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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swatX - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
THE SLI is meant to played on high res.. if you got money to brn on SLI then i am damn sure you got money to burn on a 19" monitor ;)CtK - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
can Dual Display be used in SLi mode??Johnmcl7 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
In general 6600GT SLI performance seems a bit random, in some cases it's really good as with BF2 but in others not as good as a 6800GT.John
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Anyone notice how a SLI'd 6600GT is just as quick as a 6800 Ultra in BF2?R3MF - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
give me some details on the 7800 and 7800GTwhat, when, and how much?
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#59I am more eager to see how the new midrange cards will perform than these parts but if I had a spare $600 I would jump all over this.
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#56LMAO!!!!
bob661 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#44And I thought paying $350 for a video cards was too much then or even before than there was the $200 high end and before that the $100 high end. I balked at all of those prices but I understood why they were prices as such and didn't bitch everytime the costs went up. The bar keeps being raised and the prices go with it. Inflation, more features and the fact that most of us here can afford $350 video cards pushes the cost of new PREMIUM cards higher by the year. It's only going to go up unless either people quit buying the high end cards or the manufatucrers find a magical process to reduce costs dramatically.
Johnmcl7 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
You're quite right, there's always a premium for the best, I don't see any difference here, no-one is being forced to buy this graphics card. As usual, I'll wait until something offers me a better price/performance ratio over my current X850XT/6800 Ultra duo.John
Avalon - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Seems to be a problem with the last Knights of the Old Republic 2 graph. Both 7800GTX setups are "performing" less than all the other cards benched. Despite all the mistakes, it still seems like I was right in that this card is made for those who play at high resolutions. Anyone with an R420 of NV40 based card that plays at 16x12 or less should probably not bother upgrading, unless they feel the need to.