The Card

So far, there haven't been any differences in the look of the 7800's that we've tested except the sticker on the heat sink. As you can see, this one has a GC angel on it over a white background. For some of the more extravagant enthusiasts/modders out there, this card may not pack the visual punch necessary to inhabit the flashiest setups. On the other hand, those who plan on buying this card for performance alone should not experience any loss at hiding away the graphic. The box has basically the same design as the heat sink.

The MSI does not come overclocked as did the EVGA. In the long run, slower parts should end up being cheaper. For those in the market for a 7800, pay close attention to whether the advantage factory overclocked cards have is worth the premium. The NX7800 GTX currently sells from about $535 to $550.

One nice feature with this card is that it comes bundled with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher's Bay. This is an excellent game and should look beautiful with any card that can run in shader mode "2.0++" (as the game labels its mode that supports soft shadows).

Another thing we should mention is that all the 7800 cards that we are testing, including this one, have dual-link DVI, but only on one port. The Silicon Image TMDS chip is under the heat sink near the fan. This allows very high resolutions to be run on monitors that support it. For instance, Apple's 30 inch Cinema Display requires Dual-Link DVI to support its native resolution of 2560x1600.

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  • imaheadcase - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    I know how to show FPS in bf2, but does it have a in game benchmark?

    Curious how you benchmark bf2 as I would like to see how some cards compare (or not compare i should say).

    Good review
  • DerekWilson - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    A lot of people have been asking, so here ya go ... links to our battlefield 2 benchmark demos files.

    [L]http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/bf2/atfi...[/L]
    [L]http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/bf2/atfi...[/L]

    There are instructions somewhere on battlefield2.com that describe how to use the demo.cmd file, but you will need to edit this file to set resolutions other than 800x600.

    Our data is compiled from the last 1700 frames of our demo run. The many thousand other frames that can result come from the load screen and aren't useful to show performance.
  • Spacecomber - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link

    What version of the game were these made under, Derek? Are they for the unpatched game? I couldn't get the demo to play. It would load the map, then it would crash me to the desktop while it was checking player assets or something to that effect. This was on a version of the game with the 1.02 patch.

    Space
  • DerekWilson - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    by the way, since it's the last 1700 frame, you've got to go into the frametimes csv file and manual calculate an average for the last 1700 lines of the 3rd column (after you've split the columns on ; ) for every test you do. It's kind of a pain, but for people that care, there it is.
  • bob661 - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    How do you turn on the FPS in BF2? Thanks.
  • Spacecomber - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    Use the tilde ~ key to access the console and enter this command, "renderer.drawFps 1" (no quotes).

    You can find these tips and a lot more in the Battlefield Tweak Guide that I mentioned in my first link in the post above.

    Space

  • Spacecomber - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    You'll need to create (or find one for downloading) a "demo" file which you can then run with the timedemo feature of the demo.cmd script file.

    A couple of sources for general information on downloading the demo.cmd script,creating demos, converting them to AVIs, and running timedemos.

    http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_6.html">From the BF2 Tweak Guide

    http://forum.eagames.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=934">EA UK's BF2 Forum Thread on the BF2 Recorder

    And, http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=3841...">Overclockers.AU article on running BF2 benchmarks (mentioned in the BF2 Tweak Guide.

    HTH,

    Space



  • p3r2y - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    anand has an article about different gpu's in bf2 stupid
  • Sea Shadow - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link

    Great review, and props for filtering all the random spam.

    I can't wait to see the BFG review as it will help me decide which 7800 I am going to get.
  • xsilver - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link

    congrats to anand to adding the filters
    no more dumb "first post" or "in soviet russia" anymore

    anyways with regard to the card
    why on earth would you not buy the egva card as it comes with BF2 --- its one of the few games that taxes the card -- even if you have the game already - selling it would net you an extra $30 at least
    kudos to evga for including a good game

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