G80, Geforce 8800 GTX is very CPU dependent

OUR PALS with a nice toy named G80, Geforce 8800 GTX informed us that unless you overclock your CPU, you won't get the right performance delta.

If you test 3Dmark06 with a 1000MHz overclocked Core 2 Quad or Duo you get 11300 marks. But when you test the same card, same test on a same non overclocked CPU at 2.66GHz the situation completely changes.

You score about 8000+ with a single card, almost identical to our score with 7950 GX2, the two GPU card. Shocking isn't it, as you'd expect more? To be fair to Nvidia's latest greatest card, the Geforce 7800 GTX scores some 5200+ in the same test so Geforce 8800 GTX is significantly faster than this single GPU card but not from the dual chip one. We are sure that this is just case for 3Dmark and that games will benefit more.

Don't say that we haven't warned you - you will need a faster CPU to push this card to its limits. A chap called Victor metioned in the overclocking story actually bought G80 card, he is not under NDA, which makes it even worst for Nvidia. µ

See Also
Geforce 8800 GTX scores around 11,300 in 3Dmark06
Intel Core 2 Duo, Conroe rocks, dominates in games