Today, i am going to review the 7800GTX graphics card from XFX. This is a nvidia 7-Series card. i got this card around 1 month ago from Rashi Peripherals, Cochin. When i went there everyone was surprized that what i will do with a 32k card. Everyone was asking is it for server or something. actually no one was believing that this is only for the sake of better gaming. Anyways as usual in India good hardware is always a headache to find even if u have money. So ordered 7800GTX along with A8N SLI Premium motherboard. i am a customer of them from 3-4 years and got many things from them so, they did it without any advance or something. They said after 1 week it will be available. So i called them after one week the guy said motherboard is available but the card is not available in Mumbai head office so it will take another 15 days. i was very sad to hear that i got the motherboard that time it self and the card was available here after 20 days.
That day i called them and they said it will be here by 6PM so i went there around 5:30PM then waited upto 6:15 then the guy said that it is here but at the airport and can be given to me only tomorrow i got very angry and had some argument with the delivery guy. Then the manager heard this, and taken me to his room. Then i told him the matter and he taken me to the airport and there i got the card. Reached back home in hurry in mine bike.now lets start with the review too much of OT talks.
Introduction
As every know from 6 series onwards XFX has offered a very good cards and they are even getting better. Here you can see the cards specification on the XFX web site. XFX is having 3 models in 7800GTX. All are factory overclocked.
1. Core 490 Memory 1300Mhz with Battlefield 2
2. Core 490 Memory 1300Mhz
3. Core 450 Memory 1250Mhz
In India only the 3rd model was available, so i got that.
Package
The card came in the unique shaped "X" type box. As u can see in the picture. Packing is really good and eye catching. Opening the box is a bit tricky. On the front of the box i can clearly see that it is having 3 years warranty from Rashi. As well as it is a 256MB DDR3, PCI-E card.
There is a small flap on the top of the card. Opening that we can see some more features of the card as HDTV and VIVO support.
In the back side of the card some more features are written.
Card came in a plastic box inside the big X shaped box. Pretty good design of the box and it also saves it from damages while shipping.
Here u can see the games that bundled with the card.
1. Farcry :- very good game
2. X2 The Threat :- Tried it but not in my kinda game
3. MOTO GP 2 :- well played it way back on mine 5200Ultra
now the other bundle things that came with the package
4. HDTV / VIVO cable
5. S-video cable x 2
6. DVI-to-VGA adapter x 2
6. PCI Express power cable(dunno search for it its not there in the pic)
7. Manuals
8. Driver CD
HDTV/VIVO cable somes with plastic labling onto them so its easy to setup.
Specification
Engine clock: 450MHz
Memory clock: 1.25GHz
Memory Interface: 256-bit
Pixels per Clock (peak): 24
Outputs: DVI x 2, HDTV / VIVO
Memory: 256MB GDDR3
Features
Factory overclocked the engine clock at 450MHz and memory clock at 1.25GHz (vs. standard 430MHz and 1.2GHz)
SLI ready
Dual DVI Out
TV Capture (VIVO)
NVIDIA® PureVideo™ Technology
High-definition MPEG-2 and WMV Hardware Acceleration
Integrated HDTV Encoder
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support
NVIDIA® CineFX™ 4.0 Engine
NVIDIA® ForceWare™ Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
NVIDIA® Intellisample™ 4.0 Technology
NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ II Technology
The card
As u can see in the picture it self. card is almost same as the nvidia reference design. only the fancy sticker on the HS and the support metal bar on the top of the card. It also Provides a bit cooling for the card . There is a hole in the top of the bar to connect SLI connector. The HSF is pretty neat design. Fan is sucking air inside and its coming out from the back side of the the HS. All the memory chips in the front side of the card are actively cooled. In the back side there is are black modules which hold the HSF setup in front of the card. This card uses 1.6 ns GDDR3 memory chips from Samsung which can run up to 1.2 GHz. but we can OC them further without any problems.
There is 6 pin PCI-E power connector for the card. As the PCI-E slot can provide max of 80-90w of power. if u don't have PCI-E power connector then u have connect two molex power connect in the given PCI-E convertor. I am having a hard time because of this. Because mine Powersafe 500w is having only 4 molex connectors(i know new ones comes with 8). I have connected one hard disk and one DVD drive. and here i am not able to find a spliter. Cochin really S****S.
