NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX reviewed

[The_Pope]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...7800gtx/1.html

It's finally here: NVIDIA's latest GPU, the GeForce 7800 GTX, is put through its paces by Tim Smalley. How much faster is it than SLI? Find out...

[felix the cat]

We actually found that the northbridge cooler on our [eurl]http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/05/16/nvidia_sli_pt1/5.htmlDFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR motherboard[/eurl] needed to be adjusted as it was now recognised as the noisiest fan in the entire system.

is the url meant to be like that?

[Tim S]

No, sorry for any errors, it has taken me literally 3 hours to upload this on the worst 56k connection ever. I don't have net at my new home at the moment, so I'm writing and uploading as and when I can... very slowly.

Sorry for any errors

[The_Pope]

fixed - thanks!

[felix the cat]

no worries, just thought id point out as i was reading....

56k...whats that then? did it come before or after the wheel?

[Da Dego]

New house? Your own?

[Darkedge]

hmm well not impressed with the card but maybe thats because my head hurts from trying to remember all the different setting to be able to compare the cards in my mind.
It's certainly no 6800ultra SLI in one card and actually it's no great leap at all, just an incremental bonus at high resolutions, again. Bloody expensive too - you'd be a fool to buy it now and not wait for what Ati are going to be offering, and of course it to come down to a less stupid price.

[alextwo]

In the second sentence it says "you can check out that article here" I think it's supposed to link to the article but it doesn't.

[The_Pope]

Thanks - it's 2am here now and I'm cross-eyed I meant to fix that earlier but forgot. Tim has no net connection, otherwise he'd be here tidying up

[-EVRE-]

I like your method of reviewing but.... in a big way your forgetting the more and more people running LCD panels that run at very specific resolutions. ie, 1024x768 (typical 15") 1280x1024(typical 17" and 19") and me as a consumer is VERY interested in a apples to apples performance comparison of the 6800gt vs the 7800gtx at those resolutions!(and same settings if possible) If you are taking the time to find the "most playable settings" you must be running the test at different resolutions and settings, including those results would be most helpful!

Thank you
-EVRE-

[LordFeaR]

I would really like to see an apples to apples comparison as well please.

[-EVRE-]

Also, any idea if the water cooling solutions from suppliers such as, Danger Den, Koolance, (you UK guys know your local brands) will fit on the 7800gtx like they do on the 6800 serries?? The koolance guys told me it may be possible that the board layout hasnt changed much so thier cooler may fit on the 7800gtx.

[Stompy]

Yeh, good article but would be nice to see them all performing at the same res to get a direct comparison.

[Link2425]

Originally Posted by -EVRE-

I like your method of reviewing but.... in a big way your forgetting the more and more people running LCD panels that run at very specific resolutions. ie, 1024x768 (typical 15") 1280x1024(typical 17" and 19") and me as a consumer is VERY interested in a apples to apples performance comparison of the 6800gt vs the 7800gtx at those resolutions!
-EVRE-

I couldnt agree more. best playable settings is not important to me seeing as I can only run at one res. However, I do really like how thorough and well wrtten the review is.

[Da Dego]

Originally Posted by -EVRE-

I like your method of reviewing but.... in a big way your forgetting the more and more people running LCD panels that run at very specific resolutions. ie, 1024x768 (typical 15") 1280x1024(typical 17" and 19") and me as a consumer is VERY interested in a apples to apples performance comparison of the 6800gt vs the 7800gtx at those resolutions!(and same settings if possible) If you are taking the time to find the "most playable settings" you must be running the test at different resolutions and settings, including those results would be most helpful!

Thank you
-EVRE-

I think you bring up an excellent point, Evre, but something to keep in mind...Half of the smaller graphical improvements and tweaking, etc, are lost on those of us with LCDs. The truth is most LCD monitors run great on a 6600gt-6800gt and have little to no need to upgrade right now, because you can only get a max of 1280 resolution out of them typically. A LOT of this stuff is for the HARDcore dude who runs his computer up in the 1600 resolution range and sets his refresh rate to the highest his 21" NEC/Sony CRT will go. Because then you can see EVERYTHING. Or maybe you just hooked it up to your 1920p HDTV.

Honestly, if you're buying all this newest stuff and using a good, typical (read: not 21+") LCD, you're not getting the advantages it offers anyways. That's why I resigned myself to the slower cards. 30fps is slightly above the threshhold of the human eye to depict fluid motion, so anything that stays above that in what you play is just fine, and anything too far above is overkill. And unfortunately, except for things like water reflection, lens effects, etc, there's not a lot of difference on an LCD between high-quality and uber-jawdrop-beautiful-quality. 4xAA isn't even all that useful at 1280 on an LCD, because you can only divide pixels up so much... There's just not the resolution there to differentiate some of the highest level shadow and texture issues, which hog the most GPU power, and without more than 4xAA, you don't need all that much memory, either (though the 256mb 6800s help out there).

Just my $0.02...that and another $1 may get you a cup of coffee.

[-EVRE-]

Good point about the LCD's Da Dego.

however my screen type and resolution is not detouring me from seriously considering the 7800gtx.

Right now, Im not the one looking for an upgrade, another family member is, and He wants my current setup. that would leave me with a few choices, get another 6800gt with pcie for an sli setup, or I can look to the future and get a 7800gtx.

right now, i cant see a family member buying another AGP 6800gt when I could just upgrade to something better and scalable.

[JADS]

You mean not everyone has a 24" TFT?

You know some of those 7800 GTX cards support dual-link DVI so how about some 2560x1600 on the lovely 30" Apple TFT? Pointless, but cool!

Seriously though some of those benchmarks are confusing because the cards can't be directly compared as they are running at different settings. Surely though in reality as most people are running a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 is there much point in buying a 7800 GTX when a less powerful and cheaper 6xxx series will give you all the poke you need?

/me echoes the sentiments of previous posters.

[Tim S]

I will attempt to clear up the article a bit now, while I have an hour of net at a local net cafe. I understand that some of the graphs may be confusing, but that is because I haven't highlighted the settings that were used inside the text like I have done previously. I was uploading this series of articles on a connection that was giving me ~1k/s - hence why it took me 3 hours.

If you have an LCD, a 6800 GT would be a better buy IMHO - Battlefield 2 is the only game where you may lose out. After some preliminary testing in BF2, I found that a 6800 GT needed to be set to 'Medium' detail across the board. If you fancy forcing AA from the control panel, you could make use of 8xSAA on a 7800 GTX and you should get reasonably playable settings.

I will try and do some apples to apples today at 1280x1024 4xAA 8xAF and work out a way of popping the numbers in this thread a bit later on.

[Tim S]

Originally Posted by Darkedge

hmm well not impressed with the card but maybe thats because my head hurts from trying to remember all the different setting to be able to compare the cards in my mind.

Think of it like this: the higher the resolution/settings... the faster the card...

It's certainly no 6800ultra SLI in one card and actually it's no great leap at all, just an incremental bonus at high resolutions, again.

I disagree - you get 6800 Ultra SLI performance (and beyond when you use HDR) in every game out there, and it is cheaper than two Ultra's even after the expected price cuts.

[Darkedge]

Originally Posted by bigz

I disagree - you get 6800 Ultra SLI performance (and beyond when you use HDR) in every game out there, and it is cheaper than two Ultra's even after the expected price cuts.

well the graphs don't show twice the performance at all as I can tell and i've seen other reviews (tomshardware for example) that show an incremental increase and sometimes a decrease with SLI ffs. Not that an impressive card and certainly not twice the power.