NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX Hits The Ground Running
by Derek Wilson on June 22, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test, Card, and High Resolution
Before we get down to the performance tests, let's look at our test system.ASUS nForce 4 A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
AMD FX-55
1GB DDR3200 2:2:2:8
120GB Seagate 7200.7 HD
OCZ PowerStream 600W PSU
The card this time around is a single slot solution. With the process shrink to 110nm an insignificant increase in clock speed, NVIDIA has produced a chip that runs at lower power and temperature than NV40. At the same time, the increase in parallelism has served to boost performance.
Layout of the card is relatively similar to the 6800 Ultra, but there are a few differences. We've still got 2 DVI slots (both single link), but the solder point for the silicon image TMDS chip for dual-link DVI is either missing or moved. We will certainly be interested in seeing a workstation version of this part.
Here's a quick recap and summary of the G70 and GeForce 7800 GTX:
302M transistors
Over 300mm^2
110 nm TSMC fabrication process
Single Slot HSF
430MHz Core clock
600MHz GDDR3 256MB/256-bit
8 vertex shader units
24 pixel shader units
16 ROP units
2 DVI and one HDTV / VIVO connection
PCI- Express (demand for an AGP part will be determined and addressed if necessary)
~100W Power
350W Power Supply Recommended (500W for SLI)
So what is all the fuss about? Here's a look at the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX card:
Why high res?
It is important to remember that we tested at resolutions of 1600x1200 and higher because lower resolutions are CPU limited without AA and AF enabled. In many cases the GeForce 7800 GTX don't show much difference in performance with and without antialiasing at lower resolutions. This kind of data doesn't give us much useful information about the card. We have truly reached another plateau in graphics performance with this part: pushing the card to the max is all but necessary in order to understand its performance characteristics.
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mrdeez - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
Derek-Please post benches with resolutions that are commonly used or this article becomes a workstatin graphics card article and not one for gamers....I mean really 2046x3056 or whatever the hell...lol...#1 who games at that res??? While this card is powerful it should be mentioned that unless you use a res over 1600x12000 this card is unnecessary.......lol those were some ridculous resolutions though.......and again post some benches with 1280x1024 for us lcd'ers.....
Shinei - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
#95: Did you pay to read this article? I know I didn't...#94: I guess you missed the part where they said that all resolutions below 1600x1200 were essentially identical in performance? If you only play in 1024x768, why are you reading a review about a $600 video card--go buy a 6600GT instead.
jeffrey - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#83Has the staff at Anandtech not ever heard of "Vacation Coverage"?
The excuse of your Web Editor being on vacation is, in reality, an admission of improper planning.
A major hardware site that is dedicated to cutting-edge technology should have planned better. New high-end GPU launches happen by NVIDIA only about 2-3 times a year at most.
This was one of the HUGE launches of the year and it was messed-up becuase the team didn't feel it was important enough to get some help for the article. There was damage done to Anandtech today due to the article errors and due to the casual admission in post #83 about not caring to properly cover a "Super Bowl" type of product launch today.
Save your apologies to the message board, give them to Anand.
geekfool - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
How about benchmarking some useful resolutions? This review was essentially useless.JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
86 - Trust me, most of us other editors saw the article, and quite a few of us offered a helping hand. NDAs a a serious pain in the rear, though. Derek was busy pulling all nighters and functioning on limited sleep for several days, and just getting the article done is only half the battle. Getting the document and results into the document engine for a large article with a lot of graphs can take quite a while and is an error prone process.The commentary on the gaming benchmarks, for instance, was written in one order and posted in a different order. So please pardon the use of "this is another instance" or "once again" when we're talking about something for the first time. Anyway, I've got a spreadsheet of the benchmarks from early this morning, and other than non-functional SLI in a few games, the numbers appeared more or less correct. The text also didn't have as many typos. Crunch time and getting the final touches put on a major article isn't much fun.
Thankfully, I'm just the SFF/Guide man, so I'm rarely under NDA pressure. ;)
robp5p - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
I would love to see someone start benchmarking in widescreen resolutions! 1920x1200 begs for a fast video card like this. As was pointed out, the only real benefits of the 7800 come at high resolutions, and many people buying high resolution monitors these days are getting widescreen LCD'sand btw, my 2405fpw is sitting in a box right next to me in the office, begging me to open it up before I get home...this thing will be fun to get home on the subway
patriot336 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Where is the Monarch and Tiger love?TigerDirect http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool...
Monarchcomputer http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant....
Both are 599.00$
BikeDude - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
$600 for a card that only features single-link DVI outputs? Yeah right, pull the other one nVidia!--
Rune
ta2 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
As a player of eve-online, I can tell you that the game is entirely CPU dependent. On that matter, it will 100% any CPU you have. I mean ANY CPU. Also for the testing, you should use 1600x1200 max AA and AF and go into an area with many player ships on eve-online. I guarantee you will not get 60 FPS. Impractical and unscientific, but would still give better results than this review.TinyTeeth - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
I am very impressed of the performance of the new chip. Nvidia seems to have fixed the problems SLI had during the 6800 generation.I am also pleased they have managed to deliver the cards so quickly. That also puts some pressure on ATI.