XFX 8800GTS 512MB (G92) Alpha Dog Edition Review

1280 x 1024 Resolution Testing (DX9)


3DMark06 Professional




The new 8800GTS 512MB seems to be running away with this test. It is about 10% faster than the stock 8800GT and handily beat out the 8800GTX as well.


Company of Heroes

Company of Heroes from Canadian developer Relic has been widely held as one of the greatest RTS games of all time while also being one of the most stressful games on the graphics card. There are very few instances in this game that will not make your graphics card beg for mercy and as such it makes a great benchmarking tool. Instead of using a typical mission (which seems to have given odd results more often than not when used with FRAPS) we are now using the in-game benchmarking tool which seems to give MUCH more consistent results




Half Life 2: Episode 2

Half Life 2: Episode 2 is the newest installment in Valve’s long running Half Life series and this is without a doubt the best looking game in the series. For this benchmark a typical 10 minute exterior gameplay sequence was prerecorded and then played back using the in-game timedemo feature. The results were recorded with FRAPS.




Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

This game was one of the first to jump into the DX10 pool. It provides some pretty good visuals while being very fun to play. In this test we ran through the retail version’s in-game benchmark 4 times and averaged out the scores we received in each area.




World in Conflict

This is one stunning game. World in Conflict has provided me with some of my most memorable gaming experiences since the first Homeworld game was released and it has not stopped wowing me. This is a brand new benchmark for us and with all of the bangs and whistles turned on; this is a great benchmark for any graphics card out there.




Prey

Even though Prey may be a bit older game compared against many of the other ones we are testing, it still provides a workout of even the best graphics cards on the market. This time we have enabled its Graphics Boost feature (Gboost in the charts) and run through a custom timedemo.




Results Analysis

At this resolution, the performance displayed by the XFX 8800GTS 512MB Alpha Dog Edition is quite impressive without AA turned on. In some tests it was only about 10% better than the 8800GT which really isn’t anything to write home about but in others it walked away with very impressive numbers. In Company of Heroes this 8800GTS really shone by thoroughly trouncing the 8800GTX even though it really comes down to semantics when the scores are hovering above 100FPS. This card also pulls ahead in Half Life 2 Episode 2 where it seems the high clock speed of the core works to increase the scores. So far I am pretty impressed with the results but let’s see if they can carry into DX10 and higher resolutions as well.