Thursday, August 5, 2010

PNY VCG88512GXPB XLR8 GeForce 8800GT 512MB SLI-Ready Vga Card

The 8800GT series of graphics cards are well-known for being a great price/performance buy, so I'll just say a few words about the PNY version in particular.

Pros:  
This is the 512MB version of the card, which does squeeze out a bit more speed and also makes it more future-proof. I believe it has a 3 year parts+labor warranty, plus 2 years parts only which is fair (but not topnotch).

Cons: 
Most important, it runs EXTREMELY hot. In my case it idles at 65 Celcius and reaches about 95 Celcius at load. Although these chips are designed to handle a lot of heat, I must imagine that this will lower the life expectancy of the card in general. Part of the issue with the heat problem is that many of the 8800GT cards that use the nVidia reference design have a fault in the firmware that causes the fan to run only at 29% and it does not ramp up as temperature increases. This can be overcome with a program such as Rivatuner, but I was disappointed that PNY didn't release a fixed firmware for a known issue. The card also comes with somewhat limited accessories (HDTV breakout box, 2 DVI-VGA adapters, molex to PCI-E adapter, manual).

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