Introduction

We had no doubt that NVIDIA was going to bring something to the party to battle the HD 2900 PRO but we didn't think it was going to be a new card. We thought maybe a few tweaks here and there in the drivers would be done but instead they decide to drop the bombshell that is the 8800GT.

I didn't pay a lot of attention to the 8800GT rumors until official word came from NVIDIA due to the plain fact that lately there has been so many false rumors about video card models coming and going that you simply don't know what to believe.

The 8800GT is here though and we're going to see stock at the beginning of next week all around the world….which is more than we can say for the HD 2900 PRO which impressed us a great deal.

*pauses to head over to local price search engine site*

"search: HD 2900 PRO (no items were found)"

This is really disappointing as the HD 2900 PRO really impressed us, and word from multiple places was that stock was only going to be a week or two away. The 8800GT on the other hand we know is already in the country ready to be shipped come Monday.

While we have the 512MB model with us today there is also a 256MB model that was supposed to be launched, and if samples arrived on time we would have that for you here, but that wasn't to be.

There's no point dwelling on all this negativity though, so let's have a look what MSI have managed to do with the 8800GT along with answering the simple question, "What the hell is the 8800GT?"