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BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP Review February 02, 2006 |
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Summary: AGP users rejoice as today NVIDIA's finally releasing the GeForce 7800 GS AGP! Based on the highly regarded G70 GPU, the 7800 GS brings a number of new features to the table, and as you'll see in our article, is a terrific overclocker. See how it stacks up to the GeForce 6800 Ultra/GT, 6600 GT, as well as a number of other GPUs in this article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 22 ) |
The following is a quote from a petition started by Leon Roy on petitiononline.com:
To: NVIDIA
Dear NVIDIA and partners,
We, the undersigned feel obliged to request an AGP variant of the Geforce 7800 GTX graphics card.
We feel that an AGP version of the card will be viable as a great many of us have fast AGP based systems which would benefit greatly from a Geforce 7800 GTX upgrade.
We humbly request such a board be produced and declare that we will be first in line to play our games the way they are 'meant to be played',
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For all of you who have begged, pleaded, and petitioned NVIDIA and their board partners to release a GeForce 7800 AGP graphics card, our review today of BFG’s GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP must provide a sense of redemption: finally you’ve won! As today NVIDIA’s officially announcing the GeForce 7800 GS AGP, and like previous GeForce 7800 launches, today’s announcement is a hard launch, meaning you can go out today and buy a GeForce 7800 GS AGP card at your local retailer, e-tailers should have their respective GeForce 7800 GS cards online for sale by next Monday, February 6th.
As its name implies the GeForce 7800 GS AGP is based on the exact same architecture as the GeForce 7800 GTX that was first launched in June 2005. This means that you’ve not only got NVIDIA’s CineFX 4.0 architecture with its more robust pixel and vertex shading units and support for transparency anti-aliasing, but also NVIDIA’s PureVideo technology. GeForce 6800, 6800 GT, and 6800 Ultra cards based on NVIDIA’s NV40 GPU didn’t provide support for PureVideo.
The GeForce 7800 GS isn’t exactly a direct AGP translation of the GeForce 7800 GT/GTX however. NVIDIA’s made a couple of key changes that will ensure that the GeForce 7800 GT and 7800 GTX remain at the top of the heap in their lineup when it comes to performance. Let’s see what has changed with this new GPU.
| Core architecture | Page:: ( 2 / 22 ) |
While NVIDIA has integrated the same G70 graphics core that has been used for the GeForce 7800 GTX and GeForce 7800 GT in the past into the GeForce 7800 GS AGP, a number of internal changes have been made to the GPU. The following chart summarizes what’s new with NVIDIA’s latest spin on the G70 GPU:
| GPU Features Comparison | |||||||||
| GPU | Core Clock Speed (MHz) | Pixel Shaders | ROPs | Pixel Fill-rate | Texture Units | Texel Fill-rate | Vertex Shaders | Memory Speed (MHz) | Memory Bandwidth |
| GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB | 430 | 24 | 16 | 6880 | 24 | 10320 | 8 | 600 | 38.4 |
| GeForce 7800 GT | 400 | 20 | 16 | 6400 | 20 | 8000 | 7 | 500 | 32 |
| GeForce 7800 GS | 375 | 16 | 8 | 3000 | 16 | 6000 | 6 | 600 | 38.4 |
| GeForce 6800 GT | 350 | 16 | 16 | 5600 | 16 | 5600 | 6 | 500 | 32 |
| Radeon X1900 XT | 625 | 48 | 16 | 10000 | 16 | 10000 | 8 | 725 | 46.4 |
| Radeon X800 XT PE | 520 | 16 | 16 | 8320 | 16 | 8320 | 6 | 560 | 35.8 |
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In addition to trimming the number of functional units, NVIDIA also reduces the clock speeds on the GeForce 7800 GS AGP, as the graphics core runs at 375MHz, that’s 25MHz slower than the GeForce 7800 GT and GeForce 6800 Ultra, and 25MHz faster than the GeForce 6800 GT. Paired alongside the graphics core is 256MB of GDDR3 memory running at 600MHz (1.2GHz effective), this is the same speed as the GeForce 7800 GTX, and 50MHz faster than the GeForce 6800 Ultra. This should allow it to perform well at high resolutions, particularly once AA/AF is applied.
