MSI NX8800 GTS 512M OC

MSI, well known for their feature-packed Core 2 and Athlon 64/Phenom motherboards, is also one of the heavyweights among NVIDIA’s board partners. We’ve reviewed multiple MSI graphics cards in the past and found them to be highly compelling cards, awarding them multiple Editor’s Choice and Bull’s Eye awards over the years.

One of MSI’s claims to graphics fame has been their game bundles. Unlike many of the other Taiwanese graphics manufacturers who also bundle games with their graphics cards, MSI gets the importance of actually having a nice game bundle. Many of the other manufacturers will often include outdated games with their bundles, or no-name, obscure titles that no one has ever heard of. MSI on the other hand is usually very persistent about keeping their game bundles up to date, and on top of that, they go out of their way to try and bundle games with their cards that gamers actually want to play. The origins of this philosophy date back to their nBox GeForce FX 5900 Ultra card. The board shipped with three games: Unreal 2: The Awakening, Command and Conquer: Generals, and the AAA FPS Battlefield 1942. It was an eye-opening game bundle that was, and still is, unprecedented for its time and will probably never be matched.



Rather than shoot for the highest OC’ed clocks and thus charge a premium MSRP, for their GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB card MSI has opted to price their board aggressively, yet they’ve still managed to uphold this tradition of providing a solid game bundle. How were they able to do this while still keeping board prices low? By partnering with select retailers to include one of the sleeper hits of 2007, the RPG The Witcher.

You see, rather than bundle every single NX8800 GTS 512M OC card that goes out the door with the game, MSI managed to get it included by working with a few of the more popular retailers. It’s a limited time offer that’s only good while supplies of the game last; this is an important part of how MSI is able to keep their game bundles they include with their cards fresh.


MSI has managed to overclock the card a bit though. As the “OC” in the card’s name implies, the NX8800 GTS 512M OC is clocked to run at higher than stock clock speeds. MSI clocks the board at 678MHz core/972MHz memory. We know what you’re probably thinking, it definitely is a slight OC over the stock GTS speeds, but something is better than nothing right?

Besides the game (which may or may not ship with the card depending on where you bought it from and availability), the rest of MSI’s bundle consists of a DVI adapter, power adapter, S-Video cable, and component video cable.