Tech-Hounds.com

Round Up of GeForce 7 Series

PCI Express x16 graphics cards
Chipset GeForce 7800GT / 7800GTX 256 MB, 256 bit

After our last round up, we're pretty dismayed with both the performance of GeForce 6800GT and Radeon X800XL in newer games. For the most part, these cards are just barely making the grade with minimum fps of 30 fps (with AA and AF) or even less than that. So, like most gamers out there, we want an even faster card, 30 fps minimum is just too low for real fluid gaming. Obviously, this means taking a look at the even faster GeForce 7800GT and GTX. Newer cards such as the GeForce 7800GTX 512 MB and the Radeon X1800XL / X1800XT are just around the corner, but these cards are not yet available worldwide right now. Hopefully, we will getting some samples soon, but for now let's take a look at what's available.

Of course, we expect more from the GeForce 7 series. After tasting what the GeForce 6800GT and Radeon X800XL has to offer, we want more than just higher frame rates, but higher frame rates with AA and AF as well. This time, we put more emphasis on performance test results with AA and AF. We also want to see if these cards have what it takes to push high frame rates with newer games coming out within the year. That's why we've decided to only publish results with F.E.A.R, Serious Sam II, Quake 4, Brothers In Arms and Battlefield 2. The other games in our benchmark suite proved to be system limited with these cards, so there's no point of publishing the results in these games (the frame rates are similar to the GeForce 6800GT - you can check those scores here).

As usual, we decided to postpone our more in-depth coverage for now, into another article (hopefully next week). Right now, let;s take a look at offerings from different vendors we've managed to get samples from. There are at least two versions of the GeForce 7800GTX, those with reference clocks and those with slightly higher core and memory clocks. On the other hand, the GeForce 7800GT only comes in one flavor. This time, we put three GeForce 7800GTX and two GeForce 7800GT to the test, they are the ASUS EN7800GT TOP, Gigabyte 7800GTX Turbo Force, WinFast GeForce 7800GTX TDH and ASUS EN7800GT and Gigabyte 7800GT.

Overview

ASUS EN7800GTX TOP
485/675 MHz

NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX, 256 MB GDDR3
Core Clock : 486 MHz
Memory Clock : 675 MHz (1350 MHz GDDR3)

Overall Score: 92.5 points



The ASUS EN7800GTX TOP is the only GeForce 7800GTX in this round up to have dual slot cooling. Its basically the reference dual slot cooling solution that was also used by the Galaxy Glacier 6800GT. Unlike single slot solutions, this dual slot solution use a single copper base to cover both core and memory chips on the card, thus giving it a very large heat dissipation area. Naturally, this lets the card runs cooler than cards with single slot cooling solutions. If you want to use two of these cards in an SLI setup, you might find it to be a a tight squeeze indeed (depending on your motherboard). The air intake's is positioned in a way to avoid taking in hot air from the second card.


On the back of the card, you can see back plates for both core and memory chips. It's a pretty solid mounting and ASUS have managed not to bend the PCB in the process. We seem to be seeing more of that lately. You could see below, the copper base made good, solid contact with both core and memory chips.



Just like their other graphics cards, the EN7800GTX TOP comes with the standard ASUS utilities. Unfortunately, like the EN6800GT, the SmartDoctor hardware monitoring functions is non existent, probably because none are present on the card. So, it's merely an overclocking tool, which you can either set it manually (via sliders) or automatically by turning on HyperDrive. There's also ASUS enhanced drivers, offering OSD control to adjust brightness / contrast / gamma in game. These drivers now automatically adjust colors, brightness and contrast for both video and gaming. However, now they display a 'Splendid' logo on the upper right edge of the screen which may become annoying for some gamers. If you want to remove it, you should uninstall the enhanced driver. The downside to this is that you have to manually adjust the colors, brightness and contrast either on the monitor or the driver control panel.