It is having dual DVI connector so, u can connect 2 DVI devices and it also comes with two DVI to analog convertors.
HeatSink and Fan Performance
The card idles about 45-52*c. It depends upon the room temparatues. Once i will get home i will test it in A.C.. The max temparature i have seen on this card is 80*c, in a very hot day while playing UNDGND2. Fan spins at very low speed and barely better i say not audible Starice and 2x80mm case fans. U can only hear the sound of the fan while booting for 2-3secs its spining at maximum speed i guess after that its silent. Although the small heat sink in the right most part of the card gets hot. while gaming it feels really hot on fingers. anyways i am planning to put AS5 Rev3 on the card but now it is not available.
Installation
Installation was pretty simple just have to plug in the PCI-E connector and then connect the power connector and you are good to go. anyways there is minor problem with this motherbord and the card. as u can see in the picture card is really close to the ram latches. So every time u have to remove the ram u have to remove the graphics card first then only u can remove the memory.
Test setup
A8N SLI Premium
AMD 64 3000+
TwinMos DDR 400 2x512
Seagate 80GB HDD
Powersafe 500w(will be replaced soon with TP 550)
DirectX 9.0c
NVIDIA FordeWare 78.03
Windows XP Pro SP2
This card puts a lot load on the PSU. As mine PSU idles at 11.71v and goes to 11.45v on max load while running 3D Marks05. Idle is around 170w and load is about 230w as mine APC software says. With a 2 MB PCI card was about 115w idle and load was 130w. so i think the card is taking around 55w on idle and 100w on load.
here are some 3D marks results which got with 78.03
These are with stock setting
This one with 2.7Ghz CPU and memory ~200Mhz with 2-3-3-6@1T
Overclocking
I have not really overclocked the card. I think i need a better PSU first so, ready to get some overclocking review when i get the Antec TP 550. I have done some testing with coolbits i can reach 530 core and 1430 memory after which it starts to fail in coolbits. anyways haven't benched at that speeds so i can't say anything.
Conclusion
I think this is a very nice and powerful card from XFX. and XFX is also having a good presence in India so warranty and other issues are not a problem. I have played almost all games i am having with 1280x960 resolution with all high setting and haven't seen any shuttering
. Anyways i am not getting a new moniter soon and i am happy with this resolution. Also keeping a 19" moniter in hostel feels a bit odd. The fun will begin when i will get a new PSU with a new cabby but this will take time as mine University exams are upto 25th nov after that i will start hunting for the PSU and Cabby.
Sorry for blurry photos taken them with mine 7610. Also if any mistakes are there mods please correct them
Rahul
That day i called them and they said it will be here by 6PM so i went there around 5:30PM then waited upto 6:15 then the guy said that it is here but at the airport and can be given to me only tomorrow i got very angry and had some argument with the delivery guy. Then the manager heard this, and taken me to his room. Then i told him the matter and he taken me to the airport and there i got the card. Reached back home in hurry in mine bike.now lets start with the review too much of OT talks.
Introduction
As every know from 6 series onwards XFX has offered a very good cards and they are even getting better. Here you can see the cards specification on the XFX web site. XFX is having 3 models in 7800GTX. All are factory overclocked.
1. Core 490 Memory 1300Mhz with Battlefield 2
2. Core 490 Memory 1300Mhz
3. Core 450 Memory 1250Mhz
In India only the 3rd model was available, so i got that.
Package
The card came in the unique shaped "X" type box. As u can see in the picture. Packing is really good and eye catching. Opening the box is a bit tricky. On the front of the box i can clearly see that it is having 3 years warranty from Rashi. As well as it is a 256MB DDR3, PCI-E card.
There is a small flap on the top of the card. Opening that we can see some more features of the card as HDTV and VIVO support.
In the back side of the card some more features are written.
Card came in a plastic box inside the big X shaped box. Pretty good design of the box and it also saves it from damages while shipping.
Here u can see the games that bundled with the card.
1. Farcry :- very good game
2. X2 The Threat :- Tried it but not in my kinda game
3. MOTO GP 2 :- well played it way back on mine 5200Ultra
now the other bundle things that came with the package
4. HDTV / VIVO cable
5. S-video cable x 2
6. DVI-to-VGA adapter x 2
6. PCI Express power cable(dunno search for it its not there in the pic)
7. Manuals
8. Driver CD
HDTV/VIVO cable somes with plastic labling onto them so its easy to setup.
