XFX GeForce 8800 GT 256MB XXX Review

XFX GeForce 8800 GT 256MB XXX Edition

XFX GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (top) and the 256MB XXX (bottom)

Are you currently looking for an affordable alternative to the GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra for Crysis? If so, the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is pretty tough to beat right now. In some cases, the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB delivers performance that’s competitive with the 8800 GTX, all while costing hundreds of dollars less – generally anywhere from $245-$380 according to PriceGrabber.

The biggest obstacle that the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB currently faces has been availability: supply is so tight that cards sell out almost instantly when they pop up at online retailers. As a result, AMD’s Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon 3850 have proven popular with enthusiasts looking for an affordable alternative to the 8800 GT 512MB. The Radeon HD 3870 isn’t as fast as the 8800 GT 512MB, but it’s more affordable and delivers performance that’s generally comparable to AMD’s Radeon HD 2900 XT. The card also supports DirectX 10.1 and AMD’s CrossFire X quad-CrossFire technology. The Radeon HD 3850 is even cheaper, with 256MB cards typically selling for $179.

The Radeon HD 3850 completely outclasses other cards in the $150-$200 segment. In our Radeon HD 3870/3850 Performance Preview article we benchmarked the card against graphics cards such as the GeForce 8600 GTS, Radeon X1950 Pro, 2900 GT, and 2600 XT and found that the 3850 delivered better performance. Like the 3870, the Radeon HD 3850 also supports quad-CrossFire and DX10.1 -- and the board even ships with all 320 stream processors enabled -- the only difference is that the 3850 runs at slower clock speeds than the 3870.

Because of its solid feature set, aggressive pricing, and performance, the Radeon HD 3850 has been flying off retailers’ shelves; already you can find backordered 3850 cards on sites like Newegg, and OEMs are lining up to incorporate the GPU inside their PCs.

GeForce 8800 GT cards flanked by Radeon HD 3850 and 3870

The XFX GeForce 8800 GT 256MB XXX and Radeon HD 3850 256MB

To counter this growing threat, NVIDIA has concocted the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB takes the same G92 graphics core found in the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, only its has half the amount of GDDR3 memory, which has also been detuned to run at slower speeds. Whereas the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB boasts 800MHz memory (1.6GHz effective), the baseline specification for the 256MB variant calls for 700MHz (1.4GHz effective). The graphics core and stream processors run at 600MHz and 1.5GHz respectively on all GeForce 8800 GT GPUs.

Like the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB though, NVIDIA’s board partners are free to go beyond the baseline specifications. The XFX XXX Edition card we’re testing today for instance is clocked higher than the stock GeForce 8800 GT 256MB speeds…