NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT: Rounding Out The High End
by Derek Wilson & Josh Venning on August 11, 2005 12:15 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
With the insertion of the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT into the high end landscape, it becomes difficult for us to provide our readers with a one size fits all answer. Recommendations are complex because we must take into account current hardware, performance needs, price, and future upgrade prospects. Buying a graphics card right now poses quite a difficult situation.From the numbers it is very clear that the 7800 GT is a better card than the 6800 Ultra. For the price, there is no contest between the two. The 6800 Ultra is no longer a viable solution except as an upgrade to SLI from a previously owned Ultra. That being said, paying about $400 for a second 6800 Ultra may be a good solution if everything else is already there and ready to go. For those who have a non-SLI PCI Express system and only a 450 W power supply, spending the money on a 7800 GTX is a much better upgrade than spending the money for a decent PSU, SLI motherboard, and 6800 Ultra. The best case scenario there will cost something like $650. If a system upgrade is in your future, it may be better to save your money until the new AMD processors and sockets come along.
We feel that the verdict for 6800 Ultra owners is to hold their cards and wait rather than go for the SLI upgrade. Those with less than last year's high end may be interested in the upgrade to the 7800 GT, but there are some cautions we would make in recommending this card. The current street prices show the 7800 GTX hitting as low as $500 (and a few OEM models are even lower). With many of the 7800 GT cards on the market hovering at $450, throwing the extra $50 at a GTX is a worthy upgrade for the performance increases gained if you need the extra push to get the quality and resolution desired. If high resolution and solid performance are needed, the GTX will not disappoint.
Here is where everything gets a little hairy. Will you be monitor limited by an upgrade? Many very good flat panels will only display up to 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. Owning one of these panels really negates the necessity for a 7800 GTX right now. From the numbers we have seen, the highest end card we would recommend for owners of a 1600x1200 flat panel (who don't get paid for gaming) is the 7800 GT. We would also recommend finding one for $400 rather than paying full price.
Owners of 1280x1024 panels don't really need to spend the money here as even the 7800 GT will run into walls at this resolution. 6800 GT prices are now dropping to $300 and below. At this price point, owners of older systems who haven't taken the high end plunge and don't want to spend the money on 1600x1200 and up panels would do very well to upgrade to a 6800 GT. Even the venerable 128MB 6800 is available at nearly $200.
We have entered an era where the graphics solution is often limited by the monitor more than anything else at the high end. It is important to pay attention to what is needed for a particular system rather than just grabbing the fastest thing out there. Even with all the bells and whistles, if nothing is going to be done at very high resolutions, current games do not stress the highest end cards enough.
Granted, when games based on technology like the Unreal Engine 3 come along, that 7800 GTX SLI system will come in handy at any resolution. However, we don't like recommending buying now for some promise of longevity or future performance. When games that push these cards come along, new cards will be out (or just around the corner). It is always best to buy for current needs.
That brings us back to the SLI situation and we have to stress that using SLI as an upgrade path isn't the best idea. SLI is best exploited as an ultra high end technology. For that reason, we won't recommend going out and buying a 7800 GT SLI system as spending less money on a single GTX (or a little more on two) are both more valuable options. This time around we can recommend 6800 Ultra SLI as a special case upgrade for current owners of SLI systems and a single 6800 Ultra who want added performance and need to choose between the 7800 GT and a second 6800U card. This recommendation is based on the fact that no more API features or technologies have been added to the GeForce 7 series that make it desirable over a 6 Series setup of the same speed.
Overall, our feeling is that the 7800 GT is a suitable replacement for the 6800 Ultra in the market. Keeping the relatively new, lower yield G70 silicon relegated to the very high end and eliminating (or severely reducing production of) the lowest yield NV4x part will help NVIDIA to maintain higher margins. The fact that plenty of 7800 cards are available now (including the GT) is a huge improvement over what we saw last year on the high end from NVIDIA with very low availability of high end parts. Keeping this trend rolling as long as they have is absolutely wonderful. We are very impressed with NVIDIA and we hope ATI will be able to follow this trend when they finally release Crossfire and their R520 based parts.
For now, NVIDIA's 7800 series own the high end graphics space. Now it's time for monitor makers to catch up and start releasing panels that can make use of the available dual-link DVI port at reasonable prices.
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Quiksel - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
Like I mentioned in one of the other articles:"(1) I understand that taking new tech and reviewing it on launch day, etc., is important. (2) Then comes the mass production of the tech by different manufacturers, so there's a need for the readers to be informed on the differences between the different products. (3) Then there's the difference between the interim releases after the initial launch of the new tech that also need reviewing and explanation. From those three different times of a piece of new tech, I would typically expect 3 articles or so for each piece of said new tech. From my initial post, I have just been surprised that what seems to be happening are lots of reviews centered around the second phase of your review cycle, and so that's why I was asking whether this is really what readers want to see on AT all the time (i.e., $500 graphic cards to oggle and wish a relative would die so that we could afford it)."
