For those of you who have followed our previous articles, NVIDIA has internally announced the GeForce 7800GS; a 16 pipe replacement for the GeForce 6800GT and 6800 Ultra. We recently got a chance to benchmark the card, and not surprisingly the performance is right between the GeForce 6800GS and GeForce 7800GT. However, what was perhaps most interesting about the card was that NVIDIA's current driver support; current drivers had no problem detecting the 7800GS in our test beds. The 7800GS uses the same 110nm G70 core as the GeForce 7800GT and 7800GTX.
The card we benchmarked came with a 375MHz core clock and a 1000MHz memory clock. Even with an entire quad disabled, our internal testing proved that the card was ample competition for ATI's X1800XL. Currently, we are working on enabling the disabled quad and/or overclocking the 7800GS up to 7800GT and GTX speeds. With a good price point, the GeForce 7800GS could easily become 2006's rendition of the Radeon X800GTO^2. A 16 pipe version of 7800GT would easily best a GeForce 6800GT or 6800 Ultra (at least on paper), but with current drivers we've already witnessed higher performance than that.
You may notice our first screenshot showed a total of 2 PCIe lanes. We are still working on this, and it looks like the screenshot only demonstrates an anomaly of the motherboard. Stay tuned for the full review within the next few days!
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A554SS1N - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
At 375Mhz core and 1000Mhz memory, it'll be faster than the 6800GT, especially with enhancements, but I'm not too sure about it beating a 400Mhz+ core 1100Mhz memory 6800Ultra... probably halfway between those two cards.Goi - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
Clock for clock the G70 is faster than the NV40, so it wouldn't be surprising to see the 7800GS best the 6800UVisual - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
BUT! the GS will overclock like mad, may as well reach to the 600+ on the core like the GTX 512MB does (well, with replaced cooler) and the 6800Ultra is in its essence an already maxed out GT so it doesnt have much more headroom than stock. So obviously this new GS will be the better card.plewis00 - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
I was wondering, when are we going to get performance graphs, a release date and price point? Looks nice but also looks like it'll be PCIe-only.2006 because the card's life cycle will probably last long into then and those white things are thermal interface pads, some have stuck to the memory chips others have stuck to the heatsink.
Cybercat - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
"With a good price point, the GeForce 7800GS could easily become 2006's rendition of the Radeon X800GTO^2."2006? :(
Visual - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
AT, any speculaions/estimates as to when the card will be released officially? You're not under a NDA or something, so why are you holding out information? :pOk, ok... I'm looking forward to your more detailed article soon :)
BTW, what are the white things between the memory modules and the cooler? Are they just to protect the chips and soften eventual pressure of the cooler on the chips, or do they actually help with cooling the ram in any way?
It seems it'd be a simple thing for nVidia to have come up with some ram heatsinks...
CKDragon - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
I hope these could be had for less than $250. I've been on the fence about going up to a 6800GS because I usually don't spend much on video card upgrades, but if this thing can go up to 7800 GTX levels... well, somebody hold me back. :)CK
shabby - Tuesday, November 22, 2005 - link
Review within the next few days? Schweet!Now what aboot and agp 7800gs?