XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Graphics Card Review
Verdict
Key Specifications
- Review Price: £423.00
Big graphics hardware releases can often fall foul of two stumbling blocks – either the card doesn’t live up to the pre-release hype, or the hardware is super fast and exceeds expectations, but there’s no stock available for anyone to buy. Thankfully nVidia made sure that the GeForce 7800 GTX avoided both these pitfalls, and not only is it the fastest graphics card on the planet, it was also available in the retail channel from day one.
So, less than two weeks after the initial launch of the GeForce 7800 GTX, I’m writing this review of the XFX retail card. In fact I got the boards (XFX sent me two for SLi testing) just over a week after the launch, but I wanted to have a good play with them before writing up this review, so I made you wait a little while.
Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past couple of weeks, you’re probably pretty familiar with the 7800 GTX specs, but in case you’re a bear and have just come out of hibernation I’ll give you a bit of background.
The GeForce 7800 GTX is nVidia’s new high-end graphics chipset, replacing the previous king of the hill, the GeForce 6800 Ultra. Now, the 6800 Ultra was a massive step forward when it was released just over a year ago, raising the transistor count to a heady 222 million, but the 7800 GTX smashes that landmark with an unbelievable 302 million transistors! The extra transistor count has helped nVidia raise the pixel pipelines from 16 to 24, while the vertex pipes have also increased from six to eight. nVidia has also opted to stick with the tried and tested 0.11 micron manufacturing process, rather than dropping down to a 90nm model, which could be the reason that yield is high straight off the bat.
The standard core speed of the 7800 GTX is 430MHz, which is an improvement over the standard core speed of the 6800 Ultra, which was 400MHz. However, many board partners clocked their retail 6800 Ultra cards faster than 400MHz, and it looks like the same is going to be true with the 7800 GTX.
XFX clearly thinks that the standard specs just aren’t fast enough and has clocked the core of its card at 450MHz. Likewise XFX has bumped up the memory speed slightly, with the 256MB of GDDR3 memory running at 625MHz (1.25GHz effective) instead of the standard 600MHz (1.2GHz effective). Coupled with the 256-bit memory interface, the XFX card should produce memory bandwidth of 40GB/sec compared to the 38.4GB/sec offered by the stock nVidia settings.
Although nVidia recommends a 500W power supply for running two GeForce 7800 GTX cards in SLi, I think that our green friends are definitely erring on the side of caution. Obviously the quality of the power supply comes into the equation, because the 460W Tagen power supply in the TrustedReviews graphics card test rig had no problems handling a pair of cards.
One criticism that was laid at the 6800 Ultra when it launched was the fact that it took up two slots inside your PC – a fact that was made worse when ATI launched its X800 cards in single slot form factor.
Thankfully nVidia has learned from its earlier experience and the 7800 GTX is a single slot card, albeit a very long one. The 7800 GTX also seems to run both quieter and cooler than the 6800 Ultra.
Now, don’t expect to see a plethora of different designs when you’re looking to buy a GeForce 7800 GTX card, since most board partners have just gone with the nVidia reference design, XFX included. It’s more likely that the differentiator between boards will be the clock speeds (as seen here) and the bundle that you get.
What you’re sure to get is dual DVI connectors, since this is part of the reference design. This is a great feature on any card and allows you to connect two LCD screens up digitally, for the best combination of desktop real estate and image quality. However, if your LCD only has an analogue connector, or if you want to use a CRT monitor, XFX has supplied two DVI to D-SUB converters in the box. If you’re wondering why anyone would want to connect a card like this to an old technology CRT monitor, keep reading and all will become clear.
Taking a look at monitors for a minute, the average PC user with a decent setup is probably using a 17in or 19in LCD screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 1,024. A true enthusiast user may have forked out the extra cash for a 1,600 x 1,200 20in or 21in LCD screen, while the totally loaded enthusiast may have treated himself to a 23in or 24in widescreen LCD with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,440. But the problem with all those screens, even the top end 24in widescreen display, is that they can’t produce a high enough resolution to do these cards justice.
When I tested these cards I had to drag out a large screen CRT monitor, since even when benchmarking a single card it didn’t really start to break a sweat until I cranked the resolution up to 1,920 x 1,440. But when it comes to running two cards in SLi, even a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536 didn’t seem to cause any problems.
Let’s take a look at Half-Life 2 first. Here you can see that the cards are CPU limited in the lower resolutions.
