NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512: More Than Just More Memory
by Derek Wilson on November 14, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
This week we have another successful hard launch from NVIDIA with parts available on the day of the announcement. We would once again like to commend NVIDIA on the excellent job they have done in setting the standard for handling product launches. The benefits to reviewers, vendors, merchants, and consumers alike are huge. We can talk about a product without having to worry if what we are playing with will ever exist or not, and consumers can avoid the confusion that vaporware and paper launches add to the market.
Not only was this another excellent example of how to launch a product, but NVIDIA has also recaptured the high end in performance with this latest product. In just about every benchmark the only solution (not including its winning SLI configuration) that could beat the 7800 GTX 512 was the 7800 GTX SLI setup. ATI parts do become much more competitive when looking at 4xAA tests, but in the end the 7800 GTX 512 still comes out on top.
While NVIDIA have suggested that the appropriate retail price for this part is $650, we are only seeing it listed for a whopping $700 in our price engine at the moment. We have said before that NVIDIA generally does a good job of meeting or beating their MSRP, but this time seems like it could go the other way. But there is always a price to pay for having the best of the best.
We would like to once again mention that the naming of this part could have been better. The focus should clearly have been on some aspect other than the increased framebuffer size and more on the increased clock speeds. But this is minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things. What is significant is the 7800 GTX 512's ability to outperform every other card out there in almost every test we ran. It seems that just as ATI comes out with a competitive part NVIDIA is right back out the gate with something to put themselves back on top.
At $700 we are a little wary of recommending this part to anyone but the professional gamers and incredibly wealthy. The extra performance just isn't necessary in most cases. But if you've got the money to burn, the added power can definitely make a difference in ultra high resolutions with all the settings cranked to the max. Hopefully the introduction of this part will further serve to push down prices on the rest of the cards out there this holiday season.
This week we have another successful hard launch from NVIDIA with parts available on the day of the announcement. We would once again like to commend NVIDIA on the excellent job they have done in setting the standard for handling product launches. The benefits to reviewers, vendors, merchants, and consumers alike are huge. We can talk about a product without having to worry if what we are playing with will ever exist or not, and consumers can avoid the confusion that vaporware and paper launches add to the market.
Not only was this another excellent example of how to launch a product, but NVIDIA has also recaptured the high end in performance with this latest product. In just about every benchmark the only solution (not including its winning SLI configuration) that could beat the 7800 GTX 512 was the 7800 GTX SLI setup. ATI parts do become much more competitive when looking at 4xAA tests, but in the end the 7800 GTX 512 still comes out on top.
While NVIDIA have suggested that the appropriate retail price for this part is $650, we are only seeing it listed for a whopping $700 in our price engine at the moment. We have said before that NVIDIA generally does a good job of meeting or beating their MSRP, but this time seems like it could go the other way. But there is always a price to pay for having the best of the best.
We would like to once again mention that the naming of this part could have been better. The focus should clearly have been on some aspect other than the increased framebuffer size and more on the increased clock speeds. But this is minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things. What is significant is the 7800 GTX 512's ability to outperform every other card out there in almost every test we ran. It seems that just as ATI comes out with a competitive part NVIDIA is right back out the gate with something to put themselves back on top.
At $700 we are a little wary of recommending this part to anyone but the professional gamers and incredibly wealthy. The extra performance just isn't necessary in most cases. But if you've got the money to burn, the added power can definitely make a difference in ultra high resolutions with all the settings cranked to the max. Hopefully the introduction of this part will further serve to push down prices on the rest of the cards out there this holiday season.
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steelmartin - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
I guess if you buy this card you´re doing so partly because you´re interested in running games in the hiqhest quality settings. But afaik it can´t do OpenEXR HDR and AA like in Far Cry, so I think this card is somewhat of a contradiction. Surely it depends on how the appliction uses HDR, like Valve showed with HDR and AA for everyone in Lost Coast. But I would say, not a very futureproof card then, as everyone predicts HDR will be big in games, and I guess a lot of them will use OpenEXR. Still, it will top the charts, for what that´s worth.And about the extra memory, how about taking the card for a spin with Call of Duty 2? Seems that game takes advantage of 512 MiB.
/m
DerekWilson - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
The advantage ATI offers is MSAA with floating point HDR. We've already seen a game (Black and White 2) that employs AA and HDR by using Supersample FSAA, and as you pointed out Valves Source engine avoids full float render targets and still gets good results.The performance hit is larger with SSAA, but it is certainly possible to have HDR and AA without the ability to do MSAA on floating point/multiple render targets. And the sheer brute strenth the 7800 GTX 512 has can easily be spent on SSAA as shown (again) by Black and White 2.
quasarsky - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
i'm an ati fan but this is ridicoulous. ati just gets crushed and crushed. even the regular 7800 gtx gets crushed. but i knew something like this would happen if the 7800 was cranked up to a clockspeed close to the x1800xt. those extra 8 pipes and the extra memory bandwidth just lead to the same thing: crushing all opponents lol. man. is ati the new intel? i hope not :(. but thats how its looking currently :'(.ha ha i guess my x800xt aiw isn't looking so hot right now :-D.
George Powell - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
But quite useless for most people who don't run games at statospheric resolutions.I would really like to see this running at 2560x1600 on the Apple 30".
Ozenmacher - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
That is some pretty amazing performance. It makes my ATi X800Xl look rather pathetic...sighsKaPolski - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
GoGo geforce 3 ti500 Woohoo!!!!! trust me it spanks the 7800 gtx 512 down to a carefully squeezed lemon :DXenoterranos - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
w00t! I traded my matching-numbers first-run GeForce 3 (Before they were TI'd) in for a 5900. im not upgrading till socket M2 comes a-rolling into the bargain bin.LoneWolf15 - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
It's called "marketing". Don't succumb to it.It it a fast card? Heck yeah. Is it necessary? Far from it. I have an ATI X800XL as well, and I don't plan on switching until I have to. Game developers will continue to make games compatible with our cards for some time to come, and the only thing we'll be missing is Shader Model 3.0. So far, what I have seen of it hasn't been a big enough improvement to encourage me to go out and plunk cash down on a new card. And seeing as my gaming is now measured in hours per week (as opposed to hours per day, like when I worked in a computer store) I couldn't justify spending that kind of bread on something that isn't constantly in use.
I think the 7800GTX 512 is a neat looking toy. But that's just it: it's a toy. I'd rather cover two car payments or two-thirds of a mortgage payment, things I NEED to spend money on
Pythias - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
I agree. I also think the $600 dollar pricetag on the x1800xt is a bit much as well.
phusg - Monday, November 14, 2005 - link
LOL. Weary != wary and in fact reads as the opposite to what I think you mean in this sentence!