overclocking worth the bucks?

With all of NVIDIA’s 8800 series video cards being manufactured by either Foxconn or Flextronics and then sold to vendors like XFX for re-branding or overclocking, the rise of factory overclocked video cards as a means of product differentiation has finally reached saturation point. XFX though seems to have mastered the art of the factory overclock.

The 640MB XFX 8800GTS XXX Edition comes factory overclocked with a core clock speed of 600MHz and a memory clock speed of 1900Mhz effective, up from the stock speeds of 500MHz and 1600MHz respectively. This makes this 640MB 8800GTS one of the fastest available at out-of the-box speeds. Sure, there is the possibility to overclock to these levels on a regular 640MB 8800GTS but as with all overclocking, definitive results are not guaranteed.

On our 3GHz dual core system with 2GB DDR2 RAM running at 1000MHz with timings of 4-4-4-10, the 8800GTS scored 8200 3DMark06 1280 x 1024. Running the ever popular Company of Heroes at resolutions of 1280 x 1024 and 1680 x 1050 scored 59.1fps and 59.8fps respectively, which shows the card’s ability to handle higher resolutions with ease.

We were able to push this card even further, right up to speeds of 660MHz core clock and 2200MHz effective memory clock using stock cooling, with no artifacts in 3DMark06. This surprised us as most top of the line overclocked cards, like this one, have already been pushed to their absolute limits. Aftermarket cooling would be recommended just to ensure stability at these somewhat crazy speeds.

Being one of the fastest factory overclocked 640MB 8800GTSs is a double-edged sword for XFX’s 640MB 8800GTS XXX Edition. On the one hand it has out-of-the-box performance that will wet your pants with joy, combined with great overclocking potential, depending on pure luck of course. But all this does come at a pretty hefty price, so high that most people would probably forgo the XFX 640MB 8800GTS XXX and either take the safe option and get a stock 640MB 8800GTS to overclock or pay that little bit extra and go for the beefier 8800GTX.