ASUS EN8800GTS video card review

When we took our first look at NVIDIA's G80 architecture, courtesy of their flagship GeForce 8800 GTX part, we couldn't help but be blown away by its stellar performance and top-notch image quality.   Although we don't yet have any DirectX 10 content to really put this next-generation part to the test, it seems architecturally sound and has little trouble rendering any DirectX 9 title you care to throw at it.

The one black mark we inevitably levelled against the GeForce 8800 GTX was its price, which is way out of the reach of all but the most... Err... 'Enthusiastic' enthusiasts.  However, today we are looking at a part based around the same G80 core, but a little less heavy on the wallet, in the form of ASUS' GeForce 8800 GTS board.  Although still hardly 'cheap' in the traditional sense of the word, its pricing lines up more soundly with the usual price for a high-end graphics board, comparing directly on this front to NVIDIA's previous flagship GeForce 7950 GX2 part .

So, will this cut down, lower-clocked version of G80 still wow us in the same fashion that the GeForce 8800 GTX did?  Read on to find out.