Hypersonic Aviator EX7: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX First Look
by Josh Venning on October 10, 2005 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The System and The Card
We mentioned earlier that there are some differences between the Go 7800 GTX and the 7800 GTX. The most important difference is the fact that the Go 7800 GTX is clocked slightly lower than a normal 7800 GTX, with a core clock of 400MHz and memory clock of 1.1GHz. Other than that, they are essentially the same, with 8 vertex pipelines and 24 pixel pipelines. The Go 7800 GTX does employ NVIDIA's PowerMiser technology in order to manage heat more effectively than its desktop counterpart, which is a good thing, given the limitations of a notebook in that regard. The power budget given to the Go 7800 GTX is the same as it is for the earlier Go 6800 Ultra.
For testing, we used a Hypersonic Aviator EX7 notebook fitted with a GeForce Go 7800 GTX. Here are its specifications:
P4 670 (3.8GHz)
2 Gigs DDR2-533 CAS4 RAM
2 100 Gig Hard drives striped in RAID 0
1920x1200 17" display
The system is fairly large, as are most notebooks with displays like this. Not only is it very heavy (about 13 lbs), it generates lots of heat and will burn your lap up if you keep it there for very long. That said, it has all the benefits of a mobile system and was made for serious gaming. The Aviator EX7 is easier to transport than even a small form factor system and packs quite a few high powered components.
We are very impressed with Hypersonic's offering. With a 3.8GHz Pentium 4, this system should outperform those other notebooks that run Pentium M parts. The Dell notebook in which the Go 7800 GTX launched for instance supports at most the 2.26GHz Pentium M, which does perform very well, but isn't quite as the desktop 3.8GHz part.
The one complaint that we have about the Hypersonic Aviator EX7 is that it gets incredibly hot. After long hours of operation, the surface on which it sits also gets very warm and just using the keyboard was able to make our palms sweat. Or maybe that was just the incredible performance that we were getting out of the notebook. For those interested in the system, we found it to be very stable when kept well ventilated, and you definitely get what you pay for with this one. We do also like the fact that Hypersonic includes a dead pixel guarantee that ensures your thousands of dollars will not be spent on something less than pleasing to look at.
The desktop system that we used is very similar to the one on which we test most of our graphics cards:
Radeon Express 200 based motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor
1 GB OCZ 2:2:2:6 DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
Now, let's take a look at performance.
We mentioned earlier that there are some differences between the Go 7800 GTX and the 7800 GTX. The most important difference is the fact that the Go 7800 GTX is clocked slightly lower than a normal 7800 GTX, with a core clock of 400MHz and memory clock of 1.1GHz. Other than that, they are essentially the same, with 8 vertex pipelines and 24 pixel pipelines. The Go 7800 GTX does employ NVIDIA's PowerMiser technology in order to manage heat more effectively than its desktop counterpart, which is a good thing, given the limitations of a notebook in that regard. The power budget given to the Go 7800 GTX is the same as it is for the earlier Go 6800 Ultra.
For testing, we used a Hypersonic Aviator EX7 notebook fitted with a GeForce Go 7800 GTX. Here are its specifications:
P4 670 (3.8GHz)
2 Gigs DDR2-533 CAS4 RAM
2 100 Gig Hard drives striped in RAID 0
1920x1200 17" display
The system is fairly large, as are most notebooks with displays like this. Not only is it very heavy (about 13 lbs), it generates lots of heat and will burn your lap up if you keep it there for very long. That said, it has all the benefits of a mobile system and was made for serious gaming. The Aviator EX7 is easier to transport than even a small form factor system and packs quite a few high powered components.
We are very impressed with Hypersonic's offering. With a 3.8GHz Pentium 4, this system should outperform those other notebooks that run Pentium M parts. The Dell notebook in which the Go 7800 GTX launched for instance supports at most the 2.26GHz Pentium M, which does perform very well, but isn't quite as the desktop 3.8GHz part.
The one complaint that we have about the Hypersonic Aviator EX7 is that it gets incredibly hot. After long hours of operation, the surface on which it sits also gets very warm and just using the keyboard was able to make our palms sweat. Or maybe that was just the incredible performance that we were getting out of the notebook. For those interested in the system, we found it to be very stable when kept well ventilated, and you definitely get what you pay for with this one. We do also like the fact that Hypersonic includes a dead pixel guarantee that ensures your thousands of dollars will not be spent on something less than pleasing to look at.
