ASUS EN8800 GTX

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FrgMstr

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ASUS EN8800 GTX - We have a brand new ASUS EN8800 GTX installed on our high-end Core 2 Duo gaming machine. We dive into the gaming experience delivered in six popular new games. See how NVIDIA’s newest generation dominates the competition’s fastest offering.

In Oblivion the ASUS EN8800 GTX rips through the game easily with maximum in-game settings at 1600x1200 with 8X AA and HDR enabled. We found that in some areas maximum grass can cause a large performance drop, but by dropping this setting we can regain performance. Even at the higher resolution of 1920x1200 the visual quality emanating from the ASUS EN8800 GTX in Oblivion is simply incredible.
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Wow. I wish I had the money for something like that.

I noticed you talked about heat and overclocking, which is great. Along with those, however, I'd like to know about noise. I like a quiet (if not silent) computer, and the level of noise from the GPU fan is important. How noisy is the stock cooler on this card?
 
Mohonri said:
Wow. I wish I had the money for something like that.

I noticed you talked about heat and overclocking, which is great. Along with those, however, I'd like to know about noise. I like a quiet (if not silent) computer, and the level of noise from the GPU fan is important. How noisy is the stock cooler on this card?
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The 8800GTX makes an electronic buzzing noise when any 3D app are open. You're talking about the noise levels, well it's very noticeable, on some more than others, at least the 4+ or so I've tried. The fan is not really that noisy, noise levels are totally acceptable with that. If only they'd fix the buzz now.....
 
other mentionables.. different generation cards, different pricing catagory (~$200 difference) we aren't all that far away from a DX10 vs DX10 matchup with the 8800gtx vs r600, I hate to say it but this seems a bit like slapping ati for not releasing their card yet?


/edit that asus card looks awesome, I'm just not in love with the comparison :)
 
I was excited to see this article at first, as I'm about to buy a new system from OPC with twin GTXs in it and wanted to see how the Asus offering differed from the other 8800 GTXs out there.

Sadly, there was no information on this. Does this mean that there are no detectable differences other than the game bundled with it?
 
Mohonri said:
How noisy is the stock cooler on this card?
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Not noisy at all, the fan is rather large and spins slower, noise isn't a problem.

SolarX said:
The 8800GTX makes an electronic buzzing noise when any 3D app are open. You're talking about the noise levels, well it's very noticeable, on some more than others, at least the 4+ or so I've tried. The fan is not really that noisy, noise levels are totally acceptable with that. If only they'd fix the buzz now.....
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I heard no buzz with the ASUS EN8800 GTX or the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX.

hamm3rhead said:
other mentionables.. different generation cards, different pricing catagory (~$200 difference) we aren't all that far away from a DX10 vs DX10 matchup with the 8800gtx vs r600, I hate to say it but this seems a bit like slapping ati for not releasing their card yet?


/edit that asus card looks awesome, I'm just not in love with the comparison :)
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It is currently the only comparison we can make right now, the fastest NVIDIA GPU vs. the fastest ATI GPU.

Beerio said:
I was excited to see this article at first, as I'm about to buy a new system from OPC with twin GTXs in it and wanted to see how the Asus offering differed from the other 8800 GTXs out there.

Sadly, there was no information on this. Does this mean that there are no detectable differences other than the game bundled with it?
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What you see in the evaluation is what you will get.
 
Beerio said:
I was excited to see this article at first, as I'm about to buy a new system from OPC with twin GTXs in it and wanted to see how the Asus offering differed from the other 8800 GTXs out there.

Sadly, there was no information on this. Does this mean that there are no detectable differences other than the game bundled with it?
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Yeah same here. The announcement on the homepage hyped it up like it was the best thing since sliced cheese. Going into what differentiates Asus from other, better suppliers on the market would have been nice. As far as I've been aware for as long as I've been following video cards, ASUS is always more expensive with an inferior offering to everything else on the market.

Last time I checked Newegg, the ASUS card was going for $620, the BFG card was going for $555 (AR), PNY at $550 (no rebate), EVGA at $560. What exactly does ASUS offer to justify the much higher price? Certainly not increased stock performance. GRAW still isn't worth the price.

