Board analysis (cont’d)

TOP stands for Top Overclocking Performance

Top of the card

To improve performance, ASUS clocks the BIOS of their Extreme N7800 GTX TOP board at 486MHz on the graphics core, and 675MHz (1.35GHz effective) on the memory. These figures compare quite favorably to the other high-end GeForce 7800 GTX cards on the market:

GeForce 7800 GTX Card Comparison
Card	Core Clock Speed (MHz)	Peak fill-rate (Mpixels/sec)	Peak fill-rate (Mtexels/sec)	Memory clock speed (MHz)	Peak Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)	GPU Cooling
BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC	460	7360	11040	1300	41.6	100% Aluminum
EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX	450	7200	10800	1200	38.4	100% Aluminum
EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO ACS³	490	7840	11760	1300	41.6	Aluminum/Copper Combo
ASUS Extreme N7800 GTX TOP	486	7776	11664	1350	43.2	Aluminum/Copper Combo
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX Reference	430	6880	10320	1200	38.4	100% Aluminum
XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Overclocked	490	7840	11760	1300	41.6	100% Aluminum

As you can see, ASUS’ Extreme N7800 GTX TOP boasts the fastest memory on the market, with the board’s memory providing an additional 1.6GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth over other GeForce 7800 GTX cards like the BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC and the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX Overclocked. In theory, this should come in handy at extremely high resolutions with AA/AF turned on. In these situations, the N7800 GTX TOP’s extra memory bandwidth should be slightly better than the other cards at keeping its G70 core fed with data.

On the graphics core itself, ASUS hand sorts the best G70 chips, putting them inside Extreme N7800 GTX TOP cards. This allows overclockers to hit even higher core speeds than ASUS’ default speed of 486MHz. (Of course, the card’s dual-slot cooling doesn’t hurt in this regard either.)

The bottom of the card

Air exits here, just above dual DVIs

Flipping the board over reveals that ASUS has made no changes to NVIDIA’s reference cooling design. You’ve got the same aluminum plate cooling the board’s memory modules, while Arctic Cooling’s own retention bracket is used to cool the underside of the G70 core as well as hold the NV Silencer 5 cooler in place. Finally, you’ve got the dual DVIs, video input/output, and HDTV output you expect from a GeForce 7800 GTX card.

The soft stuff

Unfortunately, the Extreme N7800 GTX TOP doesn’t ship with ASUS’ excellent Smart Doctor software, but ASUS has included a number of software programs, which are unique to their cards.

For starters there’s GameFace Messenger (GFM). GameFace Messenger is ASUS’ instant messaging client for gamers. GFM allows up to 8 gamers to talk and even see each other while gaming, making it useful for those of you who are in a clan or guild, meanwhile, with GameReplay, you can record your favorite gaming moments into MPEG4 video files for playback (and bragging rights) later. ASUS also includes a copy of their GameLiveShow software, which allows you to stream your gaming experiences live over the Internet.

Other new software programs bundled with the card include ASUS’ Splendid video enhancement technology (you will need to install the ASUS driver to use Splendid) as well as OnScreenDisplay, which can be used to toggle display settings such as brightness, contrast, and gamma without having to leave the game – in fact you can toggle it via hotkeys with one keystroke.

Also bundled with the card include a leather bound CD carrier, a DVI adapter, PCI-E power cable, the aforementioned VIVO module with component outputs and copies of ASUS DVD XP, Power Director 3, Media Show, Virtual Drive 9, a CD with demos of a few games, and full copies of Project: Snowblind and Xpand Rally.