The EN7800GTX TOP is running at a slightly higher MHz than the reference specification. You can see this in the RivaTuner graph below, the card scales down to just 275 MHz when you're on the desktop and quickly revs up to 486 MHz when running 3D applications or playing games. By the looks of it, it also scales down, albeit slightly, when you're viewing in game menus. Core temperatures can reach 50° Celsius or more (53° Celsius to be exact), still well below other GeForce 7800GTXs with single slot cooling solutions.



Equipment wise, the EN7800GTX TOP is pretty standard - TV / HDTV output and video input are supported. It also comes with the necessary accessories (cables and dongles). ASUS was nice enough to include a five games bundle with this card (Project Snowblind, Expand Rally, Joint Operations, Second Sight and Power Drome). However, except for the game bundle, there's really nothing extra in the bundle, you can get them all with a standard GeForce 7800GTX. ASUS didn't even bundle a second DVI to analog dongle, a fair request for the price they're asking for this card.

Gigabyte 7800GTX TurboForce
485/625 MHz

NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX, 256 MB GDDR3
Core Clock : 486 MHz
Memory Clock : 625 MHz (1250 MHz GDDR3)

Overall Score: 90 points



The Gigabyte 7800GTX TurboForce is also running at a slightly higher clock than the reference specification. The core is running at 486 MHz, but the memory is slightly lower than the EN7800GTX TOP (625 MHz). However, one plus that's a boon to SLI users is Gigabyte's decision to use a single slot reference cooling solution. The gap between the cards is just enough for air to move freely. In fact you can even mount an air duct to help air flow from the back of the case to the card in the first PCI Express x16 slot. The heatsink (on the front) is actually two separate parts, joined together at the mounting points. This is similar to the GeForce 7800GT's heatsinks. You can see this for yourself in the picture below (from top to bottom - ASUS EN7800GT, Gigabyte 7800GT, Gigabyte 7800GTX TurboForce, WinFast GeForce 7800GTX TDH).





Backplates is a necessity on these cards, since the heatsink can put quite a strain on the PCB, to the point of bending them. Users of socket 478 motherboard should be familiar with this problem. There's nothing different here, except for color. Looks like the only thing Gigabyte change is the core and memory clock. Everything else is still based on the reference design.



Gigabyte's VTuner2 and some other goodies such as Cyberlink PowerDVD are included in the CD. Again, there's no hardware monitoring functions you can see or control, which is a shame. VTuner's default clock is set to the desktop clock, so you might want to use a different utility to overclock the Gigabyte 7800GTX TurboForce. One such utility is RivaTuner, which offers monitoring functions for clock and temperature as long as the card supports it. You can definitely see the same 'variable clock' behavior on this card - a feature of all GeForce 7800GTX. Both idle and on load temperatures are pretty standard for a single slot solution - between 42 to 60° Celsius.



Gigabyte's GeForce 7800GTX TurboForce is equipped with TV / HDTV output and video input as well. The necessary cables and dongle accessories are included, so you can quickly set them up. There are two games bundled with this card (Joint Operations and Expand Rally), nice but not really our favorites. It's just your basic bundle, so naturally you expect the price of the card to be slightly lower than other cards - but your mileage may vary. One other thing to note, Gigabyte was nice enough to include not one, but two DVI to analog dongle, a plus for those still using analog monitors.

WinFast PX 7800GTX TDH
430/600 MHz

NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX, 256 MB GDDR3
Core Clock : 432 MHz
Memory Clock : 598 MHz (1198 MHz GDDR3)

Overall Score: 87.5 points



The WinFast PX 7800GTX TDH is the only card that fully adheres to the reference specification in this round up. If you want a higher clocked GTX, they do have their 'Extreme' line of cards, unfortunately we couldn't get a review sample of one. The only difference this cards has from the reference design is the Leadtek WinFast logo on the fan. Everything else is the same.



One look at the back of the card confirms this, there's really no difference between the GeForce 7800GTX TDH and the reference design. The same backplate for both core and memory are present, right down to the color.



