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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

GeForce 7800 GT is the latest graphics chip released by NVIDIA and it is a cheaper version of their fastest (and most expensive) video chip, GeForce 7800 GTX. We’ve got a reference board from NVIDIA using this new chip. Video cards manufactured based on the reference design should get a performance similar to the board we are reviewing.

This new chip runs at 400 MHz, while GeForce 7800 GTX runs at 430 MHz. Its memory is access at a 1 GHz rate, while GeForce 7800 GTX memory clock is 1.2 GHz. Another difference between these two chips is the number of pixels that can be processed per clock cycle, which are 20 on the new GeForce 7800 GT and 24 on GeForce 7800 GTX.

You can see in our tutorial “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” the difference between this new chip and the other chips from NVIDIA, while on our tutorial “ATI Chips Comparison table” you can compare it to its competitors from ATI. It is very important to keep in mind that NVIDIA chips from series 6 and 7 use a Shader 3.0 engine (DirectX 9.0c), while ATI chips still use Shader 2.0 (DirectX 9.0).

It is always important to remember that the “memory clock” column from these tables informs the chip manufacturer (ATI or NVIDIA) recommended clock. In some cases, specially on cheaper video cards, the card manufacturer uses simpler memory chips (in order to cut the board price) and lower memory clocks (compatible with the memory chip used), making the board to achieve a lower performance compared to boards that use the same graphics chip but with their memory chips running at the chip manufacturer recommended clock. Because of that, we always run <a href=https://www.entechtaiwan.com/ target=”_blank”>PowerStrip</a> software in order to check if the video card memory is running at the standard clock set by the chip manufacturer or running at a lower clock rate.

The reviewed reference model from NVIDIA runs at 400 MHz for the chip and 1 GHz for the memory.

This video card is targeted to the PCI Express bus, so in our review we will compare it only to other PCI Express video cards.

[nextpage title=”The GeForce 7800 GT Reference Board”]

The NVIDIA reference board for GeForce 7800 GT can be seen on Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1: GeForce 7800 GT reference board.

Figure 2: GeForce 7800 GT reference board, back view.

We disassembled the video card heatsink to take a look, see Figure 3. If you pay attention you will see that the heatsink part that touches the GPU is made of copper, which spreads heat better than aluminum. We were also curious to see if this big heatsink touched the memory chips or not.

Figure 3: Video card with its heatsink detached.

The heatsink does touch the memory chips. This video card uses 2 ns GDDR3 memory chips from Infineon which can run up to 1 GHz, according to the manufacturer. Since this video card accesses the memory at 1 GHz, there is very little room for memory overclocking inside the memory’s specifications. But of course you can try overclock it over its specs.

Figure 4: 2 ns GDDR3 memory chip used by NVIDIA reference board for GeForce 7800 GT.

This video card has two DVI connectors, allowing you to use two video monitors on your PC.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

• Graphics chip: GeForce 7800 GT running at 400 MHz.
• Memory: 2 ns 256-bit 256 MB GDDR3 memory from Infineon (HYB18T256324F-20), running at 1 GHz.
• Bus type: PCI Express 16x.
• Connectors: Two DVI and one mini-DIN for S-Video output.
• Number of CDs that come with this board: Not applicable.
• Games that come with this board: Not applicable
• Programs that come with this board: Not applicable
• More Information: https://www.nvidia.com
• Average Price in the USA*: Since the model we reviewed is a reference board, you won’t find the same board we reviewed on the market. However, boards based on GeForce 7800 GT can be found in the USD 370-400 range.

* Researched on https://www.pricewatch.com on the day we published this review.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only different device was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard: DFI LAN Party 925X-T2 (Intel 925X, Sep. 20th, 2004 BIOS)
• CPU: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz LGA 775
• Memory: Two 512 MB DDR2-533 CM2X512-4200 CL4 from Corsair memory modules
• Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus (40 GB, ATA-133)
• Screen resolution: [email protected] Hz

Software Configuration

• Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
• Service Pack 2
• Direct X 9.0c
• Intel inf driver version: 6.0.1.1002
• ATI video driver version: 4.10 (6.14.10.6483)
• ATI video driver version: 4.12 (Radeon X850 Platinum Edition)
• ATI video driver version: 5.3 (Radeon X800 GT)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 66.93
• NVIDIA video driver version: 77.72 (GeForce 7800 GTX)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 78.02 (GeForce 7800 GT)
• MSI video driver version: 77.50 (GeForce 7800 GTX with D.O.T.)

Used Software

• 3DMark2001 SE
• 3DMark03 Business 3.50
• 3DMark05 Business 1.10
• Doom III
• Far Cry 1.3

We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.

[nextpage title=”3DMark2001SE”]

3Dmark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we run six tests. We run the software in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and with no frame buffer, then we put the antialising at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation  video card. To us, it is as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games as it is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 3.67% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 4.84% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 12.95% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 17.68% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 21.54% PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 45.60% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 48.90% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 67.74% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to XFX GeForce 7800 GTX.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 9.32% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.87% faster, and MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.04 faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT was 7.64% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 22.33% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 23.82% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 25.87% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 70.70% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 72.65% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 105.50% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 7.21% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.38% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.24% faster, and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was only 3.04% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 8.08% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 17.05% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 24.17% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 32.47% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 42.38% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 100.24% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 123.15% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 169.58% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 6.85% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.85% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.67% faster, and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.19% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 6.69% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 11.75% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 16.46% faster than Sapphite Radeon X700 Pro, 18.66% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 34.48% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 88.68% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 105.38% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 123.34% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 11.27% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.24% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.10% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.76% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 7.84% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 19.38% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 20.28% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 31.85% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 55.45% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 135.75% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 169.50% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 183.27% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 13.16% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.24% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 7.06% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 5.02% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 21.89% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 32.68% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 35.27% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 52.49% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 117.79% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 305.23% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 349.86% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 453.26% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 13.05% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.20% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.64% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.55% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark03″]

