Power, Heat and Noise
Power
When testing the power usage of this card, we found that it wasn't nearly as power-hungry as the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO. This is worth mentioning because of the match in performance between the two. As you can see, at the factory clock of 490MHz and 1.3GHz, we measured the power load at 274 watts; the same as the BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC out of the box. When we overclocked the card to 500MHz and 1.32HGz, we get a power load of 277 watts, the same as the overclocked MSI NX7800 GTX. For reference, the power load was 148 watts while the system was idle.
Keep in mind that the way we test the power usage of these cards is by measuring the wattage of the entire system at the wall outlet, then comparing the differences. These numbers don't represent the exact wattage of the graphics cards. Rather, they are simply meant to give us a general idea of how much power a card generates at different speeds.
Heat
As it turns out, this card did run a bit on the hot side. It ran slightly hotter than the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO, though it was only a degree warmer. 80 C puts it in a tie for hottest card with the non-KO eVGA and the overclocked BFG 7800 GTX. We suspected that it would generate more heat in relation to the other cards because of the higher overclock, but it wasn't really much worse. It may not do as well as the EVGA KO in hotter climates because of the unmodified heat sink, but the single degree difference is tough to call significant. MSI of course continues to lead the temperature category, though again a 2 degrees C difference isn't huge. For reference, the idle temperature for the card was 47 degrees C.
Noise
As with most of these cards, we didn't notice anything remarkable about how much noise the card made. In relation to the other 7800's, we see that it falls somewhere in the middle, but leans a little more toward the quieter cards. Again, it will be very difficult to tell a difference in the loudness of these cards simply by ear, but we feel that it's worth seeing how these cards compare to each other in as many areas as we can.
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VideoQuasar - Monday, August 22, 2005 - link
I must have missed the SPECViewperf 8.1 test portion, or the Cinebench 2003. Are those on hidden pages along with the PureVideo aspects of the card?These 7800 cards might compete with a mid-range Quadro or Fire card...but I don't know do I !
The reviwers seem to be more interested in which cards come with a BF2 bundle,When you buy 2 for SLI....you can load both...WOW.
walkure - Friday, August 26, 2005 - link
You people complaining about "yet another review" are idiots. If you don't wanna read it, don't click it!!!I had not read a single review of any of the cards up to right now. I came to the site looking for one, and I found it. Thank you AT.
I did want to see some comparisons to last generation's cards, like the 6800 Ultra, X800, etc, but I suppose that's found in another article...
bonhimself - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link
Okay this might sound stupid, but are the tests here in SLi or just a single card? I want to be sure of performance because I'm thinking of getting one of these 7800'sbob661 - Friday, August 19, 2005 - link
Both.
Quiksel - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link
I'm glad I'm not the only one bitchin about these articles. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw YET ANOTHER 7800GTX REVIEW on AT.Jarred, I know you've been trying to defend the rationale behind so many reviews of the same tech, but SERIOUSLY, this is ridiculous. I want to believe that you guys aren't just trying to milk the readers for more page hits, but I'm really starting to worry. I'm a big fan of AT, and this kind of stuff is just getting out of hand, IMO.
Please, no more 7800GTX Reviews. For the love of God, please.
PrinceGaz - Thursday, August 18, 2005 - link
Yeah, I think most AT readers now believe this "lets review every 7800GTX card we get our hands on" individually approach is ludicrous. There's so little difference between most of them, and the differences found in overclocking even with the few (one so far) that hasn't been a reference design, are almost certainly down to random variations in the individual core and memory chips. Actually overclocking tests with samples sent from manufacturers are always suspect, and you should always rely on what are reported in the forums from people who have bought the cards to get a good idea on how well they overclock. I agree with the idea of AT overclocking the cards to find how far they go, but that is really only a minor point of the review.For all intents and purposes, all the 7800GTX cards you review are identical, unless they have a quieter fan, or a large heatsink that takes up extra slots which would deserve mention for that reason. The game bundle may differ and you might mention that, or what dongles and cables are included, but that's about all that matters and it certainly doesn't warrant a seperate review for every card.
With all these 7800GTX reviews, I seem to have missed AT's review of an X800GT card which will be of more interest to far more readers. I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing you would call a halt to these ongoing 7800GTX reviews that only a tiny minority of your readers will buy, and instead look at more mainstream products and how they impact that market sector. AT is becoming more elitist by the day, what with concentrating only on the very top gfx-cards, CPUs, memory, etc, and will lose its readers if it continues down this path.
Trap - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant....">http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant...e=190377...DerekWilson - Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - link
This is not the Overclocked version of the card.HardwareD00d - Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - link
actually, it is overclocked:Memory clock: 1.25 MHz (vs. 1.2MHz Standard)
Engine clock: 450 MHz (vs. 430MHz Standard)
but not as much as the version in the review. Still, seems to be a damn good deal considering the card is being scalped for close to $600 at many places.
Igi - Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - link
This and previous reviews of 7800GTX cards were extremely superficial. After reading the last review many questions still remain unanswered. We all know that we won’t see miracles if all the cards use GPUs clocked at similar frequencies. In other words, I don’t care if one card is 2 fps faster than the other in Doom3 at 1600x1200, what I’m interested in are features, for example:- What is the max DVI resolution for both DVI slots?
- Can I drive two Dell 2405FPW LCDs with a single 7800GTX at 1920x1200@60Hz? I had a bad experience in the past with nVidia cards, where max. resolution on primary DVI was limited to 1600x1200. Only the secondary DVI, connected via silicon image TDMS transceiver was able to drive 2405 panel at 1920x1200.
- Can I drive 30” Apple cinema Display at 2560x1600? In other words, is there any 7800GTX card available with a dual-link DVI slot? I know that so far only some quadro cards are able to drive hi-res displays.
- I don’t remember TV-OUT was tested in any review. What is the max TV-OUT resolution 720p, 1080i?
- Which inputs are present on the card? S-Video, Composite?
- Can I downclock the GPU to let’s say 200MHz or even lower to achieve silent operation during normal work?