OCZ 8800 GTX overclocks to 620/1920 MHz

Product: OCZ GeForce 8800 GTX GPU
Website: www.ocztechnology.com
System Requirements: Intel Pentium 4, AMD Athlon or compatible CPU
A minimum of 256MB system memory
A minimum 400W system power supply with PCI-Express
connector or two unused HDD power connectors available.
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Requires a PCI Express compliant motherboard
Requires an available PCI Express slot
Windows Vista/XP/2000/XP 64
Price: €579.00

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WE HAD a chance to test OCZ's first graphic card which reminds us all that company wants to get back to graphic market. The company announced the card in last days of December and it has been available for a while. It is Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTX card branded as OCZ GeForce 8800 GTX. It has a 768 MB and it is clocked at dull 575 MHz core and 1800 MHz memory. We expected that the card will end up overclocked but it didn't. you kind of expect that from the OCZ, as they make everything a bit more faster.

OCZ 8800 GTX package

The package is very nicely designed and card is handsome with some cool car on top of a black cooler. Of course OCZ used Nvidia's reference G80 cooler. We found two PCIe power cables, S Video, HDTV cable and AV cable and let's not forget a DVI dongle. There are no any game bundles inside but the installation CD and a manual are there.

What's in the box

The coolest things we figurate out about this card as that we were able to overclock it to 620 MHz core and 1920 MHz. OCZ mentioned that they cherry picked the chips and cards from Nvidia as they always endorse people who overclock.

You simply don't buy OCZ product and then decide not to overclock, that would be against of the OC cult. Luckily we managed to overclock the card otherwise it would be the same as anybody else's card. For G80, 620 MHz is a read area and gets the card very hot. The temperature at reference speed is 57 Degrees Celsius.

We were shocked and positively surprised to learn that OCZ even overclocked worked at maximal 60 Degrees Celsius, only three more than on the reference speed.

Benchmarketing

We used:
Intel Core 2 Extreme E6800, 2x 2.93GHz, 266MHz FSB, 4MB Cache
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X1024-8500 at 5-5-5-15 at 1066 MHz
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 400GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Akasa EVO AK 922 Blue Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's
Silverstone DA750W modular PSU

Yeah, we know we used other lads memory but this is our reference machine and we didn't want to change it for the sake of scores.

One handsome Geforce 8800 GTX racing card

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	32929	265.4	207.0	193.7
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	32943	265.1	207.1	194.1
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	35056	285.8	222.7	209.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	6857.5	17651.3	122.3	566.4
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	6857.5	17651.3	122.5	566.7
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	7390.8	19018.4	132.2	611.6
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game3
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	16911	63.8	49.5	97.9
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	16921	63.7	49.6	98.1
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	17352	63.8	49.9	105.0
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS/VS complex
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	6922.4	17570.3	564.2	139.8/108.9
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	6921.0	17602.3	567.3	139.8/108.9
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	7447.7	18925.3	611.9	150.6/117.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	10675	?	?	?
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	10749	?	?	?
OCZ 8800GTX 620/19200MHz OC	11336	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	4825	40.286	40.134	?
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	4829	40.375	40.103	?
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	5214	43.426	43.481	?
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	4910	45.283	52.908	?
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	4924	45.464	53.011	?
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	5306	48.953	57.173	?
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	2518	0.805	1.260	?
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	2574	0.821	1.291	?
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	2545	0.821	1.262	?
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	179	164	135	99
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	177	161	139	101
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	177	163	143	108
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Nvidia 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	147	110	83	55
OCZ 8800GTX 575/1800MHz	149	111	82	55
OCZ 8800GTX 620/1920MHz OC	149	118	89	61

We don't even want to begin with comparing the OCZ with Nvidia reference card. It is the same, full stop. But once we overclocked OCZ card managed to outrun the default GTX for more than 2000 in 3Dmark03. It runs all the in test games faster and even the syntactic benchmarks are faster. OCZ card is less then 10 percent faster, six to be precise. In 3Dmark05 OCZ card at 620 /1920 MHz scores 400 points more and it is faster in Game 3 but always less then 10 percent and it is always faster in synthetic benchmarks.

The card is even faster in 3Dmark06. We are talking about 600 points difference. In both Shader model 2.0 and 3.0/ HDR it is 400 points faster while the CPU score remains the same on all cards.

FEAR can score up to seven frames faster on the overclocked card. We are talking about seven percent performance difference. You only see the real difference at higher scores.

Once you turn the FSAA and Aniso off the gap becomes more noticeable. In higher resolution it differs for as much as 11 percent. This is what you also can expect from other games with FSAA and Aniso off.

In Short
The card overclocks well and OCZ gives you a lifetime warranty. If you are OCZ freak and have its memory, PSU, cooler I don't see why shouldn't I recommend even an OCZ graphic card. This Geforce 8800 GTX overclocks well, doesn't cost more then the competition and will do the job just fine.

The way OCZ goes it will soon announce the motherboard and case and after that Dellienware might be in trouble. We expected that the card comes overclocked from the box but who buys OCZ usually knows how to overclock anything including its garage, lights in the house or a blender. We hope that the next card will be overclocked out of the box.

The Good
Cheap for Geforce 8800 GTX
Overclocks to 620 MHz/1920 MHz
Lifetime warranty
The Bad
No game bundle
The Ugly
Nvidia now has WHQL driver so no Ugly