3DMark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 7.65% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 22.61% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 50.65% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 62.02% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 70.80% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 88.62% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 183.89% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 233.33% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 296.77% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 16.42% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 12.46% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.04% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 24.46% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 56.23% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 63.04% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 82.04% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 105.51% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 210.83% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 267.79% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 338.65% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 19.59% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 14.92% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.29% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 16.78% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 37.49% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 88.16% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 93.19% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 111.68% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 149.42% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 266.77% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 360.91% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 446.58% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.55% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 7.08% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.11% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 10.99% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 30.06% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 88.90% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 91.75% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 115.44% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 163.82% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 278.43% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 357.73% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 437.57% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 18.86% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 14.46% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 10.33% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 8.97% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 32.27% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 95.29% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 96.86% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 168.59% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 178.77% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 356.98% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 406.37% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 464.44% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 22.09% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 17.23% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 13.04% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 16.90% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 46.17% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 127.11% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 129.15% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 225.37% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 242.05% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 471.86% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 702.32% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 758.63% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 13.50% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.91% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.68% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark05″]

3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.

We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 10.66% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 39.81% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 58.85% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 67.72% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 119.79% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 120.86% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 272.90% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 342.64% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 364.69% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.05% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.68% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 7.03% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 16.12% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 46.97% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 72.43% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 81.17% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 144.30% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 181.25% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 337.17% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 429.23% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 454.84% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 17.08% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 14.06% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 10.23% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 21.75% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 54.84% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 96.95% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 97.44% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 167.52% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 278.64% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 406.99% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 487.96% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 575.99% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 20.73% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 16.80% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 12.22% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 11.83% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 50.24% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 57.79% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 73.50% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 149.06% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 331.93% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 435.55% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, 494.55% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 515.61% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 15.33% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 12.92% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.87% faster.

To run at 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 15.79% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 57.09% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 85.82% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 87.54% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 170.85% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 480.82% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 702.75% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 20.11% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 39.08% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 88.68% faster.

To run at 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 12.66% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 67.76% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 92.30% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 92.60% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 172.63% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 535.99% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 998.53% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 17.51% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 15.59% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.27% faster.

[nextpage title=”Doom 3″]Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions: 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and high. We ran demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.

A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your board is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 11.36% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 13.78% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 23.98% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 35.01% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 35.01% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 69.24% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 73.94% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 204.53% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 273.41% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 14.23% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 15.44% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 46.08% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 84.21% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 86.97% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 134.58% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 139.07% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 346.43% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 446.88% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.51% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.43% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.31% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 18.32% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 22.12% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 66.01% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 139.62% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 141.90% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 187.55% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 198.82% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 481.68% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 618.87% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.81% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 7.74% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.04% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 12.92% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 15.54% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 33.33% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 42.81% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 44.12% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 87.30% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 93.84% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 239.57% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 312.23% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 16.53% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 19.75% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 56.22% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 92.24% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 95.27% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 152.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 159.58% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 371.20% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 478.00% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.69% faster, and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.23% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 23.08% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 24.71% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 73.27% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 144.16% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 146.56% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 200.80% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 212.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 548.28% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 630.10% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 11.84% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 7.45% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.25% faster.

[nextpage title=”Far Cry”]

Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model available on series 6 and 7 from NVIDIA and series X1000 from ATI graphics chips. We’ve updated the game to version 1.3.
 
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at https://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We run this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.

This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialising, instead of being configured by numbers (1x, 2x, 4x or 6x) is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on NVIDIA chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and NVIDIA chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 3.35% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 3.46% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 9.17% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 11.93% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, and 19.93% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX and ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by HIS Radeon X800, which was 7.87% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 7.83% faster, and Sapphire Radeon X700, which was 7.40% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 3.19% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 3.24% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 3.57% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 47.80% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 50.04% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 80.62% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX and MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 8.66% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 8.50% faster and Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 5.05% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 3.79% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 4.34 faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 9.22 faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 21.85 faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 26.57 faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 110.16 faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 122.63 faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 172.63 faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten only by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 7.82% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 11.61% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 35.85% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 38.31% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 86.20% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 98.07% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 220.32% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 271.48% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 304.59% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX and MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 30.20% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 68.19% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 74.58% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 137.91% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 159.84% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 345.19% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 374.13% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 392.58% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.76% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.27% faster, and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.02% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was 52.67% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 86.23% faster than PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, 88.72% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 161.62% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 168.05% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 364.10% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 551.12% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 646.79% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 20.40% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 15.66% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 10.98% faster, and ATI Radeon XT P.E, which was 3.59% faster.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

In or opinion, GeForce 7800 GT provides a better cost/benefit ration than GeForce 7800 GTX: it is cheaper and provides a very high performance, for users that want a GeForce 7800 GTX performance level but doesn’t want to give an arm to buy one.

Of course it is slower than GeForce 7800 GTX, but not that much: typically between 3% and 12%, depending on the game. On Doom 3 and Far Cry, which are very “heavy” games, we could see a performance difference only when running at 1600×1200 with all quality enhancements set.

The great news about GeForce 7800 GT is that is faster than Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, which is the fastest graphics chip from ATI available today – and, grasp, is within the same price range as GeForce 7800 GT –, and also fastest than NVIDIA chips from the series “6”, like GeForce 6800 GT.

If you are looking for the fastest video card available today and cannot afford a GeForce 7800 GTX – or simply don’t want to give your own blood to buy one – consider GeForce 7800 GT. As we said, for the high-end video card market, this card has the best cost/benefit ratio.