XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

GeForce 7800 GTX is the latest graphics chip released by NVIDIA and it is the fastest chip provided by this company nowadays. We have already explained in detail how this new chip works and the difference between it and GeForce 6800 series. So read this article if you want to know more about the GeForce 7800 GTX.

Figure 1: XFX GeForce 7800 GTX box.

This chip officially runs at 430 MHz with 256 MB 256-bit GDDR3 memory running at 1.2 GHz, but XFX model chip runs at 450 MHz with memory running at 1.25 GHz.

Note: The model we reviewed is called PV-T70F-UNF7. One month after we posted this review XFX released other models: PV-T70F-UND7, with engine running at 490 MHz and memory at 1.30 GHz, and  PVT-T70F-UNDE, also with engine running at 490 MHz and memory at 1.30 GHz, coming with full version of Battlefield 2 game.

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 PowerStrip 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 GeForce 7800 GTX model from XFX runs overclocked, at 450 MHz for the chip and 1.25 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, in special Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, which is the fastest ATI chip available today. As far as we know, NVIDIA doesn’t plan to release an AGP version of GeForce 7800 GTX.

The GeForce 7800 GTX model from XFX comes with a free Xgear Dual PC Controller gamepad from XFX, and keeps the USD 599 suggested retail price set by NVIDIA. Really amazing.

This video card also has video capture (VIVO) function. Let’s talk about the XFX model in details.

[nextpage title=”The GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX”]

You can see GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX on Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2: XFX GeForce 7800 GTX.

Figure 3: XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, back view.

This video card can be installed in SLI configuration, i.e., you can have two GeForce 7800 GTX working in parallel. This video card is very slim, not using the slot available next to the x16 PCI Express slot.

Figure 4: SLI connector from XFX GeForce 7800 GTX.

We disassembled the video card heatsink to take a look at the memory chip used. This video card uses 1.6 ns GDDR3 memory chips from Samsung which can run up to 1.2 GHz, according to the manufacturer. Since GeForce 7800 GTX accesses the memory also at 1.2 GHz, there is no room for memory overclocking inside the memory’s specifications. But of course you can try overclock it over its specs.

Figure 5: 1.6 ns GDDR3 memory chip used by GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX.

[nextpage title=”The GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX (Cont’d)”]

This video card has two DVI connectors, allowing you to use two video monitors on your PC. The board comes with two DVI-to-VGA adapters, so you can transform these outputs into standard VGA outputs.

Figure 6: Connectors from the board being reviewed.

As we mentioned, this board has video capture function (VIVO). To use this function, you need to install an adapter cable that comes with the board. This cable provides component video outputs, composite video input, S-Video input and S-Video output.

Figure 7: Cable for using the card’s VIVO feature.

In Figure 8, you can see other cables and adapters that come with this video card.

Figure 8: Cables and adapters.

This video card comes with a free T-shirt. A small gift for those able to sign a USD 599 check for a video card. But the real gift is the gamepad that comes with this video card, really neat.

Figure 9: XFX T-shirt.

Figure 10: XFX T-shirt, back view.

[nextpage title=”Xgear Dual Reflex Controller Gamepad”]

This video card comes with a gamepad for free. It’s really for free, since it keeps the suggested retail price of USD 599 set by NVIDIA.

Figure 11: Box of Xgear Dual Reflex Controller.

As you can see on Figures 12 and 13, this gamepad has two controllers and eight buttons. It is connected on the PC through one USB port.

Figure 10: Xgear Dual Reflex Controller gamepad.

Figure 11: Xgear Dual Reflex Controller gamepad, back view.

This gamepad is really awesome and deserves a separated review. Click here to read the Xgear Dual Reflex Controller review.

A piece of advice: we’ve seen some stores not mentioning this free gamepad. Maybe they (or their distributor) are taking the gamepad off from the bundle and trying to sell it separately. According to XFX, they don’t sell this video card to the distributors without the free gamepad, so we think it is your right to get it from free from the store you are buying your XFX GeForce 7800 GTX. ZipZoomFly, TigerDirect and New Egg are three online stores we know that are correctly offering this bundle.

