Thoughts
Let's cut to the financial chase. The GeForce 7800 GT is £299, including dreaded VAT, in the UK. The closest ATI part at that price is its Radeon X850 XT PE. Given the 7800 GT's SLI ability, support for Shader Model 3.0, lower heat output (by far) and lower power requirements, the choice between the two is obvious. If you've got £300 to drop on 3D, the 7800 GT is the automatic choice, it's as simple as that. A $449 thing in the States, it should be less than that almost immediately, bringing it closer to the ~$380 X850 XT PE before you can blink.Our investigation into the performance of the new hardware with an Athlon 64 FX processor operating at 2400MHz, (the same frequency as either an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ or Athlon 64 FX-53) is a speed class of CPU which many enthusiasts will have these days with the advent of cheap, overclockable Venice-core processors, shows that there's little reason to invest in a GTX unless you have something a bit quicker on the CPU front. Performance of the GT is close enough to the current flagship part for the vast majority of users that the GTX is no longer the part to aspire to. We saw the same thing with the last generation and it's happened again with the current.
Our investigation into any CPU limitations was undertaken to satisfy a personal nag of the author. Simply put, performance of current high-end hardware is often limited by even high-end CPUs. An AMD Athlon 64 4000+ is still an expensive chip and certainly no slouch.
There's not really much more to say. It's the same price as ATI's current best, performs as well in games, and does significantly better in almost every other facet that you'd consider. More forward-looking features, less heat, less power consumed. The victory is a sweet one.
The most desirable mainstream graphics board on the market at the time of writing, bar none. Anything slower treads on the 6800 Ultra's toes a bit too much, so it'll be interesting to see how NVIDIA might handle that product overlap in the months to come. We await the imminent arrival of the ATI R520, and friends, that little while longer, but see NVIDIA's timing as just about perfect. In the meantime NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT is effectively the HEXUS 'Editor's Choice' for the high-end.
XFX GeForce 7800 GT
HEXUS has had the pleasure of evaluating XFX's 7800 GT over the past few days, in the absence of NVIDIA's reference hardware. Here's a shot of the box.
Inside the X-shaped packaging you get the board pictured on page 3, a single DVI-to-VGA adaptor, S-Video cable to allow TV-out and video capture, along with copies of Tenomichi's innovative 3D Edit real-time video editing application, Far Cry, X² The Threat and motoGP 2. Not a bad hardware and software bundle at all. Pricing is unconfirmed but should sit just over £300. For the improved performance due to the 450/525 clocks and the bundle you get, it comes recommended. And like the hard-launched 7800 GTX before it, the XFX 7800 GT and other 7800 GTs just like it are all available right now.
HEXUS Awards
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
XFX GeForce 7800 GT
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS we invite the vendors whose hardware we test to comment on our articles. If NVIDIA choose to do so, we'll publish their commentary verbatim.HEXUS Where2Buy
XFX's GeForce 7800 GT 256MiB is available from Scan.
HEXUS.competition
Fancy winning this card? Of course you do! Details on how to get your hands on a 7800 GT can be found in the HEXUS.community.
