The chaps over at Digit-Life posted a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT/GTS Roundup. It's still very interesting to examine new products from the 88xx series. Some of them have very interesting designs and cooling systems:

ASUS GeForce 8800 GT TOP 512MB PCI-E is a reference card operating at increased frequencies. So it features all problems of the reference cooler: noise and mediocre cooling efficiency. A special note to fans of this brand: ASUS has nothing to do with its manufacturing, it's manufactured at a third-party plant by NVIDIA's orders, like all reference cards. It has a bonus in the bundle—a modern game and a leather CD album.

Gainward Bliss GeForce 8800 GT Golden Sample 1024MB PCI-E is not a standard solution. It has twice as much memory, and it operates at increased frequencies. Our tests demonstrate that CRYSIS responds well to the increased memory volume, although it does not need 1 GB of video memory in a general case. The best memory size for top graphics cards is 768 MB, like in the 8800 GTX. However, time flies, games demand more and more resources, and NVIDIA has abandoned the architecture with a 384-bit bus and 768 MB of memory, so we can have only 1 GB. It may soon become a new standard for top graphics cards. On the whole, the card from Gainward produces a very good impression.

MSI GeForce 8800 GTS OC 512MB PCI-E is a reference card. Like ASUS, MSI does not manufacture these graphics cards on its own, it just buys ready cards from NVIDIA. So it's a usual reference card. The cooler is quiet, but the card gets very hot. However, hot air is thrown out of a PC case, so there is nothing to worry about. This product is the fastest card of all modern graphics cards. No other card can outperform it, because the 8800 Ultra/GTX is already discontinued.

Galaxy GeForce 8800 GT 512MB PCI-E is an interesting product. However, it combines a lot of pros and cons. Advantages of the card are quite clear—it's a graphics card for overclockers. I've also published test results of this card operating at increased frequencies (I used the jumper to raise the core voltage.) Besides, such cards are bundled with coolers from Zalman (according to Galaxy web site). A manager from this company assured us that such a noisy cooler was installed on our sample by mistake. The cooler is indeed very noisy. Unfortunately, external power connectors on the card are very close to each other, and manufacturers didn't take into account that such connectors in PSU cables may be too thick to plug two of them at once. You will have to use adapters. And the main problem: we couldn't show our readers the true temperature readings of the overclocked card with the "correct" stock cooler.

Palit GeForce 8800 GT Sonic 512MB PCI-E is not a reference card, Palit has traditionally modified the PCB layout. The card is equipped with an efficient cooling system. It's a two-slot device, but it's not a problem these days. The graphics card operates at increased frequencies. However, the manufacturer should have overclocked it a tad higher—this card would have become a very interesting offer in this case. Still, it's a very good card as it is. The manufacturer should stop using the same box with different labels for all products. Real brands make good boxes for each type of graphics cards.

Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT Zalman Edition 512MB PCI-E is manufactured by Gigabyte, although it's a copy of the reference design. An efficient and quiet cooling system from Zalman allows to overclock the card without overheating problems. As we didn't got the box with bundled components for this card, we cannot evaluate them.

Leadtek GeForce 8800 GT ZL 512MB PCI-E is a reference card again, but it's equipped with an efficient and quiet cooler from Zalman. It's an overclocked card, but this product operates at the lowest temperatures among our today's cards. This is a very good point.