You can clearly see the heatsink is in full contact with the core and memory. There's a thermal padding between the heatsink and memory, but there should be enough contact for heat transfer. We still prefer a more direct contact with thermal paste instead of padding or tape, but it's okay. We're a little bit wary of the slightly bent PCB, quite strange since WinFast has taken precautions by using backplates on this card.





Just like their other cards, WinFast bundled their WinFox utility with the GeForce PX 7800GTX TDH. However, as you can see, there's really not much difference between this and other GeForce 7800GTXs. The only plus of this utility is the ability to set a lower alarm threshold (than what the Forceware drivers allow) and displaying a warning to the user or forcing a shutdown. It's still functional, but they should've provided more features, like fan control or even ambient temperature that's ironically, present in their 6800GT. Looks like WinFast engineers were not able to add some of their special touches on this card. Core temperatures is basically the same as the Gigabyte GeForce 7800GTX TurboForce - ranging from 40 to 60° Celsius.



WinFast was able to bundle two more popular games, different from the other manufacturers - Splinter Cell's Chaos Theory and Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. There's also the needed accessories to make use of the card's TV / HDTV output and video input capabilities. WinFast was nice enough to include two DVI to analog dongles, so those of you with two analog monitor need not worry.

ASUS EN7800GT
400/500 MHz

NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT, 256 MB GDDR3
Core Clock : 405 MHz
Memory Clock : 501 MHz (1002 MHz GDDR3)

Overall Score: 82.5 points



One look at this card, you're forgiven if you think that's ASUS EN6800GT, the two really does look very similar to each other, down to the heatsink and blue PCB and LED. Make no mistake though, the EN7800GT packs more punch per dollar than the GeForce 6800GT. Since it's using the same cooling solution as their GeForce 6800GT, it does gets slightly hot, but still way below the 7800GTX. However, one thing that really stands out is the noise - the EN7800GT is fairly louder than ASUS own GeForce 6800GT and 7800GTX. It's not loud, but you can definitely notice the sound the fan emits. Since the card does not throttle down or up, the sound stays the same when you're viewing the desktop or playing games.



Just like the GeForce 6800GT, the cooling solution does not put that much pressure on the PCB, that's why ASUS can make do with just a core backplate. The absence of memory chips on the back of the card also negates the need for additional memory heatsink.



You can definitely see the heatsink making good, solid contact with both core and memory chips. ASUS opted to use thermal padding between the heatsink and memory to help transfer heat - we still think thermal paste and a more direct contact will be better. Thankfully, the memory does not get that hot to really matter. Unfortunately, there's one thing we have to nitpick - you can clearly see the PCB is slightly bent, more than the WinFast PX7800GTX TDH. Quite strange, since the purpose of the backplate is to avoid this very problem. We think ASUS should take a closer look at their mounting procedures to see whether or not this is a real problem or just this unit.



Looks like all vendors are just churning out reference cards nowadays. ASUS own SmartDoctor utility (again) does not feature hardware monitoring, so it's basically only an overclocking tool. We had to use RivaTuner to get temperature measurements (via the standard thermal probe on all GeForce 6 / 7 cores). As you can see on the graph below, the GeForce 7800GT maintains the same clock at all times. The temperature of this card is pretty stable and doesn't get very high - topping of at around 50 ° Celsius.



The bundle of this card is pretty standard - you have the bundled application and manual CDs, three games (Project Snowblind, Joint Operations and Expand Rally). The card is also equipped with TV/ HDTV output and video input features. The CD case (which is also present on their GeForce 7800GTX) is also included here, but we think it's more of a novelty than a bonus.

