What do we make of it all, then?
Let's break down our final evaluation into bite-sized chunks. We'll evaluate each card against the criteria of pure performance, value for money, and bundle.Pure performance
This is the easiest one to call, really. XFX has taken stock of the best GeForce 7800 GTX cores, through a process of speed-binning, and raised its Extreme Edition's frequency from the default 430MHz to a lofty 490MHz. Memory speed also sees a hike from 1200MHz to 1300MHz, which make it the fastest card on test here. It really is that simple. The price you pay for supreme single-card performance is a premium of around £65 above a retail, default-clocked package, something along the line of Leadtek's. Price is an incidental concern to the enthusiast that wants the fastest components around, so XFX's GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme Edition takes top honours in this category. Kudos to both XFX and BFG for launching 7800 GTX cards with above-default speeds.
Value for money
Can any video card that costs £380+ be considered a value-for-money purchase? That depends on just how much you value playing games smoothly at 1600x1200 4x AA 8x AF with all other candy turned on.
| Card | BFG 7800 GTX OC | Leadtek PX7800 GTX | XFX GeForce X.E. 7800 GTX | Core speed (default) | 460MHz | 430MHz | 490MHz | Memory speed (default) | 1300MHz | 1200MHz | 1300MHz | Default DOOM 3 performance @ 16x12, 4/8 | 57.7FPS | 53.4FPS | 59FPS | Estimated card cost | £420 | £380 | £445 | Cost per FPS, lower is better | £7.28 | £7.12 | £7.54 |
Let's take DOOM 3 results at 1600x1200 4x AA 8x AF as a reasonable barometer of card performance. With that in mind, and the respective card's asking price also listed, we see that the Leadtek card, by dint of being the cheapest of the trio, has the lowest pound-per-FPS figure, which is a tentative method of calculating value for money. Leadtek's cost per FPS drops to £6.26 if we consider its overclocked results, so we'll give Leadtek's PX7800 GTX TDH the nod in value-for-money terms.
Bundle
All three card bundles include at least one decent, recent gaming title. For the XFX and BFG packages, that game happens to be the same: Far Cry. Leadtek treats the potential customer to a copy of Splinter Cell@ Chaos Theory, which is a littler newer and still retails at £29.99 in many stores. All bundles are as generic as the cards' designs, that is, differ very little from one another. There's similar hardware and software utilities with each card. There's little to choose between the bundles but BFG's is, we reckon, the best overall.
Wrap it up
There you have it. Each package on test has merit when judged via a wide range of criteria. Leadtek's is the cheapest and slowest, comparatively speaking. The bundle is good and a custom BIOS adds a bit of extra oomph to the already-fast card. Speaking of which, it's strictly a reference design. BFG's effort sits in the middle, both in terms of performance and price, and wins out in the warranty and bundle stakes. XFX's, as is evident through our glut of benchmarks, is quite simply the fastest single-card solution that we have ever tested. Fast enough to attract a £65-£85 premium over the Leadtek, well, you decide.
What's abundantly clear in our look at three retail GeForce 7800 GTX graphics cards is that there is no such thing as a bad one. All three cards from BFG, Leadtek, and XFX, respectively, can be recommended to a certain type of buyer, so determine if you want a) the cheapest GeForce 7800 GTX (Leadtek PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO, b) the one that does well in every department (BFG Technologies 7800 GTX OC), or c), the absolute fastest XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme Edition. Whatever you end up buying, you will not be disappointed. It's not a cop-out to state that all 3 retail cards are recommended, with each offering something the other do not.
