There are two conclusions to make, given that this is our first look at the 320MiB GeForce 8800 GTS. The first follows on from a somewhat obvious lesson learned by examining the Zotac board clocked down to reference frequencies: the performance difference from the reduction in memory size is almost entirely dependent on the application and the resolution it's running at.

It's clear that a 320MiB GTS can be as fast as a 640MiB version in certain situations, and it's also clear that the performance hit that manifests itself is larger as the resolution rises. As to whether the 320MiB version is a product you could feel comfortable buying for a resolution target of around 2.5MP and below, in current games, with the potential to turn on memory-sapping antialiasing levels? We think it generally is, the difference in price between 640MiB and 320MiB versions of the GTS making the 320MiB boards attractive versus the larger memory version, given price.

320MiB GeForce 8800 GTS boards can currently be had for under £200 including dreaded VAT here in the UK, getting you a performance level and feature set that's currently very much worth the outlay, if your expected spend is closer to £200 than £100 (a segment where Radeon hardware rules the roost). Refer back to our general analysis piece and you'll see the 640MiB GTS do decent business versus Radeon X1950 XTX, so if Direct3D 10 support is your want, 8800 GTS in either of its flavours looks attractive.

Zotac ZT-88SE320-FPP

Where it concerns the Zotac and its overclocked performance, the proposition to buy there rests on whether you can find it for sale in your territory, and whether the premium version their standard GeForce 8800 GTS 320MiB (and those from others). The bundle is cost-conscious across both of Zotac's 320MiB SKUs, hinting that the extra cost should be somewhat minimal.

Using Froogle, we struggle to find the SKU on sale here in the UK, and also across the pond in the US, so it appears that retail efforts are still coming up to speed at PC Partner's NVIDIA AIB partner brand. We fully expect competitive pricing in all regions, however, making the product worthy of a spot on your shopping list when it does appear, despite the lack of shader core frequency overclocking which would benefit overall performance even more.

PC Partner's backing of the brand should see it do well in the long run, and we look forward to the brand gaining momentum, giving consumers more options to pick up the best product for their outlay.

Follow up

With the impact of SLI on GTS 320MiB performances yet to be explored and Quake 4's Ultra Quality mode perhaps the best test of memory pressure in a modern game title, given its texture compression settings, we'll be taking a look at both in a future piece. Stay tuned for that.

Care to comment on this review? Drop by and stick your oar in here.