14 DAY TRIAL // After the madness surrounding the fact that Nvidia banned the overclocking of G80 cards the manufacturers were in a really stupid situation. I say ?stupid? because there were only two possible outcomes. The first idea was to stay still and produce only standard G80 cards. While the producers didn?t agree with the idea of respecting Nvidia?s decision, they had no choice since disregarding such an order could translate into the ?no more G80 cards for you? situation. The other trend was all about fighting Nvidia on her own grounds and trying to convince them that you have a working PCB able to sustain the heat and the amps that will flow through an overclocked sample.
XFX was the first to convince Nvidia that they have what it takes. And now, Gainward takes another step towards the crown. Because they are ready to release their own overclocked G80 cards. The only problem here is that the company decided to go for 8800 GTS instead of GTX as the cooling engineers advised the marketing guys that this might not be a practical idea. They say that 8800 GTX already runs hot and if you overclock it too much it will burn regardless of the cooling system.
Nvidia reference cards are clocked at 500MHz core and 1600MHz while the new 8800 GTS coming from Gainward should work at 550MHz+ for the core and 1760MHz+ for the GDDR3 memory. The card is said to have the same cooler as the reference one, but Gainward will provide a warranty for these overclocked cards too.
I like the idea, especially because I respect Gainward a lot. But I don?t understand why they decided not to overclock the GTX? I might have taken the ?too hot to overclock? statement for granted if it weren?t for XFX. But I think that it?s just an excuse to go around the fact that Nvidia actually stopped them from overclocking the GTX. If I?m wrong, an overclocked GTX will appear. But if I?m right?