Join Club3D! (Club-3D 8800GTS)

Member Name: hackersuprciao

Product:	Club-3D 8800GTS
Date:	02/02/08 (468 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great price:performance ratio.

Disadvantages: Fan can be noisy

If you want a DirectX10 compatible video card and fantastic performance, the Club 3D 8800GTS 320MB is the piece of kit for you.

DirectX10:
Direct X 10 is Microsoft's latest in the Direct X series. It's worth noting that to use Direct X 10 you must own Windows Vista and obviously a Direct X 10 capable video card. What Direct X 10 actually means for games is that they simply look better. For the moment I don't think that Direct X 10 is a major selling point, just a nice thing to have, as there are few games that support it and performance when Direct X 10 mode is enabled is greatly decreased.
In the box:

In the box you will get: The video card itself: this is a big card and requires 2 expansion slots in your case so make sure you have room before purchasing, 2 DVI-VGA adaptors for people who are still using VGA, Installation leaflet, A component adaptor which allows you to hook up the card to an HDTV, Driver CD and A free Club 3D Zap-TV USB TV Tuner which allows you to watch freeview on your PC! The only thing I felt was lacking was no Instruction Manual so if you had any difficulty installing the card your basically stuck as the installation leaflet is very basic.
Features:

The features of note on this card include 2 DVI connectors which allow you to hook up two monitors at the same time which can be very useful, and doubles your work/game space. Nvidia Purevideo technology improves video playback by making colours in video more natural, along with video hardware acceleration to improve playback of HD video such as Blu-ray and HD DVD. The card is also SLI compatable which means (if your computer supports it) you can add in a second video card to improve performance and of course the card is also DirectX 10 compatible.
My Experience:

Installing the card into my PC was very easy, I have a large case so it fit easily, for reference the card is about 9 inches long and will take up 2 expansion slots in your case, the drivers were very easy to install and with a single reboot I was ready to enjoy my games.
I am very happy with the performance this card has given me. I can play all my video games, from Call of Duty 4 to Crysis at high levels of detail. To benchmark my card I ran it through the 3Dmark06 test and scored 9872, for comparison my old machine (2.6GHZ Celeron, 768RAM, ATI 9550) scored 376! The software that comes with the card is also very accessible and includes features to make your older games look better as you can force Anti-aliasing (which smoothes the jagged edges you get in some games) Filtering (which improves image quality and makes things appear more 3D) and Vsync (which eliminates screen tearing). You can also download Nvidias ntune software to increase the performance of the card by overclocking (basically means makes it faster) although Nvidia make this software any overclocking is done at your own risk.

Issues:
Nothing is totally problem free and this card isn't an exception. The card only features 320MB of memory which is good until you try to game at higher resolutions of 1680x1050+, there simply isn't enough memory to properly render the game so you will get major slowdown. The fan on this card is also rather noisy but if you have your sound turned up it won't bother you and this problem can be solved using the software provided to slow the fan speed but it's not advised as you may run into heat issues. If you like to leave your PC on overnight you'll probably want to reconsider as the constant whirr is very annoying.

Price:
This card will cost you around £150 and should be available from your local PC store as well as online retailers such as ebuyer.com. It's worth noting that there is a 640MB version of this card available for around £200 which is probably the one for you if you like to game at higher resolutions.

System Requirements:
Pentium or Athlon or compatible
128MB of memory
Free PCIe (x16) slot
2 free slots
CD Rom drive to install the drivers
400 watt Power supply for a single card or 650 watt for SLI
Windows 2000/XP/Vista *DX10 only for Vista*
Realistically if you only have a Pentium 1 with 128MB of memory don't bother! You'll want to pair this card up with a dual core processor and 2GB of memory if you want to realise its potential.

Tech Specs:
Graphic Processor NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
GPU Clock Speed 500 MHz
RAMDAC Speed 400 MHz Key Features Card Interface PCI Express
Compatibility PC Memory Installed Memory 320 MB
Memory Tech GDDR3 SDRAM
Memory Data Width 320-bit
Installed Memory / Technology 320 MB (GDDR3 SDRAM)
Memory Bandwidth 64 GB/sec Technical Features Form Factor Plug-in card
Max. Screen Resolution 2560 x 1600
Refresh Rate at Max Res 60 Hz @ 2560 x 1600
Fill Rate 24 Bilion pixels/sec Input / Output Display Interface DVI x 2
Output Interface S-Video * HDTV Out

Overall:
I am very satisfied with my Club 3D 8800GTS 320MB video card, it hits the sweet spot offering fantastic performance for your money. I didn't expect to get this but the free TV tuner is a fantastic bonus. The only thing letting it down is the noise issue. 4/5

Summary: Fantastic DX10 compatible card.

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