Hypersonic Aviator EX7: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX First Look
by Josh Venning on October 10, 2005 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
Overall, what we have here is a very impressive mobile gaming part. Those looking for the highest performance in notebook gaming need not look any further than this. NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7800 GTX, while not quite as fast as the standard version, still lives up to its name and handles the native 1920x1200 resolution with ease, even with 4x AA enabled. This will make any unit that is fitted with one attractive to those who want a complete and compact package, offering the power that they need to run any game at the highest settings. While the limited battery life that you'll probably experience in a laptop like this is a drawback (these types of systems usually only have 1 or 2 hours of battery life), the portability factor makes it ideal for LAN parties, and it will be sure to impress, regardless of your gaming abilities. But with prices that can get as high as $5,000, you'll be paying top dollar for the performance.
The Hypersonic Aviator EX7 is one of the best laptops that you can buy for gaming right now, but many companies who offer desktop replacement laptops will most likely offer a version fitted with a Go 7800 GTX. With the Hypersonic, we were very pleased at how all of the games ran smoothly at even the highest settings, so you definitely wouldn't be disappointed with the performance of this card. Some people might not like the fact that it's not clocked quite as high as the normal version, and due to obvious reasons (heat, etc.), the card can't really be overclocked. But because most laptops don't incorporate screens larger than 1920x1200 and no games are going to truly bring the Go 7800 GTX to its knees at this resolution, there's not much else right now which would require you to do so.
It's interesting to note that in the past, ATI has generally been the leader in mobility parts over NVIDIA. Since the Go 6800 Ultra hit the scene (and the rest of the mobile 6 series line up), NVIDIA has been gaining ground in performance and desirability. We're curious to see how ATI will respond to the Go 7800 GTX, as this looks like yet another major blow from NVIDIA. Especially considering the fact that NVIDIA had availability of a mobile part the day it launched from multiple vendors including Dell and Hypersonic. ATI couldn't even pull that off with a desktop product launch.
At the same time, as we've seen with Intel hardware, leaner hardware with high clock speeds tend to scale less forgivingly with power than wider architectures with a lower clock speed. We are very interested to see if ATI will be able to drop anything like their 625 MHz X1800 XT into a notebook without melting the plastic casing. Power draw on the high end part is higher than their previous generation, and won't likely fit into the same TDP envelope as the X850 XT as easily as the Go 7800 GTX does.
But this industry is all about surprises, and we won't count out ATI until we see hardware. Of course, no matter how good their hardware is, the longer they take to bring a mobile part to market, the more ground they will lose.
Overall, what we have here is a very impressive mobile gaming part. Those looking for the highest performance in notebook gaming need not look any further than this. NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7800 GTX, while not quite as fast as the standard version, still lives up to its name and handles the native 1920x1200 resolution with ease, even with 4x AA enabled. This will make any unit that is fitted with one attractive to those who want a complete and compact package, offering the power that they need to run any game at the highest settings. While the limited battery life that you'll probably experience in a laptop like this is a drawback (these types of systems usually only have 1 or 2 hours of battery life), the portability factor makes it ideal for LAN parties, and it will be sure to impress, regardless of your gaming abilities. But with prices that can get as high as $5,000, you'll be paying top dollar for the performance.
The Hypersonic Aviator EX7 is one of the best laptops that you can buy for gaming right now, but many companies who offer desktop replacement laptops will most likely offer a version fitted with a Go 7800 GTX. With the Hypersonic, we were very pleased at how all of the games ran smoothly at even the highest settings, so you definitely wouldn't be disappointed with the performance of this card. Some people might not like the fact that it's not clocked quite as high as the normal version, and due to obvious reasons (heat, etc.), the card can't really be overclocked. But because most laptops don't incorporate screens larger than 1920x1200 and no games are going to truly bring the Go 7800 GTX to its knees at this resolution, there's not much else right now which would require you to do so.