You can also see that there is a slight CPU overhead when running SLi, as the single card scores are actually higher at the lower resolution. Looking at the SLi scores you’ll see that the frame rate doesn’t drop below 100fps until you push the settings up to 1,920 x 1,440 with 4x FSAA enabled, and even then you’re still getting 95fps. Even running a single card you’re getting 66fps at the same resolution of 1,920 x 1,440 with 4x FSAA. But when you crank things up to 2,048 x 1,440 you start to see where the extra money you spent on an SLi solution is going – at this super-high resolution with 4x FSAA and 8x AF you’re still getting 68fps.
Of course I had to try out this setting, so I fired up Counter Strike: Source and started playing at 2,048 x 1,536 with 4x FSAA and 8x AF. The result was truly staggering, and I didn’t seem to suffer any major frame rate drops. Of course I had to tell everyone on the server what settings I was running, but no one believed me!
Loading up Far Cry showed a similar situation, but the most amazing observation is that the two cards in SLi were CPU limited all the way up to 2,048 x 1,536 if you run without FSAA or AF enabled – 1,024 x 768 scored 96.
17fps while 2,048 x 1,536 scored 94.82fps. Even when switching on FSAA and AF, the SLi setup didn’t drop below 90fps until I hit 1,920 x 1,440 with 4x FSAA. Far Cry is definitely still a pretty demanding engine, because running a single card showed the frame rate dropping to 62fps at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x FSAA and 8x AF. If you want to push the resolution higher than this, you’re going to have to turn the image quality settings off, but you will be rewarded with a silky smooth frame rate.
Since I had a GeForce 7800 GTX SLi setup, I thought I might as well have a little play with the HDR lighting on Far Cry. Even pushing the resolution all the way up and setting the HDR at level seven produced a smooth enough frame rate for play. It has to be said that there are instances where the HDR effects are stunning, particularly the bits that nVidia likes to show off – looking up through a hole in the roof while underground for example. However, I do find the effects – in Far Cry at least – somewhat flawed.
The idea that I would get some kind of over saturated white out from the reflection of light on a wall seems a little unlikely to me. Also, although the idea of an image coming into focus as your eyes get used to the light is pretty cool, taking two steps backward shouldn’t then white it out again.
To be fair though, HDR in Far Cry was bolted on after the coding had been finished and the game released, so it’s probably not a perfect implementation. It does give you an idea of how good the lighting effects could be in future titles though. It also gives you something to do with cards like this if you don’t want to, or can’t push up to the silly resolutions that I’ve been testing with.
When nVidia released information to the Press before the launch of the 7800 GTX, it included some benchmark results that had been run in house. Of course I always take benchmark results provided by the manufacturer with a pinch of salt, but in this case I’ve seen faster results than those supplied by nVidia, despite using a very similar SLi test rig.
For instance, nVidia claims a 3DMark05 result of 8645 at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x FSAA and 8x AF, while I managed 9121. Likewise, nVidia posted 85.6fps in Far Cry at the same settings, but I managed 91.6fps. Of course the extra performance is probably due to the slightly higher clock speeds sported by the XFX cards, but it’s always good when independent tests outstrip the manufacturer’s own numbers.
The XFX GeForce 7800 GTX is a fully ViVo compliant card, so you’ll be able to output and import video/audio signals. This is particularly important when you want to watch some HD video content on your large screen TV. The card will output either an S-Video signal, or the far preferable Component Video. However, the best way of outputting HD content will be over DVI, to a suitably equipped large screen LCD TV, but at least you’ve got all the bases covered.
As usual, XFX has shipped the card in a large X shaped box, which does look pretty cool. In the box you’ll find the card itself, two DVI to D-SUB converters, two S-Video cables, a ViVo cable with S-Video in, S-Video out, and component video out.
There’s also a twin Molex to six-pin PCI Express power converter, a driver disc, manual and a free T-Shirt.
Finally there’s a games bundle thrown in, and although X2: The Threat and Moto GP 2 are unlikely to get your pulse racing. Far Cry still looks as sweet as it did on the day it launched over a year ago.
So, how much are you going to have to pay for all this power? Well, as always, nothing this good ever comes cheap, and you’re going to have to dig pretty deep to buy one of these cards, but if you have SLi aspirations you’re going to have to be seriously flush. A single XFX GeForce 7800 GTX will set you back £422.87, so if you want SLi you’ll be looking at over £800 for graphics cards alone.
But despite the high price, I can’t help but love these cards. What I have in front of me is the current pinnacle of graphics technology – these cards will, quite simply, laugh at even the most demanding of 3D games. I guess I better start saving my pennies.
