Memory Size Scaling

We were very interested in how the additional RAM affected game performance, so we underclocked our 7800 GTX 512 to 430/1.2 (core/mem) in order to see what (if any) difference we would find between the original 7800 GTX and the new model from framebuffer size alone. We will look at 2048x1536 both with and without AA as this is the resolution where any difference was most pronounced.

As we can see from the tests, the added RAM had no real impact on performance in any game (and a slightly negative impact in D3 and Q4).

Looking at the numbers after we enable AA, there are only two games that see any slight benefit from the extra RAM alone: Black and White 2 and Day of Defeat: Source. Battlefield 2 sees a tiny boost, but this is only evident at this extreme resolution. Clearly the majority of the benefit the 7800 GTX 512 has is from core and memory clock speed.

We do want to mention that there could be slightly more benefit from the added RAM as we have still not been able to confirm that dropping the clock speeds of the 7800 GTX 512 part results in the same clock speeds all round as the 7800 GTX. If you recall from earlier articles, the 7800 GTX has multiple clocks which aren't always all adjusted when over/under clocking. It's possible that dropping the clock speed to 430 pushed some of the internal clocks lower than they are in the original 7800 GTX. This would have a minimal impact, but an impact nonetheless.

Quake 4 Performance Final Words
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  • ElFenix - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link

    i've been asking them to hire an editor for a few years now, but i'm pretty sure they haven't taken my advice yet. every once in a while they post an article that is just unreadable due to the run on and compound sentences.
  • yacoub - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link

    It's worse when you have a journalism degree. It drives you up a wall to read so many grammatical and spelling errors. Even so I'd rather they put the money into doing more 'real world' style tests instead of just these Top of the Charts/ GPU with the Biggest Dick contests.
  • phusg - Thursday, November 17, 2005 - link

    It could be worse, at least they updated the article to change this comical spelling mistake. Puts them in line with the rest of the computer industry where the testing phase of the development cycle is outsourced to the consumer ;-)
  • Methusela - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link

    This thing just destroys every other single card, and every other SLI configuration in almost every test! Yikes. I guess it had better do so at $700 apiece, though.

    Maybe this will push the price of the 7800GT and GTX models down in a couple of weeks? Cost-conscious buyers like myself can only hope so.
  • route66 - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link

    Sick!
  • Googer - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link

    Holy Handgranades 54.4 GB/s Memory Bandwith!
  • pol II - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link

    Nice card

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