It's interesting to note that in the past, ATI has generally been the leader in mobility parts over NVIDIA. Since the Go 6800 Ultra hit the scene (and the rest of the mobile 6 series line up), NVIDIA has been gaining ground in performance and desirability. We're curious to see how ATI will respond to the Go 7800 GTX, as this looks like yet another major blow from NVIDIA. Especially considering the fact that NVIDIA had availability of a mobile part the day it launched from multiple vendors including Dell and Hypersonic. ATI couldn't even pull that off with a desktop product launch.
At the same time, as we've seen with Intel hardware, leaner hardware with high clock speeds tend to scale less forgivingly with power than wider architectures with a lower clock speed. We are very interested to see if ATI will be able to drop anything like their 625 MHz X1800 XT into a notebook without melting the plastic casing. Power draw on the high end part is higher than their previous generation, and won't likely fit into the same TDP envelope as the X850 XT as easily as the Go 7800 GTX does.
But this industry is all about surprises, and we won't count out ATI until we see hardware. Of course, no matter how good their hardware is, the longer they take to bring a mobile part to market, the more ground they will lose.
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Avalon - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
What is the purpose of this comment?
Uhh, Pentium-M? Next dumb answer.
This is about the most constructive reply I've read all day. In fact, you should win the Nobel prize for most constructive post of the year here.
Avalon - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
Since this laptop was soley aiming at the hardcore gamer, why not use that 2.26ghz P-M in there? Battery life would go up, and heat output would drop. The difference in gaming power between the two would be small enough to not matter at such a high resolution. If they were truly worried about keeping the same amount of CPU power in there, they could have still used a low voltage 2.4ghz Turion. It would still be infinitely better in the heat and power department.peldor - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
So the Doom3 score at 39.7 fps qualifies as "no trouble at all", but poor BF2 is merely "playable"? I guess you gotta draw the line somewhere. 39 fps ftw!
DerekWilson - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
I believe you've missunderstood.Battlefield 2 did actually perform the worst at 19x12 with 4xAA. Worst out of the tests run does not necessarily mean it performance was unsatisfactory. Playable is playable ...
At the same time, Doom 3 remains playable down around 30 fps while BF2 really does need a little more help. With the fast paced multiplayer action of BF2, higher framerates often make or break the game. They are two different games judged on their own merits of playability.
Hope that helps!
Pannenkoek - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
I'm extremely sceptical about Anandtech's general remarks about FPS games being "playable" at 30-40 fps AVERAGE. Old CS is unplayable if the fps drops below 40 nowadays, and I get 30+ average in ET but sure as hell can't shoot straight when it drops to 10-20 in the heat of the fight or explosions. Average framerates are only an indication, you guys should hurry up with your benchmark tool which should give usefull fps numbers for actual experience. Until then I request that you stop putting your judgement on playablity between objectively measured numbers...Oh, you were talking about BF. That's an exception as it's not a FPS but a simulation game.
Jedi2155 - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Battlefield 2 is not a simulation imo...but it is playable somewhat in the 30 fps range....I managed to get pretty decent scores with only 15-35 fps (got top in a 64 person server).Degrador - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
I've seen the posts for other articles saying the Anandtech has dropped a bit in their reviews, and I was a bit sceptical of that, but with this one I just can't hold back. The systems are way too different to give much of a comment about anything. Yes, I realise we're comparing a desktop to laptop systems, but would it have been that hard to get a desktop system and put a P4 670 in it with 2GB of DDR2-533? These are desktop parts... not exactly uncommon... The Athlon 64 has been shown time and time again to be the performance leader for gaming, and there's no reason why this review couldn't have been done properly. You didn't even have the same amount of RAM between the systems - wtf is up with that? Other reviews have shown that some games do depend on RAM, while others don't, which is now adding more variation to the results.It may sound arrogant, but this truely is a poor review... Can these reviews please be a little more scientific next time?
Phantronius - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
Whine whine...bitch bitch.bob661 - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
LOL! That's all I've been reading for the past week.bob661 - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
They're testing the graphics, not the systems. What you want is to minimize the effect the CPU has on performance here. Memory has VERY little impact above 1GB. 1 fps doesn't count.