The desktop system that we used is very similar to the one on which we test most of our graphics cards:
Radeon Express 200 based motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor
1 GB OCZ 2:2:2:6 DDR400 RAM
Seagate 7200.7 120 GB Hard Drive
OCZ 600 W PowerStream Power Supply
Now, let's take a look at performance.
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yacoub - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Hey, here's one thing that would be really useful... a nice chart of all the crazy Intel mobile processors organized by speed and features. It gets a bit confusing looking at a laptop site that lists Pentium IVs and Pentium-Ms and whatnot with all their 3-digit numbers like 760+, 780. What is ideal for gaming?timmiser - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
I agree. And maybe a simple benchmark number that gives you a general idea of how much faster/slower is a 2.2 GHz P-M vs. a 3.8 GHz P4, etc.Kung Lau - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Why is there such a bitch and whine crowd for reviews? It's like Siskel and Ebert, if you don't like their reviews, go find one you like. Wait, do you pay for this service? I can see pointing out technically inacurracies to a point, but the majority of this complaining seems counter-productive.Is there a world wide recognized standard for reviews for geek gear or something? I'm not talking comparative analysis for the metric nazis here. Apparently, what a kid did out of fun and interest of the hobby years ago and gained worldwide notoriety for it has become, for better or for worse, a watering hole for all the "what if..." wannabes.
Make your own website and speak of things in the manner you want if you didn't like how it was said here.
To be semi-on topic, I can see why they reviewed it the way they did. And if I didn't, why whine about it?
If there is a bad review or information here, I should read/hear about it from Tom's or some other site, not a comments thread from hell. C'mon.
Honestly, the forums have mods, maybe the comments section should too.
/rant off
Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Following your point of view, why should Anantech allow a comments system if people are not allowed to comment?I hold Anandtech to a higher standard than most because over the years I've enjoyed their articles and trust the site more than others, and I'm sure many people are the same, so when AT post an article which does not appear up to scratch it receives criticism.
As pointed out already, most people are aware that an FX desktop will beat a P4 notebook which is all this article shows - by comparing like for like we would have useful figures which showed the performance loss going with the mobile graphics card.
John
timmiser - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
We are simply providing feedback. In this case it is mostly negative but that is not necessarily a bad thing.I remember AT a few months ago did a review of a computer case that looked like a transformer robot! There was a lot of feedback of people complaining about AT doing reviews of these boxes that seemed like they were designed by kids for kids.
After the complaints, Anand himself posted in the forum and agreed with the viewpoint and promised that he would not allow any future reviews of these "toy" cases and focus more on "adult" cases.
Here is the link that I'm referring to that proves constructive criticism is good for everyone.
http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?...
Now some people in this thread must get insulted at criticism somehow and resort to name calling which really detracts from the quality of the discussion. :(
Leper Messiah - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
IMHO, why is Tom's Hardware more important than our opinions? We are the ones who validate the acurracies or lack thereof of their reviews. Maybe our tone is a little harsh, constructive critsism goes much further than flames, but we have to hold the reviewers to a certain standard, otherwise, how do we know what products to buy? We instill a certain level of trust to the reviewers, and we expect that trust to be returned with fair reviews.Nothing Personal Jared and Crew. You guys are still the best on the web IMHO, but everyone makes mistakes.
gmyx - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Now that you have reviewed a laptop, how about looking at others. Such as Eurocom laptops (http://www.eurocom.com">http://www.eurocom.com) and click on "Model Listings" for all of their models. They do have a laptop with the Go 7800 GTX and you choise of Proc. Intel or AMD (including the FX chips) (F-Bomb series for AMD chips and Phantom for Intel.) For the almost the same price has the revied model. Also interesting is their all-in-one Notebook PCs which uses 3.5 inch drives instead of 2.5inch. Also, all laptops are upgradable including proc, memory and hard drives. I was also told that they are working on SLI and may have it available soon. Despite the name, they are a Canadian builder (not reseller). It's worth a look. I've used their laptops before.Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Eurocom are a Clevo reseller (as is Hypersonic) and many others - the Eurocom site actually copied text directly from one of the UK Clevo sellers (Rockdirect), they forget to change the laptop name though!John
gmyx - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
Thanks, I just learned something! They are still very good laptops. And I still think they (Eurocom or Clevo or other) should be looked at.jediknight - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
why not keep all of the other components the same?The relative performance of the desktop to the mobile part would be much clearer if you used a P4 3.8 (etc.) for the desktop benchies. As it is, we know that a high end desktop will perform better than a high end laptop.. no @$#() it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.