Introduction

As another launch date approaches, it is perhaps inevitable that the rumor mills have started. Will NVIDIA meet its targeted mid-April release for its mid-range GeForce 8 cards, the GeForce 8600 and 8500 models? There have been some murmurs that though the hardware is done, it may not be the hard launch that we have become accustomed to from NVIDIA. From what we've gathered in our talks with NVIDIA graphics card vendors during our CeBIT trip, the new cards are all ready to go and just awaiting the NDA expiry - which is a direct opposition to the rumors. Nevertheless, being a review site, we should hopefully give you a timely glimpse of the performance capabilities of these new cards, even if they may not be widely available in retail (and there's a big 'if' about the accuracy of the rumors).

What's available at the moment is the higher end 8800 series, with the 320MB variant of the GeForce 8800 GTS being the most affordable of the lot. Quite a few manufacturers have embraced this variant, since the lesser memory allows it to be sold at a more palatable price point for consumers. Today, we have yet another such card for review, this time, it's the Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GTS TDH 320MB. Since it does not come with the Extreme moniker, it's supposed to be at standard clock speeds though that should still be very fast given its GeForce 8 pedigree. Before we proceed, here's a look at the package and its technical specifications:

Leadtek's shimmery packaging for its GeForce 8 series may not be the best way to attract consumers.