nVIDIA last month introduced a new series of graphics cards based on the 8800GT, with full DirectX 10 support. The latest batch of games (Crysis, Hellgate: London, Gears of War, etc...) really need a powerful GPU, and nVIDIA provides such a solution at an affordable price tag of €245 and upwards.

Gainward, an nVIDIA partner, released their own version of the 8800GT series, based on the nVIDIA reference design. We have already tested two overclocked versions of the nVIDIA 8800GT from XFX and Inno3D, so we turned with keen interest to see how Gainward's graphics solution would stand up, especially considering that it has lower core and memory clock frequencies.

- Gainward 8800GT (PN: 8927)

The Gainward 8800GT can be considered as a basic nVIDIA 8800GT with a massive 600MHz core, 1500MHz shader and 900MHz memory frequencies that place it above the 8800GTS series. More-over, it has 512MB of on-board memory with 256 bits of bandwidth.

Below is a table that illustrates the major features of the various 8800 models in terms of core/shader/memory clocks and interface bandwidth.

- Retail package

The Gainward 8800GT retail package follows the usual design of Gainward models. There are several logos on the front that highlight this product's features, with most noticable being the Bliss 8800GT PCX logo, and at top right the PCI-Express v2.0 logo.

The retail box opened...

The Gainward 8800GT includes the usual goodies for a graphics card. However, we did notice that there's only one D-Sub15-to-DVI converter. But if your power supply doesn't include a six pin PCI-e molex connector, Gainward has included one.

The Gainward 8800GT follows the nVIDIA reference cooling solution for a single slot card. The graphics card is 23cm in length, so there may be some issues with smaller or crammed cases.

SLI is possible with the Inno3D 8800GT OC edition...

You need the 6pin power supply feed to operate this graphics card.

After installing the graphics card, we can see more details about its main features and specifications. The CPU core runs at 600MHz, while the memory at 900MHz and the Shader clock at 1500MHz. Other 8800GT overclocked cards we have tested, ran at higher frequencies so it will be interesting to see the performance difference later on in our review.

- Full specification