I must say I'm a bit disappointed in this review. I could have gone back to the BFG review and seen these numbers, so what's new, really?
 
Nice review. But I was wondering( and I know others are asking), with the couple of 8800's that have passed through [H], are we going to see a 8800's shootout soon? I would love to see BFG, ASUS, XFX and others in a side by side comparison.
 
What about SLI? Or is there no point because it's already ridiculously fast?
 
hamm3rhead said:
other mentionables.. different generation cards, different pricing catagory (~$200 difference) we aren't all that far away from a DX10 vs DX10 matchup with the 8800gtx vs r600, I hate to say it but this seems a bit like slapping ati for not releasing their card yet?


/edit that asus card looks awesome, I'm just not in love with the comparison :)
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If you're not in love with the comparison, perhaps you're just too much in love with your card/brand.

I could concede the price category issue, but that is easily solved by comparing the X1950XTX to the 8800GTS, in which case it still loses, by a slimmer margin, in performance and by the same margin in feature set and image quality.

The "generation" argument is meaningless when the competition's latest and greatest is used in the comparison. It is only relevant to the competitor that is losing the contest and wants an excuse to cry "unfair!" When the R600 is released, new comparisons will be made, and we will see what we see. Until then, your discomfort points to issues in your own psychology, not to shortcomings in the review.
 
What's the point of putting up maximum clocks attained if you're not going to show any benchmarks at that speed? Isn't that the point of OCing and this site?
 
Looking at the WoW Settings and I'm trying to figure something out.
In the other games you forced the 16x TSAA and the 16xAF from the control panel, but for WoW you used the in-game sliders - I took a look at your screenshot of the settings window i was just wondering what setting you had the multisampling set to to be use you were in 16xTSAA mode (or how you can tell that in general)

the reason I'm asking is i just switched from an ATI to a 8800gts and all i get in my WoW screen is the option for what i think is only 4xAA, but (i think) i can force the 16x in the control panel (although even then I'm not sure because you need to discreetly choose 16x AA as well as the transparency subsampling right?)

As always, great review - nice asus bundle too.
 
sK8z said:
Looking at the WoW Settings and I'm trying to figure something out.
In the other games you forced the 16x TSAA and the 16xAF from the control panel, but for WoW you used the in-game sliders - I took a look at your screenshot of the settings window i was just wondering what setting you had the multisampling set to to be use you were in 16xTSAA mode (or how you can tell that in general)

the reason I'm asking is i just switched from an ATI to a 8800gts and all i get in my WoW screen is the option for what i think is only 4xAA, but (i think) i can force the 16x in the control panel (although even then I'm not sure because you need to discreetly choose 16x AA as well as the transparency subsampling right?)

As always, great review - nice asus bundle too.
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With the 8800 series in the drivers you set the option to "Enhance the Application" then set the AA level from within the control panel, this only works if you set an AA level in the game though, then it will force the higher AA setting that you have selected in the control panel.

So in the game you can set 2X, or 4X it doesn't matter.

Then in the control panel you set "Enhance the Application" and set the AA level to 16X, and then turn on Transparency Supersampling.

The game will then run at 16X TR SSAA.

Also, we did force AF from the control panel as well for best image quality results.

The methods of enabling AA with the 8800 series is explained here - http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIxOCw3LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA== - scroll down to Antialiasing - CSAA
 
Brent_Justice said:
With the 8800 series in the drivers you set the option to "Enhance the Application" then set the AA level from within the control panel, this only works if you set an AA level in the game though, then it will force the higher AA setting that you have selected in the control panel.

So in the game you can set 2X, or 4X it doesn't matter.

Then in the control panel you set "Enhance the Application" and set the AA level to 16X, and then turn on Transparency Supersampling.

The game will then run at 16X TR SSAA.

Also, we did force AF from the control panel as well for best image quality results.

The methods of enabling AA with the 8800 series is explained here - http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIxOCw3LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA== - scroll down to Antialiasing - CSAA
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Thanks a ton Brent, makes me remember why i read this site and buy the hats :D (when are you selling more hats anyway? lol)

i had just found that section in the 8800 overview when i got the "topic reply" notice - thanks!

