Overclocking Results:

stock overclocked gpu (core) speed: 660 mhz 702 mhz memory speed: 1900 mhz 2020 mhz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

By default the nVIDIA GeForce 8800GT core is clocked at 600 MHz and its memory at 1800 MHz, MSI says nuts to that and clocks its videocard at 660 MHz and 1900 MHz. That's a nice bump from stock, but PCSTATS hadn't made it this long by being leaving well enough alone. It is time to overclock with a capital "O" ;-)

Place your bets on how fast I can get the pre overclocked MSI Geforce 8800GT to go! Now chant with me, "I am Colin and I'm an overclocker!"

Starting at 660 MHz and going up in 7 MHz increments, the nvidia G82 core was overclocked with nVIDIA's nTune utility. Overclocking nVIDIA videocards is pretty straightforward, simply go as high as you can without the driver complaining. That being said, the highest we could push the MSI NX8800GT-T2D512EOC's GeForce 8800GT was 702 MHz, anything higher and nTune wouldn't allow it. Damn nTune, always holding me back!

Overclocking the NX8800GT-T2D512EOC's memory is much the same, easy as pie. Starting at 1900 MHz we were hoping to go well above 2000 MHz, so let's see.... The 1925MHz - check. 1950MHz, check. 1975MHz double check!. The memory clock speed of 2000MHz mark fell easily, but then overclocking hit a hard barrier at 2020 MHz. Anything higher and the videocard would lock up while running 3DMark06. It's almost as if there was a governor on the memory speed...

PCSTATS pushed the MSI NX8800GT-T2D512EOC's Geforce 8800GT core to 702 MHz, and the 512MB of memory to 2020MHz. Both are pretty moderate overclocks at best. Modern videocards are fast enough with the current generation of games, so realistically speaking, GPUs in the high end class really don't need to be overclocked.

Prelude to Benchmarks:

The details of how the MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC test system was configured for benchmarking; the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions are indicated below.

In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms this nVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB based videocard is to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next page.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system reference system processor: amd Athlon64 FX-62 (AM2) Clock Speed: 14 x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz Motherboards: Asus M2-CROSSHAIR (NF 590 SLI) Videocard: MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC Asus EAX1900XTX/2DHTV/512M/A Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD-OC nVidia GeForce 8600GTS SLI Foxconn 8600GTS-256 MSI NX8600GT-T2D256E-OC MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC Gigabyte GV-NX85T256H SLI Gigabyte GV-NX85T256H MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E Gigabyte GV-NX76GT256D-RH Biostar Sigma-Gate GeForce 7600GS Albatron 8600GT-256 Memory: Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C3 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Athlon64 FX-62 Reference Heatsink Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate nVIDIA Forceware 6.70 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 ATI Catalyst 7.7 Benchmarks: 3DMark06 Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Quake 4 FEAR Call of Juarez Lost Planet