X-bit labs

Graphics Card Makers Boost NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX Performance [UPDATED].

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 06/29/2005 | 02:53 AM ]

UPDATE: Adding details about BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB graphics card.

Even though NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GTX is now the fastest graphics processing unit, some makers of graphics cards believe this is not enough and tend to overclock it in order to make their products faster than competing solutions. Could there be any clock-speed war between graphics cards manufacturers?

ASUSTeK Computer was first to release its Extreme EN7800GTX graphics card that had its visual processing unit clocked at 470MHz, up 40MHz from default speed recommended by NVIDIA Corp. for its latest flagship product. It is noticeable that ASUS did not equip its board with another cooling system and continued to use NVIDIA’s default solution. Other specifications of the product are similar to what the graphics chip designer recommends: 256MB of GDDR3 memory at 1.20GHz, 2 DVI-I ports, HDTV out and so on.

Leadtek Research has also decided to accelerate its WinFast PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO graphics card with a specially launched BIOS revision that ups GPU clock-speed to 450MHz and memory frequency to 1.25GHz. The company also modified neither card, nor cooling system.

BFG Technologies, a U.S.-based graphics cards supplier, has also commercially launched its BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB, which has its GPU overclocked to 460MHz and memory operating at 1300MHz, much higher than that of competitors. The product is also made fully according to NVIDIA’s reference design.

Gainward, who has historically pumped up the speeds of its graphics cards above default level, has not yet released specs of its GeForce 7800 GTX flavour, but the company is also likely to offer a version with improved specifications

X-bit labs has managed to overclock its GeForce 7800 GTX reference sample to 490MHz/1220MHz for core/memory, which proves that NVIDIA’s new chip is rather good for overclocking. This may catalyze makers of graphics cards to gradually increase core speed of the GeForce 7800 GTX in order to surpass the rivals.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics chip features 24 pixel pipelines, 8 vertex pipelines and consists of more than 300 million transistors. By contrast, its top-end predecessor – GeForce 6800 Ultra – consisted of 220 million of transistors and had 16 pixel and 6 vertex processors. NVIDIA said its new graphics chip is aggressively more efficient than the previous-generation product, which was proved by X-bit labs’ measurements: by having more transistors and 30MHz higher clock-speed, the new chip consumes just 3W more than the former top-of-the-range product and delivers up to more than 50% performance improvement in graphics intensive games.

NVIDIA did not comment for the news-story.