Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT GV-NX88T512HP

For testing the Gigabyte GV-NX88T512HP, we used an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz) on an Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI motherboard. We also used 2GB of Corsair DDR2 (TWIN2X1024A-5400UL) and a 120GB Maxtor SATA hard drive. The GV-NX88T512HP was compared to an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, an ATI Radeon HD 3850 and an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro. Note: Because we are using both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 capable cards, we will not be enabling DX10 effects in the DX10 games in order to provide an apples to apples comparison.

HotHardware Test System Intel C2D Powered

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 Details: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/

3DMark06

Futuremark recently launched a brand new version of its popular benchmark, 3DMark06. The new version of the benchmark is updated in a number of ways and now includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests but also Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail, and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups the number of instructions to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting, and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted, and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

Despite its overclock, the GV-NX88T512HP doesn't score all that much better than the reference 512MB 8800 GT. The GV-NX88T512HP SLI configuration doesn't offer too much of a performance boost either interestingly, because the SM 2.0 test is CPU bound.  The SM 3.0 test, however, does show a significant gain.  Although the overall gains weren't huge, the GV-NX88T512HP is the best performer in our test line-up when it comes to 3DMark06.