Nvidia's 8800GTS series have been very successful in sales due to the performance/price ratio. Besides the top model with 640MB, Nvidia and its partners are shipping a stripped down version of the 8800GTS with only 320MB of internal memory vs 640 RAM for the standard model. After having tested the Gainward 8800GTS GS 640MB, we had the chance to also test and review the new Gainward 8800GTS GS 320MB. Our tests will unveil if there is any significant performance drop with half the memory. As usual, we will be putting the card through our array of synthetic benchmarks and real life gaming experience. But first, let's see what the Gainward 8800GTS GS 320MB has to offer...

- Gainward BLISS 8800GTS GS 320MB Golden Sample

Gainward presents its proposal for the 8800 series platform. Powered by NVIDIA´s® GeForce® 8800GTS graphics processor unit (GPU), the BLISS 8800GTS 320TV DD is designed to deliver an incredibly realistic gaming experience, displaying 3D and HDR lightning effects as never seen or experienced before. With it´s 320MB/320-bits high-speed memory, the BLISS 8800GTS offers a knock-out performance allowing gamers to blast through games at record breaking speeds.  

The BLISS 8800GTS 320MB comes with the "Golden Sample" logo, indicating improved core/memory clocks over the reference design.

"...Golden Sample products from Gainward offer a higher clock setting than reference-design boards. That is the heart and soul of Gainward's Golden Sample. With some products this is achieved by using higher performing components than on the reference design boards and on other products the higher performance is achieved by using software utilities..."

The fastest Gainward 8800GTS GS 320MB card you can buy comes with 550MHz/1.76GHz clock speeds. For our tests, Gainward provided the "8347-BLISS 8800GTS GS 320MB Golden Sample" model. The card can be found online at the retail price of €320~350. The retail box has a unique design:

To sum it up, the retail package includes:

• A 8800GTS card
• A printed start manual (available in English/French/German/Italian)
• Two DVI-D to VGA converters
• A power to PCI-E cable
• A TV-out cable (HDTV support)
• Software CD with drivers
• Retail version of CyberLink PowerProducer and PowerDVD 6

Looking at the card, it is mid-sized, so it should fit without many problems in your mid ATX box. It will however, occupy two backplane slots, due to its air cooling system. The cooling system covers the memory banks and the GPU core and in most cases is very quiet. There are no physical differences compared with the 640MB model:

On the rear of the PCB, we find a label with the Model, Part Number and Serial Number: