NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX Hits The Ground Running
by Derek Wilson on June 22, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Half Life 2 Performance
Half-Life 2 is arguably one of the best looking games currently available. We mentioned earlier that it stresses pixel processing power more than memory bandwidth on the graphics card, and we see that here. While enabling AA/AF does cause a performance loss at these high resolutions, it isn't truly severe until we reach 2048x1536. Assuming a more common resolution of 1600x1200 - not everyone has a monitor with support for higher resolutions - the single 7800GTX is actually faster than 6800U SLI. In fact, the only time we see the 6800 SLI setup win out is when we run 4xAA/8xAF at 2048x1536, and then it's only by 3%. Also worth noting is that while SLI helps out the 6800 series quite a bit (provided you have a fast CPU and are running a high resolution), the 7800GTX is clearly running into CPU limitations. Our FX-55 can't push any of the cards past the 142 FPS mark regardless of resolution.ATI has done well in HL2 since its release, and that trend continues. The SLI configurations (other than the 6600GT) all surpass the performance of the X850XTPE, but it does come out ahead of the 6800U in a single card match - it's as much as 42% faster when we look at the 1600x1200 AA/AF scores. The 7800GTX, of course, manages to beat it quite easily. The 540 MHz core clock of the XTPE is quite impressive in the pixel shader heavy HL2, but with the additional pipelines and improved MADD functionality, the 7800GTX chews up HL2 rocks and spits out Combine gravel.
One thing that isn't immediately clear is why the 6800U cards have difficulties supporting the 2048x1536 resolution in some games. Performance drops by almost half when switching from 1600x1200 to 2048x1536, so either there's a driver problem or the 6800U simply doesn't do well with the demands of HL2 at such resolutions. There are 63% more pixels at 2048x1536 compared to 1600x1200, so it's rather shocking to see a performance decrease larger than this amount. We would venture to guess that it's a matter of priorities: the number of people that actually run 2048x1536 resolution in games is very small in comparison to the total number of gamers, and with most cards only providing a 60Hz refresh rate at that resolution, many don't worry too much about gaming performance.
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mrdeez - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
Derek-Please post benches with resolutions that are commonly used or this article becomes a workstatin graphics card article and not one for gamers....I mean really 2046x3056 or whatever the hell...lol...#1 who games at that res??? While this card is powerful it should be mentioned that unless you use a res over 1600x12000 this card is unnecessary.......lol those were some ridculous resolutions though.......and again post some benches with 1280x1024 for us lcd'ers.....
Shinei - Thursday, June 23, 2005 - link
#95: Did you pay to read this article? I know I didn't...#94: I guess you missed the part where they said that all resolutions below 1600x1200 were essentially identical in performance? If you only play in 1024x768, why are you reading a review about a $600 video card--go buy a 6600GT instead.
jeffrey - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
#83Has the staff at Anandtech not ever heard of "Vacation Coverage"?
The excuse of your Web Editor being on vacation is, in reality, an admission of improper planning.
A major hardware site that is dedicated to cutting-edge technology should have planned better. New high-end GPU launches happen by NVIDIA only about 2-3 times a year at most.
This was one of the HUGE launches of the year and it was messed-up becuase the team didn't feel it was important enough to get some help for the article. There was damage done to Anandtech today due to the article errors and due to the casual admission in post #83 about not caring to properly cover a "Super Bowl" type of product launch today.
Save your apologies to the message board, give them to Anand.
geekfool - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
How about benchmarking some useful resolutions? This review was essentially useless.JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
86 - Trust me, most of us other editors saw the article, and quite a few of us offered a helping hand. NDAs a a serious pain in the rear, though. Derek was busy pulling all nighters and functioning on limited sleep for several days, and just getting the article done is only half the battle. Getting the document and results into the document engine for a large article with a lot of graphs can take quite a while and is an error prone process.The commentary on the gaming benchmarks, for instance, was written in one order and posted in a different order. So please pardon the use of "this is another instance" or "once again" when we're talking about something for the first time. Anyway, I've got a spreadsheet of the benchmarks from early this morning, and other than non-functional SLI in a few games, the numbers appeared more or less correct. The text also didn't have as many typos. Crunch time and getting the final touches put on a major article isn't much fun.
Thankfully, I'm just the SFF/Guide man, so I'm rarely under NDA pressure. ;)
robp5p - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
I would love to see someone start benchmarking in widescreen resolutions! 1920x1200 begs for a fast video card like this. As was pointed out, the only real benefits of the 7800 come at high resolutions, and many people buying high resolution monitors these days are getting widescreen LCD'sand btw, my 2405fpw is sitting in a box right next to me in the office, begging me to open it up before I get home...this thing will be fun to get home on the subway
patriot336 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
Where is the Monarch and Tiger love?TigerDirect http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool...
Monarchcomputer http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant....
Both are 599.00$
BikeDude - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
$600 for a card that only features single-link DVI outputs? Yeah right, pull the other one nVidia!--
Rune
ta2 - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
As a player of eve-online, I can tell you that the game is entirely CPU dependent. On that matter, it will 100% any CPU you have. I mean ANY CPU. Also for the testing, you should use 1600x1200 max AA and AF and go into an area with many player ships on eve-online. I guarantee you will not get 60 FPS. Impractical and unscientific, but would still give better results than this review.TinyTeeth - Wednesday, June 22, 2005 - link
I am very impressed of the performance of the new chip. Nvidia seems to have fixed the problems SLI had during the 6800 generation.I am also pleased they have managed to deliver the cards so quickly. That also puts some pressure on ATI.