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- Date:
- Monday , April 09, 2007
- Author:
- Mark Warner
- Editor:
- Brent Justice
- Google +1
BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2
BFGTech has launched a new higher factory clocked 8800 GTX series video card and it carries the new “OC2” moniker. Does the modest overclock of an already powerful card translate to a better gameplay experience? Will STALKER tell us.
Introduction
BFGTech needs no introduction. By offering high-quality products, good support, and lifetime warranties, they have carved a place for themselves out of the ferocious North American video card market. Their "by gamers, for gamers" philosophy and close relationship with NVIDIA has established BFG Technologies as a premium video card brand in the USA. Their own website states:
Many of our employees are gamers and PC enthusiasts, and we provide hardware and marketing that reflects our passion and excitement for the latest technology.
BFGTech produces video cards, motherboards, power supplies, and a host of other accessories. For this evaluation, we're taking a good long look at one of their latest video cards: The BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2.
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX GPU
NVIDIA launched the GeForce 8 series of GPUs on November 8th 2006, including the flagship of the new line, the GeForce 8800 GTX. The GeForce 8 series ushered in a completely new architecture for NVIDIA, and set previously unheard of performance records.
The GPU contains 128 streaming processors running at 1.35 GHz. Streaming processors mark a departure from the old pipeline system of dedicated processing units for vertex data and more units for pixel data. These new streaming processors can process not only vertex and pixel shader programs, but a new type of program: the geometry shader, brought to us by DirectX 10. In fact, the streaming processors are fully programmable, allowing NVIDIA to extend their functionality at any time. This flexibility, and the sheer quantity of processors available, has made the GeForce 8800 GTX the enthusiast GPU of choice.
The GeForce 8800 GTX has 6 ROP partitions, each of which can process 4 pixels per clock, for an output capacity of 24 pixels with color and Z processing per clock. The shader core runs at 575 MHz, giving the GeForce 8800 GTX an output capacity of 36.8 billion pixels per second. The memory bus is 384 bits wide, and runs at 1.8 GHz DDR (900 MHz actual), for a total of 86.4 gigabytes per second of video memory bandwidth.
BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2
The most important aspect of the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 that sets it apart from the other GeForce 8800 GTX video cards is its clock speed. This video card comes from the factory with a 51 MHz overclock on the GPU, and 200 MHz overclock on the memory. The GPU on this video card is clocked at 626 MHz and the memory is clocked at 2.0 GHz. Subsequently the stream processors are also overclocked at 1.45 GHz versus 1.35 GHz on a standard 8800 GTX. The memory speed increase extends the memory bandwidth to 96 gigabytes per second, and the GPU overclock increases the texture fill rate to 40 billion pixels per second. Apart from the clock speeds, it appears to be identical to its older brother.
The BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 has 768 MB of GDDR3 on board, running at 2.0 GHz on a 384-bit bus. The GPU has the same 128 streaming processors 6 ROP partitions that ever other GeForce 8800 GTX has. The GPU is manufactured on a 90nm process and comprises 681 million transistors. It fully supports HDCP and has two dual-link DVI-I connectors.
On the front of the box, there is a large silver sticker with the "OC2" branding. OC2 is BFGTech’s new brand logo for indicating their highest clocked video cards that they currently offer. This is the fastest 8800 GTX BFGTech has ever produced. The clock speeds are posted for you right on the front of the box. In fact, the box could be slightly misleading since the side of the box lists the reference clock speeds, not the OC2 clock speeds.
Also on the side of the box is a detailed list of system requirements. The opposite side of the box shows a life-sized picture of a PCI-Express x16 slot, so that potential buyers will be able to make sure that their computer has such a slot available. The back of the packaging is nothing special, and contains the usual hyperbole, expounding the virtues and character of the contained hardware.
The BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 video card itself is long and uses a black printed circuit board with an interesting blue character with glowing eyes printed on the front. The PCB is 10.5 inches long and 3.875 inches wide. Including the mammoth cooling device, the video card is slightly less than 1.5 inches thick. The GPU, the memory, and most of the circuitry on the front face of the video card are covered by the heat-sink. What exposed circuitry there is appears to be used for power regulation. Note that there are no electrolytic canister capacitors used here. All of the capacitors on this video card are solid-state.
There are 5 vent slots on the cooler face, just before the end of the cooler. Hot air does exhaust from these slots, and that means that all of that hot air will stay inside your case. However, when this video card is installed in the standard position, the slots point down. As we all know, hot air tends to go up, not down, unless it is under pressure. In our observations of this video card, the air does not leave these slots with great force. The video card is certainly likely to raise the ambient temperature of a case, but not significantly so, and certainly not solely because of these vent slots.
This video card requires two 6-pin auxiliary power connectors. The physical connectors are placed along the top edge of the PCB, so the cables will not add length to the video card.
And of course, no company can resist placing a little branding where branding is due. The "OC2" branding found on the front of the box has made its way onto the hub of the cooling fan. The sticker is about 1 inch in diameter.
At the business end of the video card, we find a pair of Dual-Link DVI-I connectors, and the standard NVIDIA HDTV output port.
The bundle is deceptively small. That is, it at first appears that you get plenty of "stuff" with the BFGTech 8800 GTX OC2, but a closer look reveals otherwise. Inside a small folder you will find a driver CD, a few stickers, a quick install guide, and a couple of pieces of marketing materials. In addition, there is an nView setup guide, an HDTV setup guide, and a large blue paper instructing the customer to contact BFGTech for technical issues, rather than the original retailer. Most of that material is completely useless to enthusiasts like you and me, but to the novice it could shed a little light on setting things up. The stickers, perhaps, are the most useful part of that entire package, and yes that does say “OMGWTFBFGSAUCE.”
The video card also comes with a BFG branded T-Shirt, and a full sized paper that is half-marketing, and half instructions regarding powering this beastly video card. It also comes with one dual-Molex to auxiliary power adapter cable, and a pair of DVI to VGA adaptors.
Price and Comparison
The BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 is currently priced at $599.99 USD at Newegg. There is a $30 mail-in rebate which would make the price of the card $569.99. At that price, it is hardly the most expensive video card you can buy with a GeForce 8800 GTX GPU on board. There are more expensive 8800 GTX’s to be had. In the past, BFGTech video cards have had a price premium hanging over their heads. Thankfully, this video card does not have that problem.
For comparison, we are evaluating this video card against the current top of the line ATI video card, the Radeon X1950 XTX. Obviously there is a large discrpency in price and performance between these video cards, but that is all that ATI has currently to compare to the 8800 GTX. This evaluation is not as much a comparison between the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 and another video card, as it is a comparison between the fastest video cards available from two generations. The ATI Radeon X1950 XTX represents the fastest product available in the DirectX 9 generation, and the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 represents the fastest video card available in the DirectX 9 and 10 generation.
Plus, you can flip back to our original BFGTech 8800 GTX evaluation at reference clock speeds to see how this new OC2 version compares in performance.