Ballistics Report

Pros

Better cooling: While we haven’t run into any stability issues or seen artifacts with any of our GeForce 8800 GT cards based on NVIDIA’s original cooling unit, the temps these boards run at may concern some enthusiasts, particularly if you plan on housing the card in a small enclosure like an HTPC. As a result many 8800 GT card owners have turned to third-party coolers made by companies like Arctic Cooling and Zalman for better cooling performance.

Recognizing the need for better GPU cooling, Palit’s GeForce 8800 GT Super+1GB ships with its own custom heatsink/fan unit. Palit’s cooler is much larger than the stock NVIDIA cooler, consuming two slots rather than one. To finish the system off, Palit uses a large variable speed fan that adjusts RPMs based on GPU temperature. Other than during system bootup, our card never needed to crank up its RPMs, even during overclocking, the card ran quietly.

In our tests the Palit cooler performed significantly better than the original NVIDIA cooler, running over 20 degrees Celsius cooler at load.

1GB More Future Proof?: In all the games we tested today, the 1GB frame buffer offered by the Palit GeForce 8800 GT Super+1GB offered little or no performance improvement over the stock GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. Even in our 2560x1600 tests, the additional memory offered no advantage in some games.

Now granted, we ran all of our tests under Windows XP, so the more intensive DX10 tests like Company of Heroes weren’t run. But at the same time both Crysis and BioShock with AA were tested and here the Palit GeForce 8800 GT Super+1GB generally performed on par with the 512MB GeForce 8800 GT.

In theory as more intensive games like Crysis become the norm, it’s possible that the larger frame buffer could come into play. If you recall the introduction of the first 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, and 512MB graphics cards way back in the days, the first GPUs to utilize the additional memory showed little or no performance benefit, but eventually the software caught up to the hardware and the additional memory was a blessing rather than a burden.

The question is, by the time we see more intensive games that can really push 1GB cards, will the GeForce 8800 GT GPU still be powerful enough to keep up with them.

HDMI adapter included: Unlike most card vendors that bundle their GeForce 8800 GT with two DVI adapters, Palit includes one DVI to VGA adapter and one DVI to HDMI adapter. This gives end users the option of hooking the card up to an HDMI-equipped HDTV (a SPDIF cable is also included for audio).

Cons

Dual-slot cooling: One of the most attractive selling points of the GeForce 8800 GT – particularly for HTPC users – is the single-slot design. While enthusiasts usually leave the slot directly adjacent to the GPU empty anyway, there’s definitely a need for more single-slot high-end cards, as they are compatible with a wide range of cases. Unfortunately in order to deliver more effective GPU cooling, the heatsink on the Palit GeForce 8800 GT Super+1GB is tall; the card easily consumes two slots.

$300+ Price Tag: We’ve been told by Palit that the Super+1GB officially carries an MSRP of $300, but online retailer TigerDirect sells the board online now for $350. Considering that many 512MB GeForce 8800 GT boards currently sell in the low $300-range, a $350 price tag seems more realistic than $350, but at this price the card is priced awfully close to the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB which runs faster. In addition, since the additional memory has such a limited impact on performance, factory overclocked GeForce 8800 GT 512MB boards like Palit’s own GeForce 8800 GT Sonic should deliver more overall performance than the Super+1GB.

UPDATE: NCIX USA now sells the Super+1GB for $295.16, placing it a few dollars below Palit's own MSRP.