Verdict
This is the fastest graphics card ever to grace the TrustedReviews lab. The GeForce 7800 GTX is a totally awesome chipset, and the slightly overclocked XFX retail board pushed the envelope even further. If you’ve got a lot of money, buy one of these cards. If you’ve got even more money buy two – you won’t regret it.
Score in detail
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Value 8
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Features 10
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Performance 10
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT Graphics Card Benchmarks and Specs
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Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT Graphics Card Benchmarks and Specs
Specifications of the Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT graphics card dedicated to the desktop sector, with 20 shading units, its maximum frequency is 0,4GHz The table below makes it possible to observe well the lithography, the number of transistors (if present), the offered cache memory, the quantity of texture mapping units, of render output units, the release date, the GFLOPS performance, the values obtained in the benchmark platforms.
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Specifications:
| Graphics card | Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT | |||
| Market (main) | Desktop | |||
| Release date | Q3 2005 | |||
| Model number | GF-7800-GT-A2 | |||
| GPU name | G70 | |||
| Architecture | Tesla | |||
| Generation | GeForce 7 7800 | |||
| Lithography | 110 nm | |||
| Transistors | 302. 000.000 |
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| Bus interface | PCIe 1.0 x16 | |||
| GPU clock | 400 MHz | |||
| Memory frequency | 500 MHz | |||
| Effective memory speed | 1 Gbps | |||
| Memory size | 256 MB | |||
| Memory type | GDDR3 | |||
| Memory bus | 256 Bit | |||
| Memory bandwidth | 32,0 GB/s | |||
| TDP | 65 W | |||
| Suggested PSU | 300W ATX Power Supply | |||
| Multicard technology | SLI | |||
| Outputs |
2x DVI |
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| Max display resolution |
2560 x 1600 (DVI), |
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| Video decoding | H. 264, MPEG-2 |
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| Maximum GPU Temperature | 115°C | |||
| Cores (compute units, SM, SMX) | 7 | |||
| Shading units (cuda cores) | 20 | |||
| TMUs | 20 | |||
| ROPs | 16 | |||
| Pixel fillrate | 6,4 GPixel/s | |||
| Performance FP32 (float) | 8 GFLOPS | |||
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TMUs: texture mapping units. This unit was a physical processor separated from the main graphics processing units. It is able to distort a bitmap image, and also to resize it, to rotate it and to place it as a texture onto a plane of a specific 3D model.
ROPs: render output units. The other name of this unit is raster operations pipeline. This hadware component is taking pixel and texel information, and processing it through vector and matrix operations. The result will be a depth value or a final pixel. It is able to control antialiasing with the merge of several sample into one pixel.
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Performance with the benchmarks:
Performance comparison between this graphics card and those of equivalent power, for this we consider the results generated on benchmark softwares and rendering performances.
Pixel fillrate performance comparison for this graphics card:
| Pixel fillrate performance in GPixels/s | |
|---|---|
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AMD Radeon Vega 6 (Picasso) |
9,6 |
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AMD Radeon Vega 8 (Raven) |
8,8 |
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AMD Radeon Graphics (Raphael) |
8,8 |
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AMD Radeon Vega 8 Embedded |
8,8 |
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AMD Radeon R5 Graphics (Wani) |
7,2 |
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Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT |
6,4 |
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AMD Radeon R4 Mobile Graphics (Stoney) |
5,24 |
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AMD Radeon Vega 3 (Raven) |
4 |
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Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Comet Lake) |
3,6 |
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Intel UHD Graphics P630 |
3,6 |
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These scores are only an
average of the performances got with these graphics cards, you may get different results.
FP32 performance comparison (single precision; float; floating-point 32) for this graphics card:
| FP32 Performance in GFLOPS | |
|---|---|
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AMD Radeon R4 Mobile Graphics (Stoney) |
251,5 |
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ARM Mali-G52 MP8 |
217,6 |
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Intel UHD Graphics 610 (Comet Lake) |
201,6 |
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Intel UHD Graphics 610 (Coffee Lake) |
201,6 |
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Broadcom VideoCore VI |
32 |
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Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT |
8 |
Note: Commissions may be earned from the links above.
These scores are only an
average of the performances got with these graphics cards, you may get different results.
