BFG Launches New 8800GT and 9600GT OCX TI Cards
June 3, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
Today BFG has introduced two new graphics cards into their ThermoIntelligence lineup: the 8800GT OCX TI and the 9600GT OCX TI. These cards join the 8600GTS and 8600GT as part of the ThermoIntelligence family which all boast some impressive overclocks while maintaining decreased temperatures over the stock cards.
How does BFG do this? Well, they have installed aftermarket heatsinks on both of these cards which not only dissipate heat quicker than their stock-clocked cousins but also do so at decreased noise levels. BFG has set up a good-looking little mini site for all of their custom cards which can be found here: www.thermointelligence.com.
Since both of these cards are launching the moment you read this, you should expect your favorite e-tailers to have them available shortly after launch.
We here at Hardware Canucks will have our review of BOTH these products up as soon as possible and judging from the clock speeds we will see below, these look to be some very interesting cards.
MSRP / projected street prices are as follows in USD:
9600GT OCX TI: $219 (MSRP) / $175 (street)
8800GT OCX TI: $269 (MSRP) / $210 (street)
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ECS 8800GT 256MB Graphics Card Review
June 2, 2008 by Cabro · Leave a Comment
ECS Elitegroup is no stranger to the PC world producing a huge number of motherboards for their own line as well as OEM. They took a small leave of absence after the introduction of their 680i-SLI motherboard series and didn’t release any more enthusiast based platforms. However, they did stay with putting emphasis on their graphics card lines releasing some pretty decent budget and upper performing cards.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see many, if any, here in the states… I asked their U.S. rep why that was and it basically came down to marketing access. Well, something must have got the gears of progress spinning because we’ve started seeing more and more ECS graphics cards beyond the budget models. Enter the ECS Elitegroup 8800GT 256MB Graphics Card.
Why would anyone consider selling a 256MB graphics card as opposed to 512MB? Besides affordability, they haven’t completely been lacking in performance. This is partly due to the sudden improvement in the graphics driver software as well as some graphics BIOS revisions that have opened up the cards to more performance. ECS has also released a new BIOS for their N8800GT 256MX PCI Express 2.0 Graphics Card which is starting to circulate like a good free online music album.
While I could go in to the deeper, more technical functions as to what has been unlocked or given new wings to offer better performance, most of you are more concerned with these questions. Why the new BIOS? (Which you already know the answer to.) Does it work? And, what kind of performance boost do we get?
EVGA 8800GT 512MB Superclocked Edition Review
October 29, 2007 by admin · Leave a Comment
Manufacturer Product Page: TBD
Product Number: 512-P3-N802-A1
Availability: Now
Warranty: Lifetime
Price: Click here to compare price
Intro
For the last two months there has been buzz in the industry and across the internet that both Nvidia and ATI were going to be releasing new cards in November. Both of these companies are trying extremely hard to target the lucrative market of consumers who are looking for great 3D performance at a sub-$300 price point. ATI launched the opening salvo with their HD2900Pro but supply shortages of this limited edition card dampened people’s enthusiasm towards it. Nvidia has now come into the fight with all guns blazing; today marks the official launch of their 8800GT 512MB and 256MB cards.
Many of us thought that Nvidia would release a minor refresh to one of their existing series in order to offer a good price to performance ratio. What we didn’t expect was an entirely new card and that is exactly what Nvidia has done with the 8800GT. Unfortunately, we hear that supply will be a bit tight within the first two weeks following the launch and initially only the 512MB version of the cards will be available with the 256MB version coming to us in mid to late November. One way or another, at a price of around $270CAD for a non-overclocked version of this card, the 8800GT has the potential to take the graphics world by storm if its specs can translate into real-world performance. Once again, this will be a hard launch since we know for a fact that quite a few Canadian retailers have already received stock (albeit limited for the first little while) and should be selling the card as you read this.
To give you an idea of how strained things are with supply, it was looking like we would not get one of these cards in time to release any kind of review. Then a mere three days ago we heard one of them was coming our way. Our review unit finally arrived…less than 48 hours before this review goes live. Unfortunately, after a mere 4 hours of sleep in the last two days there were still some things that have not been included here such as overclocking and some final game benchmarks. Expect full overclocking details as well as benchmarks for Stalker, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, R6:LV and Bioshock in our forum thread over the next few weeks.
Check here regularly for updates: Comment and Update Thread for EVGA 8800GT Review
Updates in thread linked above:
- Overclocking
- Overclocked benchmarks (incl. Crysis DX10)
Anyways, on to our review!!
