NVIDIA 7800 GT Mini-Roundup

Final Words

We really can't say enough about the 7800 GT. It has proven itself over and over as a top performer among the ranks of 3d graphics solutions. Anyone lucky enough to own one of these cards will attest to its capability of handling any of the most demanding games out now with style. The 7800 GT is still one of the best choices available for those with monitors limited to resolutions of 1600x1200 or lower, and seeing as this is still the case for the majority of PC gamers, sales for the 7800 GT will be high this holiday season.

ATI's X1800 XL does offer comparable performance to the 7800 GT, and is probably its main competition right now in the graphics card market. Prices have been dropping lately for certain ATI products, which is a good thing, and you can find the X1800 XL for as little as $360 at the time of this writing. However, the 7800 GT can be found for as little as $300 right now, and given that the 7800 GT does in fact out-perform the X1800 XL (more or less depending on the game) , the 7800 GT is clearly the better choice. This isn't to say that the X1800 XL is not an excellent video card in its own merit, and we are pleased to see this ATI part at more reasonable prices, given the relatively brief time that it's been available for purchase.

Our performance tests have shown that each of these three 7800 GT's do very well in handling the graphical demands of a variety of games. It can be a difficult thing to sort out where different graphics cards fall performance-wise when looking for an upgrade. It makes it even harder when you have differences in clock speeds between different manufacturer versions of cards of the same type. Many times, a card that is billed as "faster" because of a factory overclock isn't really that much faster as what the manufacturer of the card would have you believe. This is especially true for NVIDIA's 7800 series, given the confusion surrounding the clock scaling frequencies that we've seen in the past.

Sorting out these little differences is enough to give anyone migraines, especially those not very familiar with gaming hardware looking for an upgrade or a gift for someone else. We can say with all confidence that all of these three 7800 GTs are good quality and would please any PC gamer with their performance. That said, these cards are not the same, so let's talk about how they differ for a moment.

Perhaps the biggest factor in distinguishing these cards is their price. The EVGA 7800 GT CO is the cheapest at $300, and the XFX GT is second at $320. The (standard) ASUS 7800 GT is about $380, which doesn't make much sense to us given that it is technically the slowest of these three cards. This fact, in addition to the fact that ASUS's warranty policy is the worst of the three companies (two years limited warranty from the date of purchase), puts the ASUS Extreme N7800 GT at the lowest on our list of 7800 GTs to recommend. The XFX and EVGA GTs are both very close to each other in terms of value, as they are nearly identical in performance and are also relatively close in price.

We would recommend either of these over the ASUS 7800 GT; however, EVGA's exceptional warranty policy, as well as the lower price, puts their e-GeForce 7800 GT slightly higher, at the top of our list. All the same, we're giving both the XFX GeForce 7800 GT Overclocked and the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GT our editor's choice award.

To the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GT and the XFX GeForce 7800 GT Overclocked for excellence in performance and value.

We recommend staying as far away as possible from the blue LED edition of the ASUS EN7800 GT, as the current price of $430 is much too high for a 7800 GT, especially considering that it's only clocked at reference speeds. The extra $150 apparently only gets you a slightly modified heat sink fan and some pretty blue lights on your card. The regular version of the ASUS EN7800 GT offers the same performance at $380, so if you must have an ASUS 7800 GT, for pity's sake, choose this one, but we don't see any reason to go with either of these over the XFX or EVGA 7800 GTs.

The 7800 GT is undeniably a high-end graphics solution, and the prices reflect this, so not everyone can afford it, unfortunately. But for those who can or who are lucky enough to receive one as a gift this holiday season, count your blessings and be sure to put it to good use (we recommend Call of Duty 2, Battlefield 2, Black and White 2, Quake 4, F.E.A.R, etc.). Our congratulations to EVGA and XFX, as well as NVIDIA, for providing us with this excellent card.