NVIDIA 7800 GT Mini-Roundup

by Josh Venning on December 8, 2005 12:05 AM EST
ASUS Extreme N7800 GT

ASUS is a company that is fairly well known for making quality parts, and their 7800 GT is no exception. There are, apparently, two versions of the ASUS Extreme N7800 GT and they are exactly the same except that the blue LED edition sports a different look than its competitors in this review. It's the only 7800 GT that we've looked at that has unique LED lighting in the heat sink, making the card glow a soft blue color. The heat sink itself is modified from the reference design by replacing parts of the sink with raised pins and ribs on the edges. This might mean more efficient heat dissipation for user- overclocking, and we were, in fact, able to get a high clock speed on this card when testing it, which we will talk about later in our review.

The box that the ASUS EN7800 GT came in was much larger than the boxes for the other two 7800 GTs, and we can't help but think that this is a bit wasteful. At any rate, the box, like the card, is impressive-looking, with a colorful image of a CG character's face wearing an intense expression above the card name (the “EXTREME” in the name adds to this effect).

The ASUS Extreme N7800 GT is factory clocked at reference clock speeds, with a core clock speed of 400MHz, and memory clock of 1.0GHz. This means that it won't be quite as fast as our other two cards, but as our performance tests will show, the card is anything but slow. The only thing extra bundled with the card aside from standard drivers and software was Project Snowblind, an older game whose graphics wouldn't even begin to tax the 7800 GT.

Index XFX GeForce 7800 GT Overclocked
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  • ElFenix - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    i would like to know the volume and character of the fan noise as well please.
  • Night201 - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    I have the XFX 7800 GT. I took this one over the other because it came with an additional game - Call of Duty 2 (free after you submit a rebate form - took only about 2 weeks!)

    It's the full DVD version and that right there saved me $50 - so the total cost of the card to me (since I was planning on getting COD2 anyway) was about $275!

    Can't beat that (at this time at least)!
  • Visual - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    a roundup of cards that are virtually identical... oh how interesting.

    well. they aren't really identical. but i'd appreciate an article that shows me the differences more clearly, focuses on the differences. like which cards are using the stock cooler and which use custom ones, what are the memory ratings for the various brands etc... even what games/extras are included in each brand's package. a single good comparison table can speak much more than your numerous benchmarks. after all, benchmark results are just proportionate to the clock/mem speeds... the way you structured this roundup, i have to hunt around it for the real differences among these cards.
  • bob661 - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    I think this would be a good idea.
  • ashegam - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    why isn't newegg showing on the Anandtech price finder? the e-vga can be had for $309 and that's before a $20.00 rebate which drops it to $289. So add newegg to your price engine thingy :)
  • KristopherKubicki - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    You mean this one right?

    http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=evga%207800...">http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=evga%207800...

    Kristopher
  • deathwalker - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    It is fully understandable that the EVGA and XFX cards get the nod in this test. I would be willing to bet that some owners of these cards will be frequent visitors to the AT forums complaining about "graphics" problems(artifacts/ripping tearing). Both of these cards come from the factory apparently OC so close to the max line the it is inconcievable that they are all going to behave themselves in the real world environment once volume numbers of these cards are in the hands of the buying public. You can bet that not every card that goes out the door at these clock speeds has been thoughly burned in to confirm they can actually run at these speeds for an "extended" duration of time. There are bound to be chipsets and memory modules in finished products that will not perform well at those clock speeds for extended periods. Perhaps the saving grace here though is that you can always lower the clock speeds back towards the referance points and probably fix the issues that "may" occur.
  • deathwalker - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    Interesting that Newegg sells a version of this card that is clocked at 445/1070.
  • Leper Messiah - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    Perhaps but stastically, the portion of cards sold vs. cards that have problems will be small (hopefully) and with their lifetime warranties, you can always send it back, ableit at the cost of your own shipping. C'est la vie I suppose. But I think christmas time is going to be bringing me a XFX 7800GT and some kind of NF4 mobo. :)
  • deathwalker - Thursday, December 8, 2005 - link

    Santa is going to be kind to you...have you been a "good" boy?

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