Now that i have a good starting point ill have to get learning how to tweak this card.. last 'green' card i had was a ti4600 when they were the $600 card... lol
 
Commander Suzdal said:
If you're not in love with the comparison, perhaps you're just too much in love with your card/brand.

I could concede the price category issue, but that is easily solved by comparing the X1950XTX to the 8800GTS, in which case it still loses, by a slimmer margin, in performance and by the same margin in feature set and image quality.

The "generation" argument is meaningless when the competition's latest and greatest is used in the comparison. It is only relevant to the competitor that is losing the contest and wants an excuse to cry "unfair!" When the R600 is released, new comparisons will be made, and we will see what we see. Until then, your discomfort points to issues in your own psychology, not to shortcomings in the review.
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To better display product differentiation of the ASUS IMO throwing another reference card of the same chipset/gen or last would be helpful to anyone. As far as I can tell the article title was "ASUS EN8800 GTX", Not "gtx is soo uber awesome look how it lambasts the other guy". Comparisions from the [H] generally give good bang for your buck info and I recommend this site to friends and co-workers for a reason.

one a side note: I have far more green then red installed in my pc's, my bias is towards my pocketbook and honestly the gx2 and sli 7900 gtx's, I already own didn't satisfy my needs in certain games so I tried out a crossfire system.
 
Whats the point in reviewing cards with same GPU and same specs if the only difference is 0.5FPS and the cooler sticker?

Reviewing OC versions of the cards in addition to the reference model is one thing, but reviewing multiple reference models seems just pointless. Then again if I did miss something not covered in earlier BFG 8800 review correct me.
 
Perhaps a full review of the various 8800 GTX cards against one another would be overkill, but if you're going to review a new entrant into the marketplace, it only makes sense to compare it to the existing comparable products, and frankly the ATI isn't really comparable, in either price or performance.

Even a few paragraphs on why this Asus is better or worse than the BFG, PNY or EVGA cards out there would be much more helpful than comparing it to the X1950XTX or whatever. Tell us about the overclocking abilities, the heat, the noise, the framerates etc. Surely everyone knows by now that the 8800 GTX is the dog's dangly bits? We just want to know which one is best!
 
RyanVM said:
What's the point of putting up maximum clocks attained if you're not going to show any benchmarks at that speed? Isn't that the point of OCing and this site?
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Agreed. I just don't get what the point of this review is. You guys might as well have posted a link / announcement on the home page to the BFG review saying "here! look at this again! click on our ads!"

You could have at least put something about whether the bundle justifies the $70 price difference between this and the otherwise identical PNY card.
 
you can just call me an eVGA !!!!!! if you like. Love their cards.
 
I've got an XFX 8800GTX running in my QX6700 system. It's far quieter than I expected, I can't distinguish noise from the 8800GTX over the system and CPU fans, which are all running fairly slow and quiet as well.

So far I love firing up games, any game, and cranking all the visual eye-candy effects to maximum and then watch how this card just plays like butter on all of them. That's at 1680x1050 resolution too.
 
Zinn said:
Agreed. I just don't get what the point of this review is. You guys might as well have posted a link / announcement on the home page to the BFG review saying "here! look at this again! click on our ads!"

You could have at least put something about whether the bundle justifies the $70 price difference between this and the otherwise identical PNY card.
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We show our readers different products on the market. We have no control of what the specs of the products are. We do try to look for different products, but sometimes that does not happen. We also try to do products from companies that sell to a large group worldwide or at the very least has stronge marketshare in NA. The point of the review is to show our readers what is available to them.

As for whether or not the bundle justifies the price, that is 100% up to the reader. We are just letting you know what it is and how it performs.

If you want to further discuss this, please take it up with me via PM and not in this thread.
 
Through the whole review not once was the PSU mentioned. What wattage and brand was used to power this beast? Enquiering minds want to know.
 
