Introduction:

EVGA has been in the video card market for quite some time now, and they have earned their stripes through providing the end user, pre-tested and overclocked video cards.

With the upcoming release of nVidia’s latest in March, we might see some interesting deals for previous generation products. EVGA has taken a vanilla 7800GTX 256Mb and supercharged it, increasing GPU and Memory clocks and constructing their own cooling device which promises excellent performance without “hair dryer” noise effects.

The 7800GTX 512Mb are still hard to be found, and with the ATI X1900 series overshadowing them price and performance wise, it would not be the smartest buy right now. Yields for the lower clocked 256Mb however seem to be pretty good. They are available at acceptable prices, and will turn any PC into a gaming monster machine.

The reference 7800GTX 256Mb from nVidia comes with 430Mhz GPU and 1.2Ghz memory clock. EVGA’s 7800GTX KO version has 490Mhz GPU and 1.3Ghz memory clocks; nVidia’s 7800GTX 512Mb does better with 550mhz GPU and 1.7ghz memory, the KO version of EVGA sits in the middle GPU clock wise.

At ~$480/€530 you do pay a premium over other 7800GTX cards, but you get a certified overclocked hand picked item, which is covered by a very extensive warranty. For US customers EVGA’s offers a life time warranty which covers even faulty BIOS flash, power surge and overclocking damage! The European warranty is less flexible and only lasts for 5 years, covering none physical damage to the card.



Main Features & Specifications:

• Powered by Nvidia Geforce 7800GTX @ 490Mhz (default 430Mhz)
• 256MB-256bit GDDR3 memory @ 1.3Ghz (default 1.2Ghz)
• Twenty-four parallel pixel pipelines
• PCI Express x16 Compatibility
• Intergrated Nvidia TV encoder
• Intergrated Nvidia ViVo
• Dual DVI-I Connectors
• Nvidia CineFX™ 4.0 Architecture
• 64-bit texture filtering and blending
• Nvidia Intellisample™ 4.0 Technology
• Nvidia UltraShadow™ II Technology
• SLI Multi-GPU Ready
• Nvidia PureVideo™ Technology
• DVD + HDTV Decode assist
• Intergrated Dual 400Mhz RAMDACs
• 1x Dual Link TMDS DVI Connector
• 1x Single Link TMDS DVI Connector
• Nvidia Digital Vibrance Control™ (DVC) 3.0
• Support for Microsoft© Video Mixer Renderer
• Advanced adaptive de-interlacing
• 5 YEAR WARRANTY (Europe)
• Life-Time WARRANTY (USA)

Let’s take a closer look at the card ->

The Box and Goodies:




In the box:

2*DVI adapters

S-Video Cable

VIVO module



• Requirements:
• Minimum of 450W power supply
• Available 6-pin PCIe connector (converter for molex included with the card)

The EVGA cooling: ACS3

EVGA equipped this card with the latest version of their ACS (Asymmetric Cooling System) cooling system, version 3 further offers further improvements, with a copper heatsink covering the hot running GPU its better it’s better than the reference nVidia cooling without adding noise.


You can see the copper from this angled shot

The ACS3 further adds additional ducts to guide air over the components on the card, small E-style EVGA style cutouts provide more fresh air to the board. Dismantling the ACS3 is strongly discouraged, after looking closer at the mounting method it comes clear that it’s not simply a matter of removing a few screws, they used thermal stickers throughout and it might not be possible to reinstall the cooling correctly once you removed it. For those interested to see what lies beneath the sleek black exterior EVGA has released these 2 diagrams:



On an open test bench I measured a maximum GPU temperature of 74°C (ambient 23°C) – while this is certainly not very cool it’s well within safe limits of the GPU, which has higher limit than your CPU. The fan never ramped up its speed, even under load it remained whisper quiet, 35dBA@30cm (ambient noise 32dBA).

Battlefield 2
Official Website

Battlefield 2 is a large multiplayer game which also features a few skirmish missions where you fight the computer AI. It has a very scalable graphics engine but it’s known to be a resource hog. The guys over at Guru3D made a scripted demo play which takes the player over a large section of one of the maps on foot, boat and in a jeep.


Hit Play-Button to see the runthrough.

I was able to run the game without issue with 4xAA and 16xAF on the EVGA, do know that when you’re playing online your FPS is set to drop because of the other players moving around – however creating a repeatable gameplay experience online with BF2 was a bit too challenging.



The 7800GT is able to deliver sold FPS, but he does dip quite low compared to the EVGA.

Call of Duty
Official Website

Call of Duty is an older OpenGL game based on the popular Quake 3 graphics engine, the player is set to replay famous battles as part of team and the feeling of being just a small ant in the scheme of things is brought over successfully. This does mean that there are many things happening around you – many items, AI controlled players and large maps, even now this can stress a high end system.

