More on the reductions

When we were first briefed on the Geforce 7800 GS AGP, one of the first questions we asked NVIDIA was “why so many reductions on the 7800 GS card?” After all, as we mentioned earlier the raw specs looked awfully similar to the GeForce 6800 line.

Our line of thinking when asking this question was that while we understand the improvements NVIDIA has incorporated into GeForce 7800, as well as new features such as transparency AA and PureVideo (which didn’t work on high-end 6800 cards), the average consumer probably doesn’t. And while it’s true that GeForce 6800 Ultra and 6800 GT are incredibly difficult to find on store shelves in AGP form nowadays, NVIDIA’s board partners have been quietly producing GeForce 6800 GS AGP cards for about a month now. These 6800 GS AGP cards are by no means the GeForce 6800 GT killer that the GeForce 6800 GS on PCI Express interface is, as they’re clocked considerably lower – NVIDIA’s reference specs call for a 350MHz graphics core (versus 425MHz for the PCI-E card) – but they also sell for considerably less than the GeForce 7800 GS AGP’s $350 MSRP. Street prices on cards range from about $190 all the way up to $220.

That’s over $100 less than the GeForce 7800 GS AGP.

Sitting with the 6800 GT reference

X800 XT PE is shorter than the 7800 GS

Our thinking was that many consumers with AGP systems probably don’t want to shell out a lot of money on an upgrade right now. That is after all why they’re still running AGP-based PCs. And those that wouldn’t mind spending $300+ on a graphics upgrade would probably want something more tangible than a 16-pipeline card running at 375MHz, despite all the benefits GeForce 7 technology brings.

NVIDIA’s response to our question was that when determining the feature set for GeForce 7800 GS AGP, they had specific goals in mind, particularly when it comes to power. NVIDIA feels that AGP systems have a different power budget than PCI Express systems. Because of this, they focused on delivering a part that could not only deliver the best price/performance ratio possible, but do so at a particular price point while at the same time doing so without consuming an excessive amount of power so they could get the card in as wide a range of AGP systems as possible.

When you consider that the GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP required a dual-slot cooler and two Molex power connectors in order to run at full speeds, this answer is certainly reasonable. After all, the PCI Express interface natively provides more power than AGP, and considering that the GeForce 7800 GTX draws up to 100W of peak power consumption and that most AGP owners probably wouldn’t want to upgrade their system’s power supply at this point anyway just to run a new graphics card, NVIDIA’s argument does sound plausible. As a result of the reductions, the GeForce 7800 GS AGP boasts a peak power consumption of only 75W (10W lower than the GeForce 7800 GT).

And while they didn’t tell us this directly, another aspect we should mention is that NVIDIA’s allowing their board partners to crank up the clocks on their shipping cards. The BFG GeForce 7800 GS AGP card we’re reviewing today is a perfect example of this. So users who may be a little disappointed by the stock NVIDIA clocks should look closely into the shipping retail boards from NVIDIA’s board partners. Like the GeForce 7800 GT and 7800 GTX, partner boards will be shipping at much more extreme clock speeds in the coming weeks.

Another shot of the 7800 GS and 6800 Ultra