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The end result of all these changes is a part that looks on paper to resemble the GeForce 6800 GT/Ultra family more so than the GeForce 7800 line. For instance, the 7800 GS has just as many pixel pipes as the GeForce 6800 Ultra/GT, and is clocked right in the middle of the two GPUs at 375MHz. It also has the same number of texture address units and vertex units as the high-end GeForce 6800 cards do. NVIDIA further cripples the GeForce 7800 GS AGP by disabling half of its ROPs, although in all honesty this probably isn’t as significant as the aforementioned changes. The only area that really didn’t see any reductions is the memory subsystem, which is essentially unchanged from the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB.
Of course, this line of thinking is all based on paper specs. By now you all should know that NVIDIA’s incorporated a number of changes into the GeForce 7 line that should improve performance on a clock-for-clock basis. The 7800’s vertex shaders have been tuned to speed up geometry processing (for instance, triangle setup is over 30% faster), while the pixel and vertex units that have been tweaked to perform better at handling MADD math operations, which are frequently used in lighting and normal map calculations (among others) in many of today’s latest titles. NVIDIA has also tweaked the GeForce 7800s to scale better at mega-high resolutions like 2048x1536.
Since the 7800 GT and 7800 GTX were so drastically different than preceding GeForce 6800 parts, we never got a chance to test these improvements – we literally couldn’t disable the necessary pixel and shading units to run true apples-to-apples comparisons. But since NVIDIA’s done all of the work for us by disabling these units in the GeForce 7800 GS AGP, we can now finally get a better idea of how the two architectures compare. Keep in mind that this still isn’t a completely accurate comparison, as the 7800 GS AGP has fewer ROPs than the 6800s, but this is the closest we’ve ever gotten to being able to run a direct comparison. We’ll start with 3DMark first.
| Clock-for-Clock Performance: 3DMark | Page:: ( 3 / 22 ) |
3DMark 06– Direct3D
With the exception of the perlin noise test (which uses a pixel shader composed of a large number of arithmetic instructions and texture lookups), none of the synthetic tests in 3DMark 06 give the GeForce 7800 GS AGP a decisive advantage over the GeForce 6800 Ultra. Performance in the game tests is improved anywhere from 9-15% in the favor of the GeForce 7800 GS AGP (with the largest improvements being seen in the shader model 3.0 tests). This result is about in line with 3DMark 06’s pixel shader results.
| Clock-for-Clock Performance: Games | Page:: ( 4 / 22 ) |
Quake 4
F.E.A.R.
HL2: Lost Coast
| More on the reductions | Page:: ( 5 / 22 ) |
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.
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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.
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| The BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP card | Page:: ( 6 / 22 ) |
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While some enthusiasts may be a little disappointed with NVIDIA’s reference clock speeds for the GeForce 7800 GS AGP, they’ll be glad to hear that the BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP runs at speeds faster than NVIDIA’s reference specifications call for.
BFG starts by clocking the graphics core at 400MHz. This is 25MHz over NVIDIA’s default clock frequency of 375MHz, and brings the GeForce 7800 GS AGP up to par with the GeForce 6800 Ultra in fill-rate at 6.4 Gigatexels/second, an improvement of 6%.
In addition to overclocking the graphics core, BFG also overclocks the memory on their GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP card. Whereas NVIDIA’s reference speeds call for 600MHz memory (1.2GHz effective), BFG runs the memory modules on their 7800 GS OC AGP at 625MHz (1.25GHz effective). As a result of this change, peak memory bandwidth is improved by 4% from 38.4GB/sec on the stock GeForce 7800 GS AGP to an even 40.0GB/sec on BFG’s GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP.
The only other significant deviation that we can see from BFG’s GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP and NVIDIA’s reference GeForce 7800 GS AGP card is the PCB itself. BFG uses a blue PCB while NVIDIA sticks to the more traditional green for the PCB on their reference board. BFG also places a speaker just behind the VGA connector on their GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP card. Based on the pictures provided by NVIDIA of their GeForce 7800 GS reference board, this is another difference between the two boards, but it’s certainly possible that this was added to shipping retail cards at the last minute to warn end users if their card begins to overheat (the speaker will also squeal loudly if you forget to plug in the card to your system’s power supply).
