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Funny, looks like another odd performance results from the Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH. It's again slower than the other reference clocked cards, this time the differences can be noticeable. On the other hand, you'll also notice the MSI NX8800GTS is noticeable slower than the three cards. It actually has enough power to push minimum fps over 30 fps at 1600 x 1200 with AA and AF enabled. Unfortunately, that's still not enough for a fluid gameplay experience - typically we want 35 to 40 fps minimum in NFS: Carbon.

Conclusion:

With cards based on reference designs and running at the same core and memory clock, we usually don't expect any difference whatsoever. While there is that odd performance with the Leadtek PX8800GTS in F.E.A.R and NFS: Carbon. There's a chance that we also botched up results in F.E.A.R and NFS: Carbon like we did in GTR2, but that's unlikely. The card does offer about the same performance as the ASUS EN8800GTS and Gigabyte NX8800GTS in other games using the same platform, drivers and game settings.

The differentiating factor between these reference clocked cards are bundle and temperature. The ASUS EN8800GTS is slightly hotter than the other cards, with a different bundle (no S-video cable, one game and one software) than the Gigabyte NX8800GTS (one game, S-Video cable plus HDTV on the same dongle) or the Leadtek PX8800GTS TDH (two games, S-Video cable and HDTV). From these three cards, we think Gigabyte has a more attractive bundle - more accesories and the omission of an additional game bundle means the asking price is slightly lower than the others. Your mileage may vary and we think that's not a strong enough point to recommend the card over the others. We do not have the same problem with the MSI NX8800GTS OC Edition. 



MSI GeForce 8800GTS 320 MB OC Edition

We recommend the MSI NX8800GTS OC Edition because we think MSI has put an attractive bundle that has a good mix of performance, price and value. It offers practically the same hardware bundle, in addition to what we think is an outstanding game bundle (Company of Heroes). Temperatures are about the same as reference clocked cards and as the icing on the cake, it offers about 5 to 10 percent higher frame rates in our benchmarks. However, please keep in mind that 5 to 10 percent difference is not much and you may not notice it at all.

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