GeForce 8800GT: Chaintech versus XFX

The GeForce 8800GT series is conquering the market at an increasing pace, tempting the buyers by its high enough performance at a moderate price. No wonder that most manufacturers are in a hurry to supply their own versions of 8800GT video cards onto the market as soon as possible. But apart from the striving, something more is needed which would draw the buyer's attention to a specific video card. This time, we'll see which marketing methods were used by Chaintech and XFX to attain that goal.

Chaintech 8800GT

The video card by Chaintech is shipped in a light-colored box depicting a fairy-tale girl that brings us back to the memories of childhood.

The reverse side of the box is more formidable and gives an idea of the alignment of forces on the front of video cards with a table.

The table presents a classification of NVIDIA video cards starting with the GeForce 7 family. Quite possibly, it will help somebody to choose a video card in future because it gives a clear and concise idea of suitability of a specific GPU to a specific application.

The designers have placed the image of the girl not only on the box but on the video card itself and the user's guide. However, the package bundle of Chaintech 8800GT includes not only the image of the fairy-tale beauty but the following useful items as well:

• power supply adapter for PCI-E video cards;
• DVI>D-sub adapter;
• S-Video connection cable;
• S-video>Component out adapter;
• drivers CD;
• installation manual.

As you can see, the cooling system on Chaintech 8800GT is different from that on the reference GeForce 8800GT. The fan has turned larger, and the metal lid is fastened to the radiator with screws and not latches as it used to.

The color of the PCB has turned blue.

The reverse side of the video card has lost the NVIDIA logo, but in all the remaining that is a regular GeForce 8800GT which uses onboard G92 with 112 streaming processors and 512 MB of DDR3 assembled of eight Qimonda chips of 1.0 ns access time.

The processing quality of the copper insert in the cooling system is good enough, however, you won't be able to use it as a mirror.

We were unable to remove the lid from the cooling system because of the tightly fitted screws, but its contents is unlikely to differ from the predecessor. The heat conductive washers have been changed - they are now more durable and able to survive several disassemblies of the cooling system.

Taking a closer look at XFX 8800GT

On the box of XFX 8800GT, there is an image of a werewolf (a wolf or a dog ?). As the label suggests, that is an "ALPHA DOG EDITION" version of GeForce 8800GT. The evidence of formidable specifications is seen from the GPU and memory frequencies increased from 600/1800 MHz to 670/1950 MHz, respectively.

You can see the video card through the window on the reverse side of the box, with the key specifications of XFX 8800GT depicted nearby.

The package bundle of XFX GeForce 8800GT is rich enough:

• a label on the door saying "I’m gaming, do not disturb";
• full version of the game "Company of Heroes";
• two DVI>D-sub adapters;
• power supply adapter for PCI-E video cards;
• S-Video connection cable;
• S-video>Component out adapter;
• drivers CD;
• installation manual.

Beware of the dog! It may happen that you'll be really upset once you've come across the obstacles during the game...

This time, there aren't any differences from the reference video card. The cooling system is also identical and was examined earlier.

We see the already familiar G92 with 112 streaming processors and 512 MB of DDR3 assembled of eight Qimonda chips of 1.0 ns access time.

Comparing the cooling systems

Let's take another look at the cooling systems of Chaintech 8800GT and XFX 8800GT.

The fan of the Chaintech video card is a bit larger than that in the XFX. Let's find out how that affected the cooling system operation. We'll do that with the game Oblivion with the maximum settings, including 16xQ-antialiasing and 16x AF. Prior to starting the game, we set the frequencies of both the cards to a common value.

The XFX video card warmed up to 75 C, with the fan rotational speed staying at 1600 RPM.

The Chaintech video card warmed up to 80 C, with the fan rotational speed staying at 770 RPM. It turns out that the cooling systems do their job equally well, with the only difference that the Chaintech version uses a slower fan.

Overclocking

We overclocked the Chaintech 8800GT and XFX 8800GT using the RivaTuner utility.

It allows changing the core and shader unit speeds in GeForce 8800GT independently, due to which the frequency does not limit the frequency potentials of the other GPU units.

During the overclocking, we had to raise the fan's speeds since the cooling systems installed on GeForce 8800GT are not suitable for overclocking. We overclocked both the video cards to an approximately the same level - the Chaintech 8800GT took 740/1800/2000 MHz, whereas the XFX 8800GT was able to overcome 740/1800/2200 MHz for the core/shader unit/memory, respectively.

Benchmarking and conclusions

It is now time we took a look at the test results. This is the test-bench configuration:

For GeForce 8800GT, we used ForceWare 169.02; for GeForce 8800GTX - ForceWare 163.75, and for Radeon HD3870 – Catalyst 7.11.

We start the tests with 3DMark suites.

The 8800GT by Chaintech and XFX take a lead. No trace has left from the bygone greatness of the GeForce 8800GTX. That is so if we use the default settings.

At Call of Duty 4, the video cards 8800GT start giving in to GeForce 8800GTX as the resolutions go up, because of the narrower 256-but memory bus width.

At Call of Juarez, the video cards go approximately on par with GeForce 8800GTX, with the Chaintech 8800GT a bit slower, and the XFX 8800GT a bit faster.

Evidently, at Crysis the frequency of the shader unit for GeForce 8800GT is as favorable as the wider memory bus in GeForce 8800GTX.

At Need for Speed Carbon, all GeForce 8800 go approximately on par, however, the increased frequencies make the XFX video card a leader.

At Need for Speed Pro Street Racing, the alignment of forces is about the same, however, as the resolutions go up the video card GeForce 8800GTX takes its revenge.

At Oblivion, the alignment of forces is changing with the rise of resolutions. If at 1024x768 all GeForce 8800 are equal, then at higher resolutions it is the XFX 8800GT which takes a lead, followed by GeForce 8800GTX and GeForce 8800GT.

At Prey, the GeForce 8800GT by Chaintech and XFX first take a lead, but as the resolutions go up the GeForce 8800GTX wins due to the wider memory bus and greater number of streaming processors.

Final Words

Again we see that GeForce 8800GT has proved to be a product of dignity. At a relatively small amount, the user gets a performance sometimes higher than that in GeForce 8800GTX. The renovated cooling system of Chaintech 8800GT has also proved successful and it does its job no worse than the predecessor with a bit faster fan. On the whole, video cards of the GeForce 8800GT series differ mainly in the package bundle which is used by the manufacturers in the struggle for our purses. The marketing people may use some slight overclocking as a trump, which all G92 chips allow.