Speaking of overheating, we don’t think this will be much of a problem for the GeForce 7800 GS. During our testing, we never saw the card approach its threshold temperature of 115°C. The card idled at 46°C with a peak load temperature of 67°C in our open-air testing environment.
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Dynamic operation
Like previous GeForce cards, the 7800 GS AGP runs in two different modes, a 3D mode where the board runs at its full clock speeds, and a 2D mode, where the graphics core runs at 275MHz while the memory continues to run at full speed. We give a big thumbs-up to the new cooling unit NVIDIA has integrated onto the GeForce 7800 GS AGP. It’s basically a miniaturized version of the GeForce 7800 GTX’s cooler. Cool air is ducted from the card’s fan across the GPU and nearby memory modules, and then shoots out the right side of the card, just below the external power connector. The fan on the BFG card runs quieter than the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB fan (it’s quieter than the GeForce 6800 GT/Ultra too for that matter) and varies its RPMs based on the GPU’s current temperature. Even in its loudest mode though it’s nowhere close to approaching the noise levels of the GeForce 6800 Ultra, we were actually surprised just how rarely the RPMs had to crank up. Other than while we were overclocking and a few moments here and there, the fan never really cranked up to its full speed setting.
Accessories
Hardware accessories bundled with the BFG GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP include a power adapter and DVI adapter. Software included with the card is limited to a copy of NVDVD 2.0 and BFG’s Gamer’s Toolkit CD, which includes a copy of GameDrive 9.0 (useful if you want to play games without having to keep the game’s CD in your disc drive), and trial copies of System Mechanic Pro 5, Spy Sweeper, Window Washer and Desktop Firewall from Webroot Software. BFG also includes a couple of case badges for your PC’s case.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 7 / 22 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 FX-53
ASUS A8V Deluxe
2GB OCZ DDR400 SDRAM
ATI Radeon X800 XT PE
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
CATALYST 6.1
BFG GeForce 7800 GS AGP
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT 256MB
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB
Driver version ForceWare 81.98
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
3DMark 06
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
Call of Duty 2
Half-Life 2 Lost Coast
Far Cry
F.E.A.R.
Battlefield 2
Quake 4 (dual-core patch wasn’t used)
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 8 / 22 ) |
3DMark 06– Direct3D
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 9 / 22 ) |
3DMark 06– Direct3D
| Half-Life 2 | Page:: ( 10 / 22 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| HDR: HL2 Lost Coast | Page:: ( 11 / 22 ) |
| Battlefield 2 | Page:: ( 12 / 22 ) |
Battlefield 2 – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2 Performance 1280x1024 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 6800 Ultra | 40 | 59 |
| GeForce 7800 GS | 51 | 65 |
| GeForce 6800 GT | 36 | 52 |
| BFG GeForce 7800 GS | 54 | 69 |
| GeForce 6600 GT | 12 | 21 |
| Radeon X800 XT PE | 44 | 72 |
| Radeon 9800 Pro | 14 | 26 |
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| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 13 / 22 ) |
Quake 4 – OpenGL
| IL-2 4xAA/16xAF | Page:: ( 14 / 22 ) |
IL-2: FB – OpenGL
| IL-2 Sturmovik Performance 1280x1024 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 6800 Ultra | 40 | 118 |
| GeForce 7800 GS | 35 | 102 |
| GeForce 6800 GT | 37 | 109 |
| BFG GeForce 7800 GS | 38 | 112 |
| GeForce 6600 GT | 26 | 49 |
| Radeon X800 XT PE | 35 | 117 |
| Radeon 9800 Pro | 17 | 66 |
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| F.E.A.R. Performance | Page:: ( 15 / 22 ) |
F.E.A.R. – Direct3D
| F.E.A.R. Performance 1024x768 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 6800 Ultra | 25 | 105 |
| GeForce 7800 GS | 28 | 108 |
| GeForce 6800 GT | 26 | 95 |
| BFG GeForce 7800 GS | 30 | 109 |
| GeForce 6600 GT | 16 | 71 |
| Radeon X800 XT PE | 31 | 168 |
| Radeon 9800 Pro | 11 | 45 |
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| Call of Duty 2 | Page:: ( 16 / 22 ) |
Call of Duty 2 – Direct3D