I'm just curious about one thing: I own a (non-ASUS) 8800GTX and when I try to play Oblivion, it says that it cannot have both HDR and AA enabled at the same time ... yet in the review it says you can do both at once. Am I doing something wrong? Is support for this a feature that requires some unofficial patch to the drivers or tinkering from within the NVIDIA control panel?
 
wipeout1 said:
I'm just curious about one thing: I own a (non-ASUS) 8800GTX and when I try to play Oblivion, it says that it cannot have both HDR and AA enabled at the same time ... yet in the review it says you can do both at once. Am I doing something wrong? Is support for this a feature that requires some unofficial patch to the drivers or tinkering from within the NVIDIA control panel?
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Keep AA turned off in the game and force AA from the control panel.
 
nice review. I <3 my Asus EN8800GTX! :D it's getting a twin brother soon. ;)
 
"The only thing that is faster is two of them in SLI."

What about the factory OC versions of the 8800GTX that are available? I imagine the XFX's XXX version of the 8800GTX running at 630/2000 is a good bit faster than this card with stock speeds. Sounds like roundup time to me.
 
hamm3rhead said:
To better display product differentiation of the ASUS IMO throwing another reference card of the same chipset/gen or last would be helpful to anyone. As far as I can tell the article title was "ASUS EN8800 GTX", Not "gtx is soo uber awesome look how it lambasts the other guy". Comparisions from the [H] generally give good bang for your buck info and I recommend this site to friends and co-workers for a reason.

one a side note: I have far more green then red installed in my pc's, my bias is towards my pocketbook and honestly the gx2 and sli 7900 gtx's, I already own didn't satisfy my needs in certain games so I tried out a crossfire system.
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I think several, including me, are a little confused on the review of another reference-design card, so no argument there. Perhaps one clue is that they did mention changing their testing methodology to probe for more weaknesses based on reader feedback. If nothing else, I did come away with the knowledge that the grass settings in Oblivion can be changed on the fly to accomodate sticky areas.

Between a 79XX series card and the X1950XTX, I'd have gone the same way you did, no contest. But now that the 8800s are here and offer so much, I couldn't do it. I still don't know when, if ever, I'll have the spare money for the new system build that I want so badly, but that's another sad story...
 
Commander Suzdal said:
I think several, including me, are a little confused on the review of another reference-design card, so no argument there. Perhaps one clue is that they did mention changing their testing methodology to probe for more weaknesses based on reader feedback. If nothing else, I did come away with the knowledge that the grass settings in Oblivion can be changed on the fly to accomodate sticky areas.
[snip]
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I guess I did find myself thinking that same thing sort of. We're really just comparing the cooling ability and bundle as all of these 8800s are Flextronics built. The cooling apparatus on the reference design cards are probably all built in the same place also. But I do enjoy the read through of these just the same.. picking up some interesting tid-bits along the way. At any rate, perhaps Kyle, Brent, and ? don't feel like getting into the whole Flextonics explanation thing.. sort of a "if you know it, that's fine, but we're not going to get into it here" school of thought. ? anyways..
 
This may Date me a bit, but the Last Video Card I Purchased from ASUS was a GeForce Ultra 5950 512 Meg, and while it's still running, I can't say that about the Software Package that ASUS included in the Retail Box. It had lots of Software, and Games included, Unfortunately, ASUS didn't include any of the Codes so none of the Games would install, I sure hope they've gotten better at assembling a Video Card Package.
 
The card is great and a great review to go with it.

The frustrating thing about is this that there is no games which can make use of the power it has to offer. Even crysis has been delayed.
 
quick question

is this card supposed to have 2d and 3d clocks?

cuz mine stays at 3d clocks at all times :| ?
 
Because 16x AA was mentioned, I have a question. Does the 8800GTX (all 8 series cards) do this "good" job in AA also in DX9 games, or does profit only DX10 gamesf, rom this new better "TR SSAA..." (i think every game profits?)?
 
Sweet.

Damn I wish ATI would hurry up and release something so that prices have some hope of going down. They have certainly gone down since release, but they need to be a little bit lower before I get one.

Nice card, good review.
 
Kyle, in this review along w/ the BFG 8800 series review, I am surprise that you never insert a WMV file for us to click, as such, hear the actual noise level generated by the fan at a certain distance.

Surely it would be very useful to know how noisy or how quiet the fan is.
 
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