Designed to levitate your gaming experience to stratospheric heights, the EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR represents the latest in graphic technology. Built around NVIDIA's latest GPU core (GeForce 8800GTS), this PCI-E graphic card redefines the term "gaming". Encompassing the revolutionary new NVIDIA unified architecture (with GigaThread technology); this graphic card simultaneously processes multi-threaded shader instructions to reproduce rich 3D graphics details in real-time.
Its 640 MB 320-Bit GDDR3 memory has a clock speed of 1600 MHz, and as such lets this advanced card run the richest games at their highest settings. Featuring full DirectX 10 support, this card is fully geared for the inevitable onslaught of the next-generation Microsoft Windows Vista. The NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology offers high-definition video decoding and delivers videos with unprecedented clarity to convert your PC into a high-end home-theater system.
The NVIDIA Lumenex Engine delivers spectacular image quality and high floating point accuracy at ultra-high frame rates, and their Quantum Effects Technology results in a new level of gaming performance, as it lets the major physics computation to be done by the GPU itself, freeing the core CPU for other tasks. The EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR is SLI enabled, and as such you can connect two of these behemoths to get the penultimate gaming system.
NVIDIA Unified Architecture with UltraThread TechnologyThe fully-unified shader core dynamically allocates processing power to geometry, vertex, physics and pixel shading operations, delivering incredibly true-to-life 3D graphics. In addition, the massively multi-threaded architecture supports thousands of independent, simultaneous threads, providing extreme processing efficiency in advanced, next generation shader programs.
Full Microsoft DirectX 10 SupportThe world's first DirectX 10 GPU with full Shader Model 4.0 support delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects.
NVIDIA Lumenex EngineThe NVIDIA Lumenex Engine supports 128-bit and 64-bit floating point HDR with up to 16x anti-aliasing, delivering vividly realistic lighting effects while obliterating "jaggies".
NVIDIA SLI TechnologyDelivers up to 2x the performance of a single GPU configuration for unmatchable gaming experiences. The must-have feature for PCI Express graphics, NVIDIA SLI technology allows two graphics cards to run in parallel and dramatically scales performance on today's hottest games.
NVIDIA PureVideo HD TechnologyThe combination of high-definition video decoding acceleration and post-processing delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color and precise image scaling for all video content, especially movies.
Built for Microsoft Windows VistaBuilt for Windows Vista, NVIDIA's fourth-generation GPU architecture offers users the best possible experience using the Windows Aero 3D graphical user interface available in Microsoft's latest operating system.
Pros: 640MB of video memory! Overclocks to (almost) 8800GTX performance and is a solid match for the 2900XT when overclocked.
Cons: Size. Heat, but to a lesser extent than the 320MB card (see below).
Overall Review: I upgraded to this after 3 months with my 320MB 8800GTS and boy am I happy. Oblivion ran well before, but now it runs amazingly smooth on higher settings. Surprisingly, this runs 5 or 6 degrees Celsius cooler than my 320MB version. That, I figure, is due to the lower clock and memory settings. This makes me happy since I'm not even overclocking it and getting better performance. However, I did test it overclocked and the temps did get upwards of 70 degrees Celsius. For the price, can't beat the results. Drivers are finally coming around and I'm definitely seeing better performance. Who knows what it does in DX10, but, frankly, at this point, I don't care.