Before going to our benchmarking results, let’s recap this video card main features.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

• Graphics chip: GeForce 7800 GTX running at 450 MHz.
• Memory: 1.6 ns 256-bit 256 MB GDDR3 memory from Samsung (K4J55323QF-GC16), running at 1.25 GHz.
• Bus type: PCI Express 16x.
• Connectors: Two DVI and one mini-DIN for VIVO function (component video outputs, composite video input, S-Video input and S-Video output).
• Number of CDs that come with this board: One.
• Games that come with this board: Armored Fist 3, Comanche 4, Delta Force Land Warrior, F-16 Multirole Fighter and F-22 Lightning 3 (all demo versions).
• Programs that come with this board: PowerDirector, PowerDVD and PowerVCR.
• Extra features: Factory-overclocked video card, free Xgear Dual PC Controller gamepad from XFX and VIVO function.
• More Information: https://www.xfxforce.com/web/product/listConfigurations.jspa?seriesId=12035
• Average Price in the USA*: USD 599.00

* 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 variable 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: 1024x768x32@85 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)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 66.93
• NVIDIA video driver version: 77.72 (GeForce 7800 GTX)

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=”3DMark2001 SE”]

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, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 4.86% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 12.97% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 17.71% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 45.72% faster than Radeon X600 XT, 48.93% faster than GeForce 6600 and 67.77% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was beaten only by Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 9.30% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 8.79% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 27.57% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 29.69% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 75.88% faster than GeForce 6600, 77.90% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 111.74% faster than X600 Pro.

GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was beaten only by Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 4.05% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX achieved performance similar to Radeon X850 XT P.E. and was 12.61% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 38.02% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 48.34% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 108.63% faster than GeForce 6600, 132.50% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 180.87% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX achieved performance similar to Radeon X850 XT P.E. and was 15.33% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 25.89% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 45.38% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 103.97% faster than Radeon X600 XT, 122.02% faster than GeForce 6600 and 141.44% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 14.45% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 41.16% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 66.43% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 152.39% faster than Radeon X600 XT, 188.53% faster than GeForce 6600 and 203.27% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was beaten only by Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 5.70% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 32.41% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 65.56% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 136.60% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 340.22% faster than GeForce 6600, 388.71% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 501.04% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was beaten only by Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 4.06% 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, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 21.06% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 37.88% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 92.08% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 112.12% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 219.25% faster than GeForce 6600, 274.85% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 346.19% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 22.53% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 43.03% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 109.20% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 136.18% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 257.21% faster than GeForce 6600, 322.68% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 404.11% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 25.04% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 47.21% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 126.66% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 167.06% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 292.72% faster than GeForce 6600, 393.52% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 485.25% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 27.04% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 48.87% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 146.59% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 201.96% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 333.14% faster than GeForce 6600, 423.91% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 515.29% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 27.75% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 55.07% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 214.88% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 216.81% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 435.74% faster than GeForce 6600, 493.63% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 561.72% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 28.48% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 60.65% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 257.62% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 275.95% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 528.53% faster than GeForce 6600, 781.83% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 843.71% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

[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 bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 21.37% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 53.34% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 141.06% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 142.24% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 308.99% faster than GeForce 6600, 385.48% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 409.67% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 32.45% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 67.64% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 178.65% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 220.80% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 398.65% faster than GeForce 6600, 503.65% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 532.86% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 42.20% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 80.85% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 212.47% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 342.25% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 492.16% faster than GeForce 6600, 586.73% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 689.55% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 26.27% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 69.65% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 181.23% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 387.72% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 504.72% faster than Radeon X600 Pro, 571.34% faster than GeForce 6600 and 595.13% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

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 GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 34.29% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 82.18% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 214.11% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 573.60% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 830.98% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

