XFX 7800 GTX 512 is new king of the hill

WE GOT our hands on XFX 7800 GTX 512MB retail card that is clocked even higher than the Nvidia reference GTX 512 speed. Last week, Nvidia announced its new 7800 GTX 512 cards clocked at 550 MHz using ultra fast 1700 MHz clocked 1.1ns Samsung memory chips. The cards were available in retail for a ridiculously high price but they all sold out first two days after the launch. The new stock of 512 GTX card is expected in this week and we think that if you are ready to spend as much money for a graphic card that you might look at this card.

XFX 7800 GTX card clocked at 580 / 1730 MHz

XFX managed to clock the card to 580 MHz core and 1730 MHz memory, enough to push the limits a little bit more. It is indeed scoring more than default clocked cards. The card is using Nvidia reference four heat pipe cooler that was quite during testing and was doing its job well.

Nvidia G70 chip A2 revision

The new-old card is based on G70 revision 2 core that can run all 24 pipelines as amazing 550+ MHz core while the rest of the specification is similar to the previous GTX, just needs better cooling as it can get quite warm. Of course the memory is faster compared with previous GTX 256 MHz card as it runs at 1700 MHz minimum while the old cards are running at 1200 MHz only.

Rabbit looking wolf on retail box

The card comes in rather big box packed with some nice games and cables. Its funny but the wolf at the box looks as scary as drunk rabbit to us. I am not scared of it at all. XFX didn't make its recognisable X wing package as I believe the card is so thick that it wouldn't fit into that nicely shaped box. The box includes the card of course, the game X2 - The Threat, MotoGP 2, Far Cry, user manual, some promotion stuff and multi language manual. XFX is bundling six pin PCIe graphics power cable, two DVI to VGA dongles, HDTV cable and two rather thin S-video cables. That's about it.

The card is working very quietly in all tests and its noise is constant, it was never too hot and was running all of our tests stabile. We compared this card with Geforce 7800 GTX 256 MB version at its default 430 MHz core and 1200 MHz memory and ATI Radeon X1800XT 512 MB clocked at 625 MHz core and 1500 MHz memory.

Benchmarketing:
We used :
XFX Geforce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz
Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz
Dual core Athlon 64 4800+ clocked at 2400 MHz
Abit Fatal1ty Nforce 4 SLI motherboard
2x1024 MB Corsair CMX 1024 3500LL PRO edition
Western Digital 8MB 160GB SATA drive
Stock Athlon 64 cooler
OCZ Power Stream 600W PSU

XFX Geforce 7800 GTX 512 naked

DOOM 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	116.5	115.8	110.0
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	99.0	92.7	78.3
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	114.9	106.9	91.7
Far Cry 1.3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	85.31	85.81	87.41
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	74.94	77.33	76.29
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	76.55	76.93	75.82
Half Life 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	74.00	75.34	74.26
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	50.84	53.59	52.56
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	51.49	52.05	51.29
Quake 4 Ultra High Quality	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	134.9	114.2	91.3
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	112.7	85.0	74.9
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	117.8	89.1	69.7
Quake 4 High Quality	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	141.4	134.0	98.6
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	117.6	90.5	76.0
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	127.7	96.0	74.3
Battlefield 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	105.98	103.31	100.66
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	88.3	89.5	81.2
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	107.1	99.2	85.6
FEAR	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	117	91	67
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	93	71	52
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	105	79	56
DOOM 3 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	111.9	93.7	73.5
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	91.6	76.1	57.2
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	94.7	69.6	51.8
Far Cry FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	86.01	85.75	77.39
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	76.57	75.76	74.49
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	75.53	74.30	57.00
Half Life 2 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	74.14	75.19	73.91
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	52.82	53.40	52.12
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	51.12	51.93	51.15
Quake 4 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X Ultra Quality	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	126.0	94.3	71.7
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	90.5	70.6	60.6
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	96.2	70.3	53.3
Quake 4 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X High Qulity	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	131.0	102.0	77.5
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	91.6	72.6	66.8
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	104.0	75.3	57.0
Battlefield 2 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	116.26	112.34	88.48
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	87.9	89.1	86.82
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	94.1	69.2	51.3
FEAR FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	68	47	32
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	58	41	30
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	54	38	26
Composite Figures 3Dmark03	3Dmark03	Game 2	Game 3	Nature
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	20816	173.1	139.3	121.0
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	16648	138.9	102.8	106.1
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	16066	130.7	108.4	92.3
Composite Figures 3Dmark03	Single Texturing	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel sharer 2.0
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	5749.5	12850.8	56.8	454.2
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	4279.8	9496.6	57.5	186.5
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	4157.4	9986.8	45.2	342.2
Composite Figures 3Dmark05	3Dmark05	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	9957	43.0	30.0	48.9
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	8967	37.4	27.3	45.2
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	7618	32.3	23.4	37.4
Composite Figures 3Dmark05	Single Texturing	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS /VS complex
XFX GeForce 7800GTX 512MB 580/1730 MHz	6664.6	13670.6	400.2	81.2/56.7
ATI RADEON 1800 XT 625/1500 MHz	5063.8	10086.5	238.0	88.3/58.3
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 430/1200 MHz	4877.3	10054.3	295.8	61.8/45.1

