Nvidia 8800GTS 320 details emerge

NVIDIA WAS NICE enough not to tell us about the launch of the 8800 GTS 320MB on the 12th, but the card has a lot of interesting details. No wait, it doesn't, but at least we don't have to sit through another hour of marketing speak to know nothing more.

Here are the important bits, mark this well: "Note: Until February 12th, 2006 at 6AM PST, all GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB information is under embargo and should not be shared or discussed with anyone." This means you, so for our sake, don't tell anyone about it or cross post it, it is tip top secret. Nvidia has a habit of changing dates in a huff when they leak, so this may move a bit.

But: "SPECIAL TESTING NOTE (2/1/07) - Please Read: Due to our Windows Vista driver not being finalized to work effectively with the 8800 GTS 320MB, please test with Windows XP until we can get you an updated Vista driver."

I am not sure what it means by 'finalized to work effectively', even trying to parse it doesn't make much sense, but Nvidia is serious, and repeats the warning five times in its presentation.

The card itself is exactly the same as a GTS/640 with half the memory. It has the same specs, it's a 90 nanometre chip with 681M transistors, 500/1200/1600MHz core/stream/memory speeds with a 320b memory interface. It has 20 ROPs and will do the same theoretical 24GT/s. Yawn. It also remains a two slot solution. For pricing, it is aiming at the $299-329 range versus $399-440 for the 640MB flavor and $599-649 for the GTX. Not hugely bad, but I would spring for the extra 320MB personally.

Interestingly in its benchmark notes, it strongly cautions against AMD CPUs, and recommends that you only use Intel XE level CPUs. More interesting, it recommends two sticks of Corsair memory, good stuff but interesting that it names a company. More interesting is that neither of the choices, a 1066 and 1142MHz variants, are Nvidia certified, but several other types of Corsair RAM is. Its list of approved PSUs is also curious, it left out many partners, OCZ and Corsair are not on the OK list. Odd.

Under the testing parts, there are several more interesting details. First it recommends the 97.92 drivers over the newer ones. I wonder why? It then goes on to show the card slapping an ATI X1950 around, no shock there, it is kind of like picking on a kid in a wheelchair to show how tough you are. Colour me unimpressed, but to its credit, it does use the latest Cat 7.1 drivers. It doesn't show it in comparison to the GTS/640 or the GTX though, again, I wonder why?

Overall, it looks like a really boring card, meant to satisfy a price point. Until it can make working Vista drivers and stop promising phantom features, it will be hard for me personally to recommend anything it makes. µ