X-bit labs

1GB Is a GB: Gainward Bliss 8800 GT 1024MB GS Graphics Card Review (page 11)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 02/14/2008 | 11:04 AM ]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

The game doesn’t support FSAA when you enable the dynamic lighting model, but loses much of its visual appeal with the static model. This is the reason why we benchmarked the cards in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. using anisotropic filtering only.

The Gainward Bliss GT 1024MB GS is slightly faster than the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, but there are no signs that the double amount of graphics memory has any influence on performance. The minimum speed of both cards is too low for comfortable play at 1920x1200 but at 1600x1200 the pre-overclocked frequencies of the Gainward card provide a higher minimum speed.

Unreal Tournament 3

Forcing FSAA from the graphics card’s driver doesn’t produce any effect as yet. That’s why the game is tested with anisotropic filtering only.

The pre-overclocked card from Gainward overtakes the ATI Radeon HD 3870 but the gamer can hardly feel this in practice. The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB delivers high performance at every resolution thanks to the optimized game engine. Unreal Tournament 3 is a democratic game as it runs fast at 1920x1200 even on the humble Radeon HD 3850. This is an example of efficient use of available software and hardware resources.