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Vendor Cards: XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Overclocked

 by Josh Venning on August 16, 2005 12:05 AM EST
25 Comments | Add A Comment
25 Comments

Introduction

In our review of the EVGA e- GeForce 7800 GTX KO, one of the most powerful graphics cards available right now, we explained how impressed we were by the performance. The huge overclock, coupled with EVGA's lifetime warranty, gave it an edge over the other 7800 GTXs that we've reviewed, and thus, put it on the top of our list. Today, we will be looking at the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Overclocked. With a 490MHz core and 1.3GHz memory clock out of the box, it will undoubtedly match the EVGA KO in terms of performance, but we'll see how it compares in other areas as well. As you may know from our past 7800 GTX reviews, things like price and warranty (along with the usual suspects) are factors for the cards that we ultimately recommend over others.

As we mentioned, we were impressed with not only the performance of the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO, but with the warranty policy as well. EVGA's lifetime warranty, which covers just about everything but deliberate physical damage to the card, is unique among other graphics card vendors, and played a part in our decision to recommend that card over the others that we've reviewed. We'll take a look at XFX's warranty policy and see how it measures up on the next page.

We've stressed many times in this series about the importance of how well these cards perform out of the box, but we also take note of how well these cards overclock over the factory settings. For instance, we noticed that while MSI's NX7800 GTX was only clocked at 430MHz out of the box, it ran considerably cooler than other 7800 GTXs, which might allow for better user-overclocking. An even better example is how we were able to boost the EVGA 7800 GTX KO's memory clock all the way up to 1.35GHz because of the modified heatsink and the RAM sinks on the back. These are important things to consider if you are looking for a good 7800 GTX to overclock.

As usual, we'll be looking at how this card performs while both factory and user overclocked, as well as its power usage and heat levels later on. We'll also be comparing prices and warranties between each of the 7800's that we've tested to determine the best overall value. Now, let's have a look at the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Overclocked.

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  • VideoQuasar - Monday, August 22, 2005 - link

    I must have missed the SPECViewperf 8.1 test portion, or the Cinebench 2003. Are those on hidden pages along with the PureVideo aspects of the card?

    These 7800 cards might compete with a mid-range Quadro or Fire card...but I don't know do I !

    The reviwers seem to be more interested in which cards come with a BF2 bundle,When you buy 2 for SLI....you can load both...WOW.

  • walkure - Friday, August 26, 2005 - link

    You people complaining about "yet another review" are idiots. If you don't wanna read it, don't click it!!!

    I had not read a single review of any of the cards up to right now. I came to the site looking for one, and I found it. Thank you AT.

    I did want to see some comparisons to last generation's cards, like the 6800 Ultra, X800, etc, but I suppose that's found in another article...

  • bonhimself - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link

    Okay this might sound stupid, but are the tests here in SLi or just a single card? I want to be sure of performance because I'm thinking of getting one of these 7800's

  • bob661 - Friday, August 19, 2005 - link

    quote:
    Okay this might sound stupid


    Both.

  • Quiksel - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link

    I'm glad I'm not the only one bitchin about these articles. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw YET ANOTHER 7800GTX REVIEW on AT.

    Jarred, I know you've been trying to defend the rationale behind so many reviews of the same tech, but SERIOUSLY, this is ridiculous. I want to believe that you guys aren't just trying to milk the readers for more page hits, but I'm really starting to worry. I'm a big fan of AT, and this kind of stuff is just getting out of hand, IMO.

    Please, no more 7800GTX Reviews. For the love of God, please.

  • PrinceGaz - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link

    Yeah, I think most AT readers now believe this "lets review every 7800GTX card we get our hands on" individually approach is ludicrous. There's so little difference between most of them, and the differences found in overclocking even with the few (one so far) that hasn't been a reference design, are almost certainly down to random variations in the individual core and memory chips. Actually overclocking tests with samples sent from manufacturers are always suspect, and you should always rely on what are reported in the forums from people who have bought the cards to get a good idea on how well they overclock. I agree with the idea of AT overclocking the cards to find how far they go, but that is really only a minor point of the review.

    For all intents and purposes, all the 7800GTX cards you review are identical, unless they have a quieter fan, or a large heatsink that takes up extra slots which would deserve mention for that reason. The game bundle may differ and you might mention that, or what dongles and cables are included, but that's about all that matters and it certainly doesn't warrant a seperate review for every card.

    With all these 7800GTX reviews, I seem to have missed AT's review of an X800GT card which will be of more interest to far more readers. I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing you would call a halt to these ongoing 7800GTX reviews that only a tiny minority of your readers will buy, and instead look at more mainstream products and how they impact that market sector. AT is becoming more elitist by the day, what with concentrating only on the very top gfx-cards, CPUs, memory, etc, and will lose its readers if it continues down this path.

  • Trap - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant....">http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant...e=190377...

  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - link

    This is not the Overclocked version of the card.

  • HardwareD00d - Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - link

    actually, it is overclocked:

    Memory clock: 1.25 MHz (vs. 1.2MHz Standard)
    Engine clock: 450 MHz (vs. 430MHz Standard)

    but not as much as the version in the review. Still, seems to be a damn good deal considering the card is being scalped for close to $600 at many places.

  • Igi - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link

    This and previous reviews of 7800GTX cards were extremely superficial. After reading the last review many questions still remain unanswered. We all know that we won’t see miracles if all the cards use GPUs clocked at similar frequencies. In other words, I don’t care if one card is 2 fps faster than the other in Doom3 at 1600x1200, what I’m interested in are features, for example:
    - What is the max DVI resolution for both DVI slots?
    - Can I drive two Dell 2405FPW LCDs with a single 7800GTX at 1920x1200@60Hz? I had a bad experience in the past with nVidia cards, where max. resolution on primary DVI was limited to 1600x1200. Only the secondary DVI, connected via silicon image TDMS transceiver was able to drive 2405 panel at 1920x1200.
    - Can I drive 30” Apple cinema Display at 2560x1600? In other words, is there any 7800GTX card available with a dual-link DVI slot? I know that so far only some quadro cards are able to drive hi-res displays.
    - I don’t remember TV-OUT was tested in any review. What is the max TV-OUT resolution 720p, 1080i?
    - Which inputs are present on the card? S-Video, Composite?
    - Can I downclock the GPU to let’s say 200MHz or even lower to achieve silent operation during normal work?
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