Let's start with benchmarks shall we. In Doom 3 XFX card clocked at 580 MHz / 1730 MHz managed to slaughter both Geforce 7800 GTX at default speed and ATI Radeon X1800XT. Even at 1600x1200 it can score 120 FPS which is almost twenty frames faster than the original GTX and more than thirty frames faster than top ATI offering. In Far Cry 1.3 XFX 7800 GTX 512 card is some 10 FPS faster in all resolutions while ATI and old 256-meg GTX is very close. Same thing happens in ATI's favourite, Half Life 2 where Geforce 7800 GTX 512 version manages to be fifty percent faster than ATI card. That's indeed some difference.

When it comes to Quake 4, XFX Geforce 7800 GTX 512 is faster in both Ultra Quality and High Quality. ATI Radeon X1800XT and old GTX with 256 MB or memory are just coming later.

Battlefield 2 prefered Nvidia cards but XFX 7800 GTX 512 manages to score better then its competition, well its clocked faster and its 20 FPS faster at 1600x1200. F.E.A.R. was generally faster on both Nvidia cards and 7800 GTX 512 is topping both cards by at least eleven FPS.

We checked even more games with FSAA 4X and 8X Aniso on. The Doom 3 on XFX 7800 GTX 512 MB was more than forty percent faster than old ATI and old Nvidia. That's hell of a score sailor. Far Cry shows that new GTX 512 is still faster in first two resolutions while its was very close to X1800XT at 1600x1200. In Half Life 2 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso XFX 7800 GTX card is almost fifty percent faster than ATI and old GTX 256. In Quake 4 XFX 7800 GTX 512 card is significantly faster than Radeon X1800 and old GTX 256 in every single scenario.

Battlefield 2 is faster on new 512 GTX but X1800XT comes very close to this card at 1600x1200. The old 256 GTX is staying behind those two cards in higher resolutions. F.E.A.R. runs faster on new GTX but X1800XT comes very close at 1600x1200.

XFX 7800 GTX owns 3Dmark scores - with total score of 20816 is more than four thousands faster than both X1800XT and default clocked Geforce 7800 GTX 256 MB. It's significantly faster in every single score.

XFX Geforce 7800 GTX 512 is using ultra fast memory clocked at 1730 MHz

If you think that 3Dmark05 score that we gained with a single X1800XT is great you want to see this one. XFX 7800 GXT 512 cards clocked at 580 MHz core and 1730 MHz memory is scoring 9556 on our dodgy dually-cored Athlon X2 4800+. We could score even more if we had an Athlon FX-57 as we believe it would push us just over 10K milestone. Nvidia 512 GTX scores some 1000 points more than ATI's X1800XT. It scores 400 FPS in Pixel Shader test which is 162 more than ATI but its losing in Vertex Shader from X1800XT by a few frames.

Conclusion
The XFX 7800 GTX clocked at 580 MHz core and 1730 MHz memory is by far the fastest card that we ever tested. We just think that you can not air cool this beast much more. At the same time Nvidia managed to have a very quiet card. It will be expensive but people are already buying those cards like crazy. It's faster than X1800XT in almost every test, and it's certainly much faster than any Geforce 7800 GTX 256 MB card clocked at default 430 MHz core and 1200 MHz memory. It comes with a two games and it's very fast so if you want top of the hill just go for this card. There might be a card or two water-cooled that might run even faster than this one but those cards will be very limitedly available and will be much more expensive. If you want top performer card for your Yule tree you should get this one. You have to pay up for a Maserati or Lamborghini and that's what those cards are all about. It's a very fast glamour of the gaming made by XFX. µ