Testing

Comparison video card will be MSI's GeForce 8800 GT. The Gigabyte is clocked faster in a couple areas, but the MSI card is clocked faster in the memory department. From an AMD standpoint, we'll be using the Sapphire Radeon 3850

Software used in the tests will be:

3dMark06

Company of Heroes

Crysis

Half-Life 2: Episode 2

Call of Duty 4

All tests were performed 3 times, using the default control panel settings of ForceWare Release 169 and ATI's Catalyst 8.4.

3dMark06 (NoAA/AF) - 1920x1200

Despite the higher GPU and shader clock, the Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT Turbo Force Edition did not sweep through the 3dMark06 tests. It led the overall score and SM3 score, but fell short of the MSI in SM2.

Company of Heroes (No AA/4xAA @ 8xAF) - 1920x1200, DX9

The greatest RTS game ever (sorry, I had to throw that in) runs very well with all three cards. The Sapphire lags behind the pack, but the actual gameplay experience was more or less the same. None of the cards lagged at all, even in the more intense shootouts.

Crysis (No AA/AF) - 1920x1200

Crysis chews up a lot of memory and GPU horsepower and the higher clocked Gigabyte flexes its muscle here. If scrapes ahead of the MSI and trounces the Sapphire.

Half-Life 2 (4xAA/HDR) - 1920x1200

Another close one between the two 8800 GT cards.