EVGA GeForce 8800 GT: SLI graphics work wonders with these cards

The time has come for my biannual “full-sweep” upgrade where I build myself a new system and pass along my previous system to the next in line and their previous system to the next and so forth. Every two years (roughly) I build a complete new system and upgrade all the computers in the house down the line. This way everyone in the house gets upgraded and so far no one has complained, which is good so I don’t have to build four brand new systems at once. In my newest build I opted to go with Nvidia instead of ATI because I wanted to use Windows Vista x64 and I had problems with ATI drivers on the last build. This one went without a hitch and I have a very fast and stable gaming system with dual GeForce 8800 GT graphics cards from EVGA running in an SLI configuration.


EVGA GeForce 8800 GT

There are several flavors of these cards out right now by many manufacturers. I went with EVGA for the price and the fact that I have never had a bad product from EVGA in my 20 years of building computer systems. The EVGA GeForce 8800 GT comes in several varieties also; mine is the 600MHz version of the PCI-Express 16x card sporting 512MB of DDR3 memory. The card is designed for SLI (Scalable Link Interface) and that is why I bought two, to take advantage of that. The motherboard I installed the cards on is also an EVGA, the nForce 680i SLI which I shall review another time.

Each card sports dual DVI outputs and can support two displays at once. However, most motherbaords do no support dual displays when using SLI to link two cards. My EVGA motherboard has a third PCI-Express 16X slot for a third graphics card which would enable me to use two displays (one with SLI and the other from the single graphics card).

Features

* 600MHz GPU Clock
* 400MHz RAMDAC
* 512MB DDR3 256-bit data width
* S-Video out
* PCI-Express 16x
* SLI Ready
* Full DirectX 10 Shader Model 4.0 support
* NVIDIA Quantum Effects physics processing technology
* True 128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting
* NVIDIA unified architecture with GigaThread technology
* NVIDIA PureVideo technology
* 16X fullscreen anti-aliasing
* Built for Windows Vista
* Two dual-link DVI outputs support two 2560x1600 resolution displays
* NVIDIA ForceWare Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
* OpenGL 2.0 support
* HDCP capable


In the Box

* EVGA GeForce 8800 GT graphics card
* EVGA drive installation CD (includes trial software)
* 2 DVI to VGA adapters
* HDTV cable
* 6-pin PCI-Express power adapter cable (adapts from standard Molex to 6-pin PCI-E)
* S-Video cable
* User’s guide
* EVGA stickers (2)

The EVGA GeForce 8800 GT graphics card comes with a limited lifetime warranty upon product registration.


Installation

I opted to install two cards to take advantage of the SLI technology. The system I installed them on is running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 and I had no problem with the NVIDIA Unified Driver installing directly from the CD. Unfortunately the cards do not come with the SLI bridge you need to set up the SLI connection, but my motherboard did so I was ok there.

Installing the cards was easy enough. You simply insert them into the PCI-Express 16X slots and screw them into place, then attach the SLI bridge adapter across the top. The CD that comes with the GeForce 8800 GT has the drivers needed for Windows 2000, XP and Vista including the 64-bit versions and all you have to do is insert the CD and the autorun will begin to install the appropriate driver.


Performance

I haven’t bought any new games in a while but the ones that I have are excellent with the two graphics cards connected by SLI. My graphics are crisp and noticeably smoother than with my old system and its Radeon X1950. My favorite game, CounterStrike: Source, is where I see a major improvement when many characters are on screen at once. I can even pump up the anti-aliasing to 16X without any lag or glitching. I did manage to get 3DMark06 to run with Windows Vista x64 so I ran the benchmark which I will share in a minute.

Game graphics and quality

The graphics in my games are very well rendered and even the most graphic intensive games, such as Doom3, run smoothly. I ran Doom3 with all the features turned on and resolution at 1280x1024 with 4x anti-aliasing and the frame rate was as fluid as water.

Black and White 2 is also smooth and the frame rate is better than with my old Radeon X1950 card. This makes it easier to throw fireballs and such more acurately. The quality of the graphics with anti-aliasing maxed out are absolutely gorgeous.

Flatout 2 is another game that looks fabulous with the anti-aliasing maxed out. The best part is, again, there is no lag because of low frame rates. My games are simply more fun to play when the graphics are tight and smooth. What is the point in having Bloom or HDR effects if you can't use them because of the lag? There is no worry of that with the GeForce 8800 GT cards in SLI concfiguration.

During game play the card does get rather warm but the cooling solution used by EVGA is sufficient to keep the card around 57 degrees Celsius (134 Fahrenheit) under load. The card idles at a cool 42 C (109 F).

On a side note, the reason I could not get 3DMark06 to run previously is due to the program OpenAL which is a program that installs with 3DMark06 for the Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 series sound cards. It said it couldn’t find a certain file each time I tried to run the benchmark program and I had to download a newer version from Creative in order to get it to run without crashing.

I was really impressed with the performance of the card during the benchmark because I could actually see the difference between the GeForce 8800 GT and my old Radeon card without even looking at the numbers. Here are the results of that benchmark.

3DMark06 Benchmark results


General information

* Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista
* System type: 64-bit
* Motherboard manufacturer: EVGA
* Motherboard model: 122-CK-NF68
* Hard drive model: Hitachi HDS721010KLA SCSI Disk Device

* Memory: 4096 MB
* Slot 1: 1024 MB
* Slot 2: 1024 MB
* Slot 3: 1024 MB
* Slot 4: 1024 MB


Processor information

* Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
* Processor clock: 2400 MHz
* Physical / logical processors: 1 / 4
* Multicore: 4 Processor Cores
* FSB: 266 MHz


Display information

* Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
* Graphics card vendor: Nvidia Corp
* Graphics memory: 512.0
* Core clock: 650 MHz
* Memory clock: 1800 MHz
* Driver name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
* Driver version: 7.15.11.7116
* Driver status: WHQL - Not FM Approved
* Linked display adapters: No


Benchmark settings

* Program Version: 3DMark06 Revision 1 Build 0
* Resolution: 1280x1024
* Full Screen Anti-Aliasing: None
* Texture Filtering: Optimal
* Vertex Shader Profile: 3.0
* Pixel Shader Profile: 3.0


Main test results

* 3DMark Score: 11974 3DMarks
* SM 2.0 Score: 4512
* SM 3.0 Score: 5876
* CPU Score: 3323


Test Results

Graphics Tests
* 1 - Return to Proxycon: 37.12 FPS
* 2 - Firefly Forest: 38.09 FPS

CPU Tests
* CPU1 - Red Valley: 1.11 FPS
* CPU2 - Red Valley: 1.6 FPS

HDR Tests
* 1 - Canyon Flight (SM 3.0): 69.21 FPS
* 2 - Deep Freeze (SM 3.0): 48.31 FPS


As you can see according to the information above, 3DMark06 did not use the SLI interface and still gave a very impressive benchmark. Just watching the benchmark program run was impressive. The Return to Proxycon game test was painfully glitchy with my previous graphics cards, even the Radeon X1950 had a hard time with that one. The EVGA GeForce 8800 GT handled it with no problems. My Radeon X1950 averaged less than 20fps (frames per second) while the 8800 GT was averaging 37fps.


Conclusion

The EVGA GeForce 8800 GT is a great graphics card for gaming enthusiasts and for the price versus performance you can’t beat it. My games are running smooth and look as good as ever. I bought mine from Global Computer, which is the same company as Tiger Direct, for $179.99 each when I bought a barebones system together at the same time. If you need a good graphics card check this one out, it’ll be worth your time.


Thanks for reading,
Gr8ful ;-)