In the gameplay movie below I just crossed the river and prepare to take back Stalingrad, it’s one of the more intense levels in the game:


Hit Play-Button to see the manual runthrough.

While the game is playable with 4xAA and 16xAF the minimum FPS takes dips towards the 30FPS zone.



The 7800GT card offers okay playability at these settings, however at 2xAA the game was more enjoyable with this card.

Call of Duty 2
Official Website

The sequel of CoD was released last year and features a whole new graphics engine which really put you in the middle of a war zone in all its terrifying glory. The gameplay is more newbie friendly with the auto-healing and easier to kill enemies, nevertheless with the difficulty cranked up you’ll have many auto-spawning foes to kill.

In the movie below I’m in Bergstein, Germany, ordered to secure the village, it involves close quarter combat, long range sniping and setting up a smoke screen (this effect is very nicely rendered).


Hit Play-Button to see the manual runthrough.

The 7800GTX, even overclocked to 490/1300Mhz, is not able to provide fluent gameplay at 4xAA, dropping the quality setting to 2xAA made enough difference to increase the minimum FPS.



The 7800GT is struggling, overclocking helps a bit, but it can only do so much, there’s a ~25% performance drop compared to the GTX from EVGA, it’s noticeable in game.

Far Cry
Official Website

Far Cry has been around for quite a while, but its graphics engine still doesn’t fail to amaze me. With the latest patch (I installed 1.33) you have get to use HDR (High Dynamic Range) which renders lighting close to how it is in the real world. It breaths new life into the Far Cry game but is also very taxing for your graphics card.

The hard thing about HDR is that it’s difficult to show through a screenshot, the one below has HDR on the right enabled, on the left disabled. There’s more contrast in the HDR shot, but the effect goes further than that.



In the gameplay movie below I’ve tried to put the no HDR and HDR mode next to each other, however walking the exact same track in-game and looking around proved to be quite the challenge, it does seem to be synchronous in some scenes, so it’s not all bad ;-)


Hit Play-Button to see the manual runthrough.

Coming out of the tent you have the sun blinding you, walking under the trees the shadows on your gun are more accentuated, and there are many more subtle differences which cause the whole experience to be more compelling. So much in fact that it adds to the gameplay, pulling you closer into the virtual gameworld.

However there’s a price to pay, with the current crop of nVidia cards HDR can not be enabled at the same time as Anti-Aliasing (this restriction is not present with the latest ATI cards) but that’s not really so bad – it’s the performance penalty which really turns things around. EVGA’s overclocked 7800GTX is not fast enough at 1280x1024, but at 1024x768 everything is fine though. Without HDR I could run at 1280x1024 4xAA/4xAF at ~79FPS average.



The 7800GT card does okay, there’s still a performance drop compared to the GTX card but the game is certainly playable with these settings, and it looks great.

FEAR
Official Website

FEAR is a game which relies on its excellent enemy AI to deliver an enjoyable experience, the in-game graphics are far from bad, with a nice slow-motion (matrix style) effect which does add to the game play overall. However the maps are quite dull (office complexes) with very monotone colors. The models are highly detailed with high resolution textures and they look great – there’s also a very convincing lighting engine which casts shadows correctly to create the desired atmosphere of “FEAR”.

In the movie below I’m playing through a short section of the game where you descend the stairs, taking out hostiles on your way and end up in a trap where you’re being shot at from all sides.


Hit Play-Button to see the manual runthrough.

All the game’s graphical options were set to maximum detail, I only left “soft shadows” disabled, it can screw up the way shadows are drawn and actually make the game looks less realistic in some scenes.

At 1280x1024 I was able to set 2xAA/8xAF and get fluent gameplay with the EVGA 7800GTX KO, while the minimum FPS does drop to very low levels, this seems to be a specific thing with the game engine, the average numbers are at the 50FPS mark.



The average FPS with the 7800GT takes a dip at this resolution with high quality settings, while the game is still playable, I noticed the drop in FPS.

Flatout
Official Website

Flatout is a multiplatform game, released on XBOX and PS2 as well as on the PC, without a doubt the PC version is the better looking one, with high resolution textures and plenty of AA/AF control.

This race game is very arcade like, but the control over the vehicle does provide for a challenge, with lots of destructible scenery, a turbo option and aggressive opponents things can get hectic. In the movie below I do a 3-lap race on the first track of the game.


Hit Play-Button to see the manual runthrough.

This graphics engine was build for scalability and speed (capped at 100FPS) – the 7800GTX KO has no problem running at the highest quality settings with 8xSAA/16xAF enabled



While in the first person shooters a drop to 40FPS is hardly noticeable, in a race game it’s different, the 7800GT does provide playable frame rates but at 4xAA it was much more enjoyable, and the difference in image