Specification
Engine clock: 450MHz
Memory clock: 1.25GHz
Memory Interface: 256-bit
Pixels per Clock (peak): 24
Outputs: DVI x 2, HDTV / VIVO
Memory: 256MB GDDR3
Features
Factory overclocked the engine clock at 450MHz and memory clock at 1.25GHz (vs. standard 430MHz and 1.2GHz)
SLI ready
Dual DVI Out
TV Capture (VIVO)
NVIDIA® PureVideo™ Technology
High-definition MPEG-2 and WMV Hardware Acceleration
Integrated HDTV Encoder
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support
NVIDIA® CineFX™ 4.0 Engine
NVIDIA® ForceWare™ Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
NVIDIA® Intellisample™ 4.0 Technology
NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ II Technology
The card
As u can see in the picture it self. card is almost same as the nvidia reference design. only the fancy sticker on the HS and the support metal bar on the top of the card. It also Provides a bit cooling for the card . There is a hole in the top of the bar to connect SLI connector. The HSF is pretty neat design. Fan is sucking air inside and its coming out from the back side of the the HS. All the memory chips in the front side of the card are actively cooled. In the back side there is are black modules which hold the HSF setup in front of the card. This card uses 1.6 ns GDDR3 memory chips from Samsung which can run up to 1.2 GHz. but we can OC them further without any problems.
There is 6 pin PCI-E power connector for the card. As the PCI-E slot can provide max of 80-90w of power. if u don't have PCI-E power connector then u have connect two molex power connect in the given PCI-E convertor. I am having a hard time because of this. Because mine Powersafe 500w is having only 4 molex connectors(i know new ones comes with 8). I have connected one hard disk and one DVD drive. and here i am not able to find a spliter. Cochin really S****S.
It is having dual DVI connector so, u can connect 2 DVI devices and it also comes with two DVI to analog convertors.
HeatSink and Fan Performance
The card idles about 45-52*c. It depends upon the room temparatues. Once i will get home i will test it in A.C.. The max temparature i have seen on this card is 80*c, in a very hot day while playing UNDGND2. Fan spins at very low speed and barely better i say not audible Starice and 2x80mm case fans. U can only hear the sound of the fan while booting for 2-3secs its spining at maximum speed i guess after that its silent. Although the small heat sink in the right most part of the card gets hot. while gaming it feels really hot on fingers. anyways i am planning to put AS5 Rev3 on the card but now it is not available.
Installation
Installation was pretty simple just have to plug in the PCI-E connector and then connect the power connector and you are good to go. anyways there is minor problem with this motherbord and the card. as u can see in the picture card is really close to the ram latches. So every time u have to remove the ram u have to remove the graphics card first then only u can remove the memory.
Test setup
A8N SLI Premium
AMD 64 3000+
TwinMos DDR 400 2x512
Seagate 80GB HDD
Powersafe 500w(will be replaced soon with TP 550)
DirectX 9.0c
NVIDIA FordeWare 78.03
Windows XP Pro SP2
This card puts a lot load on the PSU. As mine PSU idles at 11.71v and goes to 11.45v on max load while running 3D Marks05. Idle is around 170w and load is about 230w as mine APC software says. With a 2 MB PCI card was about 115w idle and load was 130w. so i think the card is taking around 55w on idle and 100w on load.
here are some 3D marks results which got with 78.03
These are with stock setting
This one with 2.7Ghz CPU and memory ~200Mhz with 2-3-3-6@1T
Overclocking
I have not really overclocked the card. I think i need a better PSU first so, ready to get some overclocking review when i get the Antec TP 550. I have done some testing with coolbits i can reach 530 core and 1430 memory after which it starts to fail in coolbits. anyways haven't benched at that speeds so i can't say anything.
Conclusion
I think this is a very nice and powerful card from XFX. and XFX is also having a good presence in India so warranty and other issues are not a problem. I have played almost all games i am having with 1280x960 resolution with all high setting and haven't seen any shuttering
. Anyways i am not getting a new moniter soon and i am happy with this resolution. Also keeping a 19" moniter in hostel feels a bit odd. The fun will begin when i will get a new PSU with a new cabby but this will take time as mine University exams are upto 25th nov after that i will start hunting for the PSU and Cabby.Sorry for blurry photos taken them with mine 7610. Also if any mistakes are there mods please correct them
Rahul
