The card and packaging

The XFX 8800GTS, like every XFX card comes in a very attractive looking box. The prevalent white makes the images and logos stand out – definitely a very eye catching design. Inside the box you’ll find the card secured well secured against outside forces. The driver CD, necessary output cables and manual are all standard fare, but the addition of a tips booklet where you’ll find very welcome case preparation tips could be quite useful for the inexperienced enthusiast.

The card itself looks like a GTX at first glance, but a closer inspection reveals that the card is a few centimeters shorter, making it ideal for smaller cases. The card also requires only one PCI-E power connector unlike the GTX which requires two. This being the XXX edition of the card the memory clocks are a good 100Mhz (200Mhz DDR) higher than the default setting of 800Mhz (1,6Ghz DDR) and the GPU clocks at 550Mhz, making it 50Mhz faster than a regular GTS card.

Although it is near impossible to get a card that would not support some sort of HD TV-Out and have two DVI-D connectors it is still nice to have all of this at hand. As the pictures clearly show the air cooler is a dual slot solution. When pushing the card to the limits the fan managed to remain inaudible over the sound of the PSU and CPU fan.