"Can't tell you how weird I felt last night to read the new article about the $3000 desk. I guess it helps to have some off-the-wall review about such a nice piece of desk. But is that really what the readers want to see? More hardware that they can't afford? One poster above me here mentioned that you've lost touch with your readers, and sometimes, I wonder whether you're really just trying to fill a niche that no one else is really pursuing in an effort to either drive the industry in that direction or just cater to a crowd that may or may not even visit here. Who knows. I sure got confused with such an article. These 7800GTX articles have done the same for me."
"I don't know what to tell ya to do, because I'm not in your position. But I certainly don't feel as at home on this site as I used to. Am I getting too old to appreciate all this nice shiny new expensive hardware?? :)"
4 out of the last 5 articles on AT are all this high-end tech! Where's the sweet spot? The budget? ANYTHING ELSE BUT THE HIGH-END??
flame away, thanks :)
coldpower27 - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
What else is there to review? I mean it's not like Nvidia has relased the 7600 Series yet??? Neither is RV530 anywhere to be found. And typically a high end piece of hardware is new, and you remember Anandtech did review the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. Though I would like to see a reivew of the recently announced Sempron 3400+. I would also like to see how the new Celeron D 351 stacks up as well.I am not sure it's all that interesting to review the same video card over and over again like reference 6600 GT vs a new one with a new more advanced heatsink, then a new one with a better bundle of software etc...
JarredWalton - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
I have my doubts as to whether a 7600 type card will even *BE* launched in the next six months. Think about it: why piss off all the owners of 6800GT cards by releasing a new card that isn't SLI compatible? From the customer support standpoint, it's better to keep the older SLI-capable cards in production and simply move them to the mid-range and value segments. Which is exactly what NVIDIA did with 6800 and 6800GT with this launch. Now if the 6800U would just drop to $350, everything would be about right.jkostans - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
The 7800GT is slightly slower than a 6800 Ultra SLI setup and the GTX is on par or faster. The GT AND GTX cost less than the additional 6800 ultra upgrade to SLI, so SLI is rather useless. Why opt for an extra power hungry 6800 ultra when you can just swap for a lower power 7800 GT or better performing and lower power GTX for less money? This will happen with the 7800 GTX SLI setup too. SLI should only be a considerationas an initial buy (for rich gamers who want the absolute best), not as an upgrade path for later. Gotta love nVIDIA "rendering" their own technology useless lol!.JNo - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
Hear Hear! Good point, well made and I think intelligent people realised this from the off. Let me think - 2x 6800U dustbusters causing a racket or 1 new 7800GT(X)...Anemone - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
Hi thereI'd like to suggest maybe using 1920x1200 for high res tests. The popularity of widescreen gaming (where possible) is growing, and this provides a more commonly used "extreme resolution" than the 2048x1536, thus, imo a bit more relevant.
Just my $.02
Thanks
JNo - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
I second this motion for 1920x1200!! Why test at 2048x1536 when most people who could afford these monitors (albeit CRTs) would likely go for widescreen instead? Slightly less pixels but better visual impact... (nb love watching other CS players not spotting an enemy on the peripheral of my screen presumably cos their monitors are not widescreen!)adonn78 - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
First off, no gamer plays videogames at resolutions above 1600x1200! Most of us stick to 1024x768 so that we can get high framerates and enable all the features and play the game on the highest settings. In addition you did not show how the GT and GTX stacked up against the previous generation suchs as the 6800 ultra, GT and the 5950 ultra. And Where is the AGP version? My computer is 2 years old and I am upgrading my graphics card soon. I guess I'll wait to see if ATI makes AGP cards for their next generation. And where the heck is the R520? ATI is really lagging this time around. Hopefully we will get some AGP love. AGP still got a good 2 years of life left in it.DerekWilson - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
I play games at 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 depending on what room I'm in ... and I like to have at least 8xAF on and 4xAA if I can.When I'm not playing at those resolutions, I'm playing at 1600x1200 with 4xAA 8xAF period. Any lower than that and I feel like I'm back in 1996.
But that may just be me :-)
If I ran benchmarks at 1024x768, no matter the settings, all these cards would give me the same number (barring everquest 2 on extreme quality which would probably still be slow).
I also play with vsync on so I don't get tearing ... but we test with it off so we can remove the limits and see the cards potential.
neogodless - Thursday, August 11, 2005 - link
Hey, that's good to know about the vsync... back when I played Doom III, I noticed some of that, but didn't know much about it. I just felt "robbed" because my Geforce 6800GT was giving me tearing... thought maybe it couldn't keep up with the game. But everywhere I went I saw people saying "Vsync off! Two legs good!"