A few months ago, I wrote a review of the Chaintech 6800 AA6800 Apogee, a Nvidia 6800-series based video card that blew us away with its capability and included features. Several people expressed concern over the fact that it was "overclocked" meaning that the graphics processing unit (GPU) and video memory were set to run at higher speeds than Nvidia recommends. Overclocking can lead to extra heat, extra strain placed on any component that is overclocked, louder overall sound, and the possiblities of instability and product failure. Because of this, we picked up an Albatron GeForce 6800 to compare.

Albatron is a relatively new company from Taiwan that's making video cards and other components at slightly more affordable prices in order to compete with the bigger companies like ASUS, Chaintech, Gigabyte, and the like. Their entry into the video card foray with the GeForce 6800 shown here is a decent one.

The Albatron runs at Nvidia's recommended clock speeds for both the GPU and the onboard memory at 325MHz and 700MHz respectively. The card includes an S-video cable, DVI-to-VGA adapter, manual, driver CD, WinDVD Creator, a GamePack, and ARX Fatalis. Not a shabby collection of goodies in the box. Unlike the Chaintech we reviewed back in October, the card is not overclocked at all.

How does it compare? Well, let's take a look at the Tom's Hardware VGA Charts IV review that shows the scores they received for various cards back in October 2004:

The Albatron GeForce 6800 we tested posted a 3DMark03 score of 9068 which falls right in line with Tom's Hardware's score of 9072. On the other hand, the Chaintech card we reviewed in October ripped a 9520 on the same test, showing the benefits of overclocking.

The Albatron GeForce 6800 performed quite admirably on our test system, an Athlon 64 3500+ running a single 74GB Raptor drive with 1024MB of Corsair matched pair memory and the card well outperforms any of the previous generation Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon cards (the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra posting a 6489 and the Radeon 9800 XT posting a 6653) showing off the unbelievable leaps and bounds Nvidia has made with their new 6800-series.

Unfortunately, we didn't notice a decrease in fan sound when it came to the Albatron 6800 over the Chaintech. In fact, it almost seemed as though this card was louder than the overclocked Chaintech, and this fact disappointed us.

Overall, we like the new Nvidia 6800-series and suggest that you really can't go wrong with whichever card you pick. However, for the extra pocket change that the Chaintech costs (around $5-20), you get a GeForce 6800 that performs far better than the standard clocked version. It's all a matter of personal preference, really. If you feel more comfortable with a card that's running at the speed Nvidia tested their chipset out with, then you should go with the Albatron. If you're itching for that extra mile out of your video card, the Chaintech AA6800 may be more up your alley.

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