Introduction

So you’re looking for a high-end graphics card to replace your aging GeForce FX or RADEON 9800/9600 card, but don’t want to lay down $500 bucks on a shiny new GeForce 7800 GTX? If this scenario sounds like your current predicament, NVIDIA’s got an answer for you: the GeForce 7800 GT. The GeForce 7800 GT is designed to appeal to the enthusiast who wants breakneck performance, but can’t afford the GeForce 7800 GTX’s $600 MSRP. It follows in the footsteps of another highly popular card, the GeForce 6800 GT, and the GeForce4 Ti 4200 before that.

The BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC card

From top to bottom, GeForce 6800 GT reference, BFG 7800 GT OC, and GeForce 7800 GTX reference board

Like its predecessors, the GeForce 7800 GT is built on the same core technology found in NVIDIA’s flagship GPU, only this time NVIDIA has not only lowered the chip’s clock speeds (as they’d done previously with the GF4 Ti 4200 and 6800 GT), they’ve also reduced the number of functional pixel pipelines (down from 24 units in the 7800 GTX to 20 in the 7800 GT) and vertex pipelines (the 7800 GT sports seven vertex units, while the 7800 GTX ships with eight).

We’ve provided this chart which quickly summarizes the differences:

GeForce 7800 GTX and GT Specs
Card	Memory Interface	Memory Clock Speed (MHz)	Core Clock Speed	Pixel Shader Pipelines	Vertex Shading Units	Peak Texel Fill Rate	Peak Memory Bandwidth	Peak Power Consumption
GeForce 7800 GTX	256-bit GDDR3	600MHz	430MHz	24	8	9000 Mtexels/sec	38.4GB/sec	100W
GeForce 7800 GT	256-bit GDDR3	500MHz	400MHz	20	7	8000 Mtexels/sec	32GB/sec	85W

The GeForce 7800 GT is based on the same G70 core found in the 7800 GTX, so production cost is the same for both chips for NVIDIA. Rather than build the 7800 GT off a different production line, NVIDIA instead disables the pixel and vertex pipes found in 7800 GT cards. NVIDIA sorts through the G70 production line, looking for chips that can hit the 7800 GTX’s clock speeds with all of its pipelines working. These chips then go into 7800 GTX cards. Chips that can’t hit the 7800 GTX’s speeds (or have pipelines that aren’t quite up to snuff) then go into 7800 GTs. This process is known as chip binning and has been used by all semiconductor manufacturers for decades.

BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC card and reference GeForce 7800 GTX

Seeing double, two BFG 7800 GT cards

After receiving unanimous praise from the press and end users for launching the GeForce 7800 GTX to instant availability, NVIDIA did it again for the GeForce 7800 GT, with board partners selling their 7800 GT SKUs the day the GPU was announced in August.

Still single-slot cooling

The 7800 GT and 6800 GT are similar in size

Today we’re here to take a look at BFG’s 7800 GT card, the BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC. In typical BFG fashion, the card comes overclocked from the factory, ensuring better performance than NVIDIA’s reference GeForce 7800 GT specifications. We’ll show you exactly how much in this review…