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 GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 30.23% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 93.91% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 215.14% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 635.14% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 1,169,79% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

[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, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 10.53% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 12.94% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 23.06% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 67.99% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 72.64% faster than GeForce 6600, 202.27% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 270.63% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 18.15% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 19.39% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 51.09% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 142.63% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 147.27% faster than GeForce 6600, 361.73% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 465.63% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX was 27.48% faster than 31.57% GeForce 6800 GT, faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 78.87% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 209.81% faster than GeForce 6600, 221.96% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 526.72% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 674.53% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 12.20% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 14.81% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 32.49% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 86.11% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 92.61% faster than GeForce 6600, 237.41% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 309.61% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 20.30% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 23.62% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 61.26% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 160.17% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 167.96% faster than GeForce 6600, 386.41% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 496.67% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 32.24% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 34.00% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 86.18% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 223.20% faster than GeForce 6600, 235.27% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 596.55% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 684.47% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

[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, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX achieved the same performance level as Radeon X600 XT, being 4.22% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 9.98% faster than GeForce 6600, 12.75% faster than GeForce 6800 GT and 20.81% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

In this test, however, Radeon X850 XT P.E. was 7.05% faster and Radeon X700 Pro was 6.62% faster than the video card being tested.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 4.10% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 4.48% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 49.10% faster than Radeon X600 XT, 51.36% faster than GeForce 6600 and 82.21% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

In this test Radeon X850 XT P.E. was 7.71% faster and Radeon X700 Pro was 4.13% faster than the video card being tested.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 4.51% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 22.05% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 26.78% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 110.51% faster than GeForce 6600, 123.00% faster than Radeon X600 XT and 173.08% faster than Radeon X600 Pro.

In this test Radeon X850 XT P.E. was 7.64% faster than the video card being tested.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX achieved a performance similar to Radeon X850 XT P.E., being 10.97% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 85.12% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 96.92% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 218.46% faster than GeForce 6600, 269.33% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 302.24% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 6.93% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 40.97% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 157.59% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 181.33% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 382.02% faster than GeForce 6600, 413.36% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 433.33% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, GeForce 7800 GTX from XFX was 11.65% faster than Radeon X850 XT P.E., 76.58% faster than GeForce 6800 GT, 202.60% faster than Radeon X700 Pro, 210.04% faster than GeForce 6600 GT, 436.79% faster than GeForce 6600, 653.11% faster than Radeon X600 Pro and 763.77% faster than Radeon X600 XT.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

GeForce 7800 GTX is clearly targeted to newer games running at very high screen resolutions and with the maximum possible video quality. If you have a 17” video monitor or higher and run your games at 1280×1024 or above and want to experience your games putting all quality settings on maximum, that’s the video card you are looking for, it’s unbeatable.

If you run older games (i.e., before Doom 3 and Far Cry), don’t like to play with image quality settings and doesn’t go over 1280×1024, this card is not for you – it’s too expensive and it won’t deliver the performance you are looking for. In this case you should go for a card with better cost/benefit ratio. Among the current high-end cards, we’d suggest the GeForce 6800 GT, which is far cheaper than GeForce 7800 GTX and GeForce 6800 Ultra and offers a terrific performance at resolutions up to 1280×1024 if you don’t max out the image quality settings in very heavy games.

As for the XFX model, it offers two great advantages over its competitors keeping the same price tag: you get an awesome gamepad for free and your video card comes already overclocked. Unless you find a GeForce 7800 GTX from another company selling far below the suggested price of USD 599, this is the GeForce 7800 GTX model we recommend – if you are brave (and rich) enough to write a USD 599 check on a single video card.

Note: The model we reviewed is called PV-T70F-UNF7. One month after we posted this review XFX released other models: PV-T70F-UND7, with engine running at 490 MHz and memory at 1.30 GHz, and  PVT-T70F-UNDE, also with engine running at 490 MHz and memory at 1.30 GHz, coming with full version of Battlefield 2 game.