The Card

The box for this card is by far the most creative that we've seen to date. It's in the shape of an “x” and we found it to be the most challenging of the 7800 GTX boxes to get into. The card itself looks just like NVIDIA's reference card with two exceptions. One is the shiny reflective sticker on the heat sink, and the other is a metal bar running along the top of the card (which does as much for aesthetics as for anything else). There is a hole cut into it to allow the SLI setup in case you are lucky enough to own two of these.

The version that we received didn't come bundled with any games, but there is a version that comes with Battlefield 2. This has been a trend among most of the 7800 GTXs that we've seen, and it's no surprise given the popularity of the game and the high system requirements. The only other game bundle that we've seen worth mentioning is The Chronicles of Riddick, which comes with the MSI NX7800 GTX. While not quite as popular as Bf2 and a single-player only game, this is still excellent and we highly recommend it.

As we mentioned in the introduction, the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Overclocked comes out of the box at the same clock speeds as the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO. The core clock is set at 490MHz and the memory clock at 1.3GHz. This means that EVGA no longer holds the title of the fastest 7800 GTX. Although, for what little it's worth (and we realize it's not much), the EVGA KO still holds the title for the best looking 7800 GTX.

Let's talk a little bit about XFX's warranty policy for their graphics cards. While they do offer a lifetime warranty, it appears that the policy doesn't cover non-physical damage like power surges and overclocks as EVGA's does (and we haven't seen any warranties that cover physical damage, accidental or otherwise). This leaves EVGA as our pick for the best warranty policy thus far, and we hope their policy may start a trend with other graphics card vendors out there.

Index Performance
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  • 4AcesIII - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link

    I wished they'd not done the spotlight crap on each card but they haven't exactly been putting out much of any reviews worth reading for quite sometime. It would also seem that EVGA put alot of money in their pockets, they are traditionally one of the worst manufacturers of video cards out there, noted in the past for cheap heatsink and fans along with other quaility control issues. Sheesh next they'll be promoting Prolink as the best video card maker. I don't trust these guys anymore, it's not a review it's who gives them the most hmmmmm support lets say instead of coming right out and calling it a bribe, payoff, kickback for putting out a favorable review.
  • Hacp - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    Btw, is anyone else kinda tired by the huge amount of 7800GTX vendor card reviews? I mean performance is obviously going to be similar, and the higher clocked cards are going to perform better........
  • Operandi - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    I tend to agree, all these reviews are pretty redundant. All of them offer the same performance, most/all use the reference design, and most use the stock HSF. If you're going to review each card individually there should be some justification, so far all the cards have been more or less exactly the same.
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    The justification was already given several times in the previous articles. If we had waited to do a 7800GTX roundup, there are still additional cards coming out. If we had done a "roundup" at launch, it would have included the two cards we had at the time. Yes, the reviews are redundant when performance is similar, but we're looking at more than just performance. It's a Catch-22, and we figured getting reviews out in a timely manner would be more useful than waiting a month or two to write a roundup.
  • eetnoyer - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    If that's the case, why not review whatever sample you have at the time of release and wait for a representative sampling to do a roundup? The only conclusion I can draw is that it's a slow time in the lab and you need filler, or individual product reviews means a greater revenue stream due to page hits/manufacturer contributions. Either way, it's rather disappointing for what I've come to expect from anandtech.

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