X-bit labs

ASUS Extreme N7800GT/2DHTV in SLI: Two Is Better Than One (page 23)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 11/04/2005 | 10:34 AM ]

Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark03

The combined power of two ASUS Extreme N7800GT graphics cards scores over 23,000 points. A single such card also looks good, being better than the RADEON X1800 XL at the default frequencies and nearly equal to the RADEON X1800 XT at the overclocked frequencies. Let’s now see what we have in each of the subtests.

The ASUS is slower than the RADEON X1800 XT only in the “eye candy” mode. The “pure speed” results of both cards are similar, despite the huge difference in the clock rates. The overclocked ASUS Extreme N7800GT is equal to the RADEON X1800 XT at the “eye candy” settings, too. Well, this test is limited by DirectX 7, and NVIDIA’s graphics processors are very efficient in applications that use fixed T&L functions.

The second test is more complex, using normal maps and dynamic stencil shadows. The ASUS Extreme N7800GT can’t keep up the pace anymore. It tries to compete with the RADEON X1800 XL in the “pure speed” mode, but falls back to the last position as soon as we turn on full-screen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Overclocking improves things for the ASUS card, but the RADEON X1800 XT with its RingBus architecture and 1.5GHz memory remains unrivalled.