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Review: Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO Extreme 256MB and SAPPHIRE RADEON HD X1800 XT 512MB

by Tarinder Sandhu on 11 November 2005, 14:20

Tags: Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO Extreme, Leadtek, Sapphire

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Final thoughts

The purpose of this review was to take two of the fastest graphics cards available from partners of ATI and NVIDIA and evaluate which was the speediest single-card setup that you could currently buy. Both cards are available right now in the retail channel for just under the £400 mark, so they're marketed for the enthusiast whose wallet is as deep as their desire for high framerates. Let's summarise the findings from both cards and then reach a 'what-to-buy' conclusion.

Leadtek Research's PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO Extreme 256MB (don't you just love long naming schemes?) card package isn't actually the fastest, off-the-shelf G70-based card you can buy. That honour currently goes to XFX's Extreme Edition, clocked in at 490MHz core and 1300MHz memory. However, the Leadtek 'Extreme is an example of a card partner raising core and memory speeds with due thought to cooling. The heatpipe-driven cooler takes up two slots but manages to cool the 490MHz core with a 92mm fan spinning at barely 1,000RPM as standard. The accompanying bundle is strong, made all the better by the inclusion of Leadtek's WinFox II software that not only allows you to tweak general card settings, but also controls fan speed, such that you can define exactly how fast you want the extra-large fan to spin in both 2D and 3D environments. There's an added bonus of VIVO functionality, should you need it.

The financial cost of having faster native core and memory clocks, augmented by better-than-normal cooling, is an asking price that verges on the £400 mark, and around £60 higher than a stock-clocked, retail GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB card. Our benchmarks have shown that Leadtek's Extreme version is around 10% faster than a generic 'GTX and, this sample at least, overclocked well, thanks to the thoughtful cooling. In comparative context, the card returned class-leading OpenGL performance and decent D3D framerates.

So as far as GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB cards go, Leadtek Research has both a standard and Extreme edition, and the latter is about as good as it gets from an NVIDIA single-card setup. Funds permitting, a couple of SLI'd cards would gobble up pretty much any game you wish to throw at them, too.

The recent launch of ATI's X1000 family of cards had users excited about the prospect of GeForce 7800 GTX-beating performance. The RADEON X1800 XT SKU, initially released in a 512MB framebuffer flavour, was the obvious performance pick of the bunch and SAPPHIRE has been able to coax enough stock to have etailers listing its retail X1800 XT 512MB card package in stock (as at 10/11/05). It may be harder to find than, say, the Leadtek card above, but it's certainly not vapourware. The X1800 XT uses a 16-pipe rendering design that primarily focuses on efficiency. Add to this a 625MHz core and GDDR3 memory running at ~1500MHz and ATI's back in the top-end GPU sector with a bang. SAPPHIRE's card, on balance, shades the benchmark battle against Leadtek's GeForce 7800 GTX and does so by coming in at the same price but with double the framebuffer. SAPPHIRE's also added in one of its deluxe bundles to sweeten the deal further.

ATI's X1000 family is also scores heavily when evaluated from a 2D perspective. Each member of this family is kitted out with the company's 2D technology known as Avivo which is at least as effective as NVIDIA's PureVideo. Better connectivity options (dual-link DVI) and stellar D3D performance makes it rather tasty in this premium sector.

There's two aspects to why SAPPHIRE's RADEON X1800 XT 512MB card isn't the must-have 3D accelerator today (literally). The first is the present lack of multi-GPU operation. The basics are there with CrossFire, sure, but it will be a while before you, the consumer, can actually have dual X1800 XTs running in tandem mode. NVIDIA offers you this right now, through its SLI tech. The other reason will become clearer in the next few days when another GPU SKU hits the review sites. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out what it could be, and, letting you in on some tasty info., it features some unheard-of frequencies.

What we've learned today is that both ATI and NVIDIA's partners know how to put a decent package together. Both cards, although expensive, offer something the other doesn't, and neither is a bad buy. That's not a review copout; it's the plain truth.

- Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO Extreme 256MB

- SAPPHIRE RADEON X1800 XT 512MB



HEXUS Forums :: 5 Comments

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Not exactly a straight comparison though a 256mb card vs a 512 0.o
Grey M@a
Not exactly a straight comparison though a 256mb card vs a 512 0.o
Well it's the two top cards from NVIDIA and ATI, until NVIDIA launch a top of the line 512MB card…
I believe that the ‘oversized cooler’ on the Leadtek is a Quadro cooler, or so the guys at Hardcoreware said in their review a couple of weeks ago.
I've got one of them in my SN25P shuttle - had to remove the fan duct and replace it with cardboard!
The 2nd graph in the overclocking test page has the X850 XT twice, when one should be 6800 Ultra.