The 8800GT 512MB

The 8800GT sports the standard cooler with an MSI sticker fitter to the cooling shroud. It has the picture of a young warrior reminiscent of Final Fantasy characters; she certainly is a breath of fresh air from the Gainward "lady".

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The fan used on the stock cooler is a coaxial one that draws air from underneath (when installed) the card and forces it over the internal heatsink which is situated just under the mascot lady's face.

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This air is then expelled back into the case through the front and back using these grills. It's a shame not to see the air exhausted out the back of the case, but that would have required a dual slot cooler and that would mean the loss of one of the 8800GT's main selling points.

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Just next to one of the front grills is the 6pin PCI-e power socket. This one has a better fitting with the shroud than a Galaxy 8800GT I had a play with which wouldn't allow the power cable to plug all the way in.

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The back features the usual 8 series low profile screws but this time they are in black. The green PCB is a bit boring compared to the sleek black and red ones companies tend to use these days. However, it's a darker green than the traditional nVidia colours, so we'll let them off.

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The SLI (Scaleable Link Interface) bridge connector is near the rear of the card. This allows for two 8800GTs to connect together for up to twice the performance of a single card. However, the lack of a second SLI bridge connector means the GT won't be capable of running Tri or Quad SLI in the future.

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The rear of the card has twin DVI ports and a single SVideo socket. One of the DVI ports is covered by a yellow plug to protect the slot when not in use. That's right, the "Yellow DVI: Exclusive to MSI" on the back of the box, was telling you about the "exclusive" DVI plug. I know... I was disappointed too.

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