Doom 3	Source: id Software

Doom 3 is the most advanced OpenGL game to date. It takes advantage of the latest videocard technology and pushes the processing power of the CPU to its absolute limits. At its highest setting, Ultra quality, texture sizes pass the 500MB mark which means even tomorrow's videocards will have a hard time running everything. The frame rates in the game itself are locked at 60 fps so anything above that point is wasted. Each test is run three times and with the third run being recorded.

Doom 3 HQ 1024x768
Anti-Aliasing	FPS	Ranking
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 2x AA	85.1
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 4x AA	63.7
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 6x AA	40.5
Anisotropic Filtering	FPS	Ranking
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 2x AF	98
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 4x AF	97.7
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 8x AF	97.4
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 16x AF	97.2
Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering	FPS	Ranking
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 2x AA, 8x AF	84.6
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V 4x AA, 16x AF	63.1

Doom 3 is very hard on the Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V, but you can still play the game at 1024x768 in HQ mode with 4x AA and 16x AF... Sweet!

Very Quiet, Very Promising!

With a retail price of $439 CDN ($365 US), the Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V that we looked at today goes for more than what other X800 XL videocards usually sell for, but it's the only high-end solution that we're aware of that's completely silent. There's a saying "Silence is golden," and after playing with the GV-RX80L256V videocard I would have to agree. Noise has never really bothered me in the past, but using a silent system really does increase the level of enjoyment while gaming or doing other activities on the computer.

Gigabyte includes a decent software package with the GV-RX80L256V, but nothing particularly remarkable. In terms of hardware, the package tosses in a DVI-to-analog converter as well as a handy TV/S-Video/Component output break out box.

Obviously the biggest feature of the GV-RX80L256V is its heatpipe cooler, but be warned... the PC you install this videocard into had better have good case cooling! If not, you're simply asking for trouble. During testing the heatpipe temperature went as high as 83.3 degrees Celsius and the core temp broke the boiling point hitting 105 degrees without proper airflow! With a bit of a breeze passing through the fins of the heatsink, the core temperature dropped 50 degrees and under load was around 58 degrees Celsius which is perfectly adequate.

When it comes to performance, the Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V showed its true colours, and in almost every benchmark it was just behind the MSI RX800XT-VTD256E (close to the MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E) in score. This card allows you to turn on AA and AF and still get excellent framerates as demonstrated in our Doom 3 advanced tests.

If you're looking for a silent videocard to play the latest games on that won't break the bank, the Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V is about the only alternative out there right now. Sure there are other 'quiet' videocards on the market but how can you be quieter than fanless?

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