| Serious Sam 2 | Page:: ( 17 / 22 ) |
Serious Sam 2 – Direct3D
| Far Cry HDR | Page:: ( 18 / 22 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry Performance 1280x1024 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 6800 Ultra | 23.9 | 54 |
| GeForce 7800 GS | 47 | 85.7 |
| GeForce 6800 GT | 23.7 | 51.9 |
| BFG GeForce 7800 GS | 48.5 | 91 |
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| CPU Scaling | Page:: ( 19 / 22 ) |
Quake 4
FEAR
HL2 Lost Coast
| Overclocking | Page:: ( 20 / 22 ) |
Quake 4
FEAR
HL2 Lost Coast
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 21 / 22 ) |
Pros
GeForce 7800 GS core: While NVIDIA isn’t giving us a replica of the GeForce 7800 GTX in AGP form with the GeForce 7800 GS, with GeForce 7’s more powerful shaders, transparency AA, and PureVideo support, the GeForce 7800 GS AGP brings along just enough features to make it a tempting solution for many AGP users. And did you check out those HDR results with Far Cry? If that’s any indication of what the GeForce 7800 GS AGP can do with next-gen titles that also use FP blends for HDR, then the future for the GeForce 7800 GS AGP looks bright indeed.
Faster clocks: As an “OC” board, BFG clocks their GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP card at speeds faster than NVIDIA’s reference specifications. For starters the graphics core is clocked at 400MHz, that’s 25MHz beyond the stock speeds and puts the BFG card on par with the GeForce 6800 Ultra in fill rate. Running alongside the faster core is 256MB of GDDR3 memory running at 625MHz, also 25MHz above stock levels.
Overclocking: We hit some pretty phenomenal speeds with our BFG card, and based on the overclocking potential of the G70 core in the past we’re going to go out on a limb and infer that this GPU is going to become an excellent platform for overclocking for many enthusiasts.
BFG service and support: BFG has earned a solid reputation for delivering some of the best service and support in the industry bar none. BFG provides 24/7 toll-free tech support, so if you run into a problem with your graphics card, you should have no problem getting in touch with them. You can also get in touch with BFG via their new enthusiast site BFG Gaming, www.bfggaming.com. There you’ll find servers for popular games such as Battlefield 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, monthly contests, forums, and lots of other cool stuff.
Of course, what really put BFG on the map in terms of customer support though is their lifetime warranty, which they provide on all of their graphics cards. If you run into any problem with your BFG graphics card at any time down the road, whether it be today, tomorrow, or five years from now, BFG will fix it for you.
There aren’t many other graphics card manufacturers out there that will match BFG in terms of support.
Cons
Too many reductions?: Critics would probably argue that NVIDIA’s made too many compromises with the GeForce 7800 GS AGP. We can see it now: only 16 pipelines with 6 vertex shaders? Only 375MHz on the graphics core (keep in mind that the BFG card we’re reviewing is clocked at 400MHz)?
On paper, the only area that’s really comparable to the elder GeForce 7800 cards is the GeForce 7800 GS AGP’s memory subsystem. With 256MB of memory running at 600MHz, this is exactly what NVIDIA provides on the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB. Practically everywhere else NVIDIA’s made some fairly sweeping changes downward.
MSRP: With an MSRP of $349.99, the GeForce 7800 GS AGP is priced awfully close to what many enthusiasts are paying now to upgrade from AGP to PCI Express. After all, if you’ve already got a Socket 939 Athlon 64 processor and DDR400 RAM, all you need is a new motherboard and graphics card. With street prices on GeForce 7800 GTs starting at about $290, the GeForce 7800 GT delivers a nice boost in performance over the GeForce 7800 GS AGP for less money. In fact, many enthusiasts have picked up GeForce 7800 GT/motherboard combos at e-tailers for about the same price as the MSRP of the GeForce 7800 GS AGP.
If history is any indication though, street prices on GeForce 7800 GS AGP cards will quickly come down. Street prices on GeForce 6800 GS boards fell $50 in the span of just a few hours on launch day last year.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 22 / 22 ) |