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XFX GeForce 6800 GS 256MB DDR3 Video Graphics Card

Saturday, February 11th, 2006 | Reviews, Video Card Reviews

At a midrange price, this video card delivers superior performance and is a good buy for game addicts.

The characteristic X-shaped box contains the video card, drivers, cables and adaptors, and also includes a game CD to demonstrate the performance. The card also includes an S-video output, which you can use with a suitably equipped TV.

This XFX NVIDIA 6800 GS video card was released just in time for the 2005 holiday season, and is a marked improvement from the previous offering, although some were expecting that the next announcement would be based on the 7800 series of graphic processing unit. In performance, however, the XFX 6800 GS doesn’t disappoint.

The unit is “overclocked” out of the box, meaning that the components have been carefully selected to allow the processor to run faster than its nominal speed. There is also scope for tinkering around to check out whether the card can be run faster still than the factory setting. The 15% increase in speed from standard makes a big difference to the way the card performs.

The features include state-of-the-art technologies which work together to provide unparalleled realism to the latest games, giving movie like realism – in fact, one of the features is called CineFX 3.0 Engine. Other features include simulating multiple light sources four times faster than previously.

Antialiasing and 64 bit texture filtering and blending are, of course, also provided at lightning speed. The unit uses the PCI Express bus architecture to deliver graphics at double the speed of the lesser AGP 8x, and it shows.

The card is not stated to be very demanding of the basic system into which it is installed, so any recent computer is able to take advantage of the powerful graphics. The computer needs a Pentium III or Athlon, only 64MB of memory is stated as the minimum, and 50MB of hard drive space. However, the better the computer, the more performance you will realize – we found that Doom 3 on ultra high resolution really needed about 1.5 GB of ram to give the best output.

The card runs surprisingly cool, although the fan can be a little noisy when driving hard in 3D. It’s hardly noticeable on idle however. The other point about this card is that it is really long, and although we didn’t have any conflicts it does come close to other parts in the computer.

In summary, this card is very good value. It could be beaten technically by a 7800 based unit, but then you would be paying about another $100, and it’s unlikely that you would notice much difference. The XFX NVIDIA 6800 GS is a video card requiring serious consideration by the avid gamer.

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