List of comparisons:
AcerAMDAMD RadeonAMD Radeon GraphicsAMD Radeon HDAMD Radeon HD 6000AMD Radeon HD 7000AMD Radeon HD 7800AMD Radeon HD 8000AMD Radeon InstinctAMD Radeon MobileAMD Radeon PROAMD Radeon PRO MobileAMD Radeon R2AMD Radeon R4AMD Radeon R5AMD Radeon R6AMD Radeon R7AMD Radeon R7 200AMD Radeon R9AMD Radeon R9 200AMD Radeon RXAMD Radeon RX 300AMD Radeon RX 400AMD Radeon RX 500AMD Radeon RX 5000AMD Radeon RX 5000 MobileAMD Radeon RX 6000AMD Radeon RX 6000 MobileAMD Radeon RX 7000AMD Radeon RX VegaAMD Radeon VegaAMD Radeon Vega 11AMD Radeon Vega 3AMD Radeon Vega 6AMD Radeon Vega 8AMD Radeon Vega MobileAppleARMARM MaliARM Mali-400ARM Mali-450ARM Mali-470ARM Mali-G31ARM Mali-G51ARM Mali-G52ARM Mali-G57ARM Mali-G610ARM Mali-G68ARM Mali-G71ARM Mali-G710ARM Mali-G72ARM Mali-G76ARM Mali-G77ARM Mali-G78ARM Mali-T720ARM Mali-T760ARM Mali-T764ARM Mali-T820ARM Mali-T830ARM Mali-T860ARM Mali-T880ASRockASRock Radeon RX 6000AsusAsus GeForce 4000Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2000ATIATI Radeon HDATI Radeon HD 3000ATI Radeon HD 4000ATI Radeon HD 5000BFGBroadcomBroadcom VideoCoreColorfulColorful GeForce 4000DellDMPEVGAEVGA GeForce 1000EVGA GeForce 1600EVGA GeForce 2000EVGA GeForce 3000GainwardGainward GeForce 4000GalaxGigabyteGigabyte GeForce 4000ImaginationImagination PowerVRImagination PowerVR SGX543Imagination PowerVR SGX544Inno3DIntelIntel ArcIntel Arctic SoundIntel HD GraphicsIntel Iris GraphicsIntel Iris Plus GraphicsIntel Iris Xe Graphics G7Intel Iris Xe Graphics MobileIntel UHD GraphicsIntel UHD Graphics 610Intel UHD Graphics 620Intel UHD Graphics 630Intel UHD Graphics 730Intel UHD Graphics 770Intel Xe GraphicsKuroutoshikouKuroutoshikou GeForceKuroutoshikou RadeonLeadtekMicrosoftMicrosoft XboxMSIMSI GeForce 3000MSI GeForce 4000NintendoNvidiaNvidia A100Nvidia GeForceNvidia GeForce 1000Nvidia GeForce 1000 MobileNvidia GeForce 1600Nvidia GeForce 1600 MobileNvidia GeForce 2000Nvidia GeForce 2000 MobileNvidia GeForce 3000Nvidia GeForce 3000 MobileNvidia GeForce 400Nvidia GeForce 4000Nvidia GeForce 500Nvidia GeForce 600Nvidia GeForce 600MNvidia GeForce 700Nvidia GeForce 700MNvidia GeForce 800M seriesNvidia GeForce 900Nvidia GeForce 900MNvidia GeForce GTNvidia GeForce GT 1000Nvidia GeForce GTXNvidia GeForce GTX 1000Nvidia GeForce GTX 1000 MobileNvidia GeForce GTX 1600Nvidia GeForce GTX 1600 MobileNvidia GeForce GTX 400Nvidia GeForce GTX 500Nvidia GeForce GTX 600Nvidia GeForce GTX 600 MobileNvidia GeForce GTX 700Nvidia GeForce GTX 700 MobileNvidia GeForce GTX 800 MobileNvidia GeForce GTX 900Nvidia GeForce GTX 900 MobileNvidia GeForce MXNvidia GeForce RTXNvidia GeForce RTX 2000Nvidia GeForce RTX 2000 MobileNvidia GeForce RTX 3000Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000 MobileNvidia GeForce RTX 4000Nvidia GeForce RTX 4000 MobileNvidia GM20BNvidia Quadro NVSNvidia Quadro seriesNvidia TeslaNvidia Tesla V100Nvidia TitanNvidia VoltaPalitPalit GeForce 4000PNYPowerColorQualcommQualcomm AdrenoSamsungSaplosSapphireSapphire Nitro+ RadeonSonySony PlayStationValveVeinedaVivanteXFXYestonZotacZotac GeForce 4000Graphics cards groups
List of benchmarks:
FP32 performance
See also:
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX
Equivalence:
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT AMD equivalent
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