Gigabyte 7800GT
400/500 MHz

NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT, 256 MB GDDR3
Core Clock : 405 MHz
Memory Clock : 501 MHz (1002 MHz GDDR3)

Overall Score: 85 points



The last card in our round up is the Gigabyte's GeForce 7800GT. This is the GV-NX78X256VP-B, which includes video input and HDTV output support. One look at the card, and we came to the conclusion that Gigabyte should've made some improvements to make this card really appealing. First of all, the air intake should have been wider. The absence of backplates is also a concern, but it is a minor point. One thing that we have to give kudos to is their fan control. Just like a GeForce 6800GT, the fan will spin up audibly during boot up but slows down to a whisper on entering the desktop. The noise levels stays the same both on the desktop and when playing a game. We think that this is an acceptable compromise considering the cost (around 5 to 7 ° Celsius.).





Even without the absence of a core backplate, Gigabyte still manages to avoid bending the PCB and of course, achieve good, solid contact with both core and memory chips. The standard thermal padding is again used to help heat transfer from the memory chips to the heatsink. Not too many manufacturers are aware of this matter it seems, nice to know Gigabyte care enough about this.



As to be expected, the Gigabyte GeForce 7800GT doesn't include any controllable hardware monitoring, relying on basic hardware monitoring functions in the Forceware drivers (core temperature monitoring only). Gigabyte's own VTuner 2 utility can change both core and memory clock, but for more serious overclocking (and temperature measurement) you definitely want to use third party utilities. In RivaTuner's hardware monitoring graph below, you can see again the GeForce 7800GT stays perfectly flat without clock changes indifferent to whether you're looking at the desktop or running 3D applications and games. Temperature does get slightly higher than the ASUS EN7800GT - we expected that since it has a narrower air intake.



The bundle for this card is not that different from their own GTX, sans the second DVI to analog dongle and Joint Operations is swapped by SpellForce: Order of Dawn (the second game remains Expand Rally). The TV / HDTV output and video input dongle and cables are present, but you'll have to find your own video capture / editing software.

Performance

Most of the games we tested today feature application controlled anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering. Only Battlefield 2 and Brothers In Arms have control for only one settings (AA in BF2 and AF in Brothers in Arms). We enable AA and AF in-game when possible, either through the menu or console command. For Battlefield 2, we enable anisotropic filtering through the driver panel and for Brothers in Arms, AA was again set through the driver panel. Image quality setting is changed to High Quality for best image quality, thus no user controllable optimizations were enabled. This time, we set transparency AA to off (a more in depth look will be featured in the next article). Testing are done using Forceware 81.94, since we've already finished testing before the 81.95 came out. Without further ado, here are the results.

Our test setup
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ socket 939
2 x 256 MB Kingston KVR 3-3-3 PC3200 DDR-SDRAM
MSI K8N NForce 4 SLI motherboard
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9 80 GBs Serial ATA 8 MB buffer
ASUS E-616 DVD-ROM
450 watts ATX power supply

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed
NVIDIA Forceware 81.94 reference driver
NVIDIA NForce 4 6.66 reference driver
Creative SoundBlaster Live! 24 bit 5.12.1.512 driver.
DirectX 9.0c

The results:

Looks like you really have to use at least a GeForce 7800GTX if you want to play F.E.A.R with AA and AF. The WinFast PX7800GTX TDH with reference clock can only managed to get a minimum 30 fps. The higher clocked 7800GTX fares slightly better (2-3 fps faster). The 7800GTX is of course slower, reaching minimum fps of 25 fps. So, if you want to play F.E.A.R with AA and AF, you better be ready to pay lots of money, either for the GeForce 7800GTX (or even the newly launched 7800GTX 512 MB) or an SLI setup with either GeForce 6800GT or 6800GT (or the upcoming 7800GS). All GeForce 6 and 7 series just lose too much performance in F.E.A.R with AA and AF enabled (at least 50%) and that's not good.


In Quake 4, we see a slightly better picture. All of these cards can still push high frame rates with AA and AF in 1024 x 768. But again when we up the resolution to 1280 x 1024, we began to see the same 50% performance drop. Thankfully the minimum frame rates are still high enough for comfortable gameplay. The GeForce 7800GT is beginning to buck under the strain here, dropping to the minimum 30 fps mark. At 1600 x 1200, the strain proves to be too much even for the higher clocked 7800GTX, so it's safe to say you can only play comfortably at maximum 1280 x 1024 with AA and AF in Quake 4 with these cards.


Looks like we're already system limited when running this game without AA and AF on these cards. One interesting thing is that the 7800GTs can score slightly higher than the 7800GTX in 1024 x 768 without AA and AF. As we up the resolution, the 7800GTs start to lose ground to the 7800GTXs. The real mettle here is in AA and AF scores. Here we see the GeForce 7800GTXs real performance. Again we see the performance penalty starts to grow from 1280 x 960 to around 40 to 50 % in 1600 x 1200. Like Quake 4, these cards can only offer high enough frame rates.for fluid gameplay on 1280 x 1024 with AA and AF enabled.


Benchmarking Battlefield 2 is really, really hard - particularly if you want consistent results. At 1024 x 768, all cards provide very fluid gameplay although the 7800GTs is slightly slower than the GTX. The trend is the same with AA and AF enabled. Only at 1280 x 960 and 1600 x 1200 do we see the difference between the them. Thankfully, you can definitely still play comfortable with AA and AF at 1280 x 960 with the 7800GTXs. Remember, we can get lower frame rates than the minimum results here in real world gameplay (about 2/3 of the minimum fps).


The last game in our benchmark, Brothers in Arms displays the same picture as the others - all the GeForce 7 series can only offer high enough frame rates for truly fluid gameplay at 1280 x 960 or 1280 x 1024 with AA and AF. Thankfully, average frame rates are still very high in this game, so definitely won't hit that minimum fps that often. So, it looks like if you have the money, you should really consider buying the GeForce 7800GTX - if you want a single card solution. The higher clocked 7800GTX does provide some extra 'omph', particularly when you need it, so it's definitely a better buy than the standard GeForce 7800GTX and 7800GT.

Conclusion:

The GeForce 7800GTX is the fastest offering from NVIDIA right now and arguably the fastest card available to gamers. Like any other graphics card from NVIDIA, a higher clocked 7800GTX does provide performance improvements, some even quite significant (like in F.E.A.R for instance). If you really need the performance, get the higher clocked GeForce 7800GTX. The GeForce 7800GT provide some solid numbers, but the performance in some games are not that much different from a GeForce 6800GT. The GeForce 6800GT is a better choice of the two (particularly if you're a budget-conscious gamer), or you could wait for the 7800GS which should be available in the next few weeks..

One thing that worries us is the tendency of these cards (even the GeForce 7800GTX) to have quite a significant performance penalty with AA and AF, particularly with newer games. While the GeForce 7800GTX (and of course the 7800GTX 512 MB) may be enough for now, actually they have barely enough power to push newer games with AA and AF. Look at games like F.E.A.R, Call of Duty 2 or Need for Speed: Most Wanted. These games are made with next generation graphics in mind, it's no wonder they can be too much for even the fastest GeForce 7800GTX. Our advice: wait for the next generation of graphics cards, if you really want high enough frame rates both in games of today and tomorrow. For the time being, even the GeForce 6800GT is enough.

That said, we can only recommend two cards from this round up: the ASUS EN7800GTX TOP and Gigabyte 7800GTX TurboForce. These higher clocked GeForce 7800GTX provides the best performance you can buy at the moment. We recommend the Gigabyte 7800GTX TurboForce for gamers who wants a good card with less gimmicky bundle. It should also be priced lower than the ASUS EN7800GTX TOP. Not to mention, it's more 'friendly' to work with in an SLI setup. To those who want more, we recommend the ASUS EN7800GTX TOP. There are at least three things this card has over the competition: it runs cooler (due to the dual slot cooling), undoubtedly faster (due to slightly faster memory clock) and has more in terms of bundle. Two nitpicks we have is the absence of a second DVI to analog dongle and the price: at the price they're asking, ASUS should've included the dongle.

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