Matchless Muscle: Overclocked 8800s

Foxconn 8800GTS ONOC 640 MB

The core of a stock GeForce 8800GTS operates at a frequency of 500 MHz. Previous generations of Nvidia graphics cards had separate clock frequencies for the vertex shader, pixel shader and memory modules. Nvidia has continued a segmented control on its components. Inside the G80 processor, the processing core, shader core and memory have their own independent clock frequency generators.

This separation of the clock controls allows overclocking for each segment. The Foxconn 8800GTS ONOC 640 MB graphics card has processing core and memory mimicking the speeds of the 8800GTX. The processor core is set to operate 75 MHz faster than a standard GTS at 575 MHz. The memory modules run 100 MHz higher at 900 MHz for an effective 1.80 GHz DDR frequency (versus a stock GTS at 800 MHz or 1.60 GHZ DDR).

While both the memory and the core operate at the same speeds as a GTX, the shader core does not. We would have liked to have seen the shader core on the factory card ramped up towards that of the stock GTX. The 96 streaming processors of a GTS will not match the 128 in a GTX but the higher clock speeds might have come close. And at a $150-200 savings, it would make it even more attractive to performance seekers who want to save a few pennies.

Foxconn makes its card attractive with all of the extras included in the box. The card comes with a video out cable that includes connections for S-Video, HD (Y, Pb and Pr) and composite video. To make sure consumers' older hardware is supported, two DVI to D-Sub adapters accommodate analog monitors and a four-pin to six-pin power adapter allows older power supplies to power the graphics card.

The graphics card uses standard cooling we have seen on most GeForce 8800GTS models. Apparently Foxconn believes that it is sufficient to cool the card with its higher frequencies. We found this to be the case as the card ran without issues during all of the tests.

In addition to those things we consider standard, Foxconn bundled several other things with its card such as a USB game pad and two pieces of bundled software from FarStone. RestorIT 7 is system backup and recovery software that supports file and system-level recovery options as well as support for RAID 0 and 1. VirtualDrive Pro 10 is a disc drive emulation program that allows users to make images of their CD/DVDs and to run them virtually without the physical disc. The program also offers a virtual multi-disc operation mode that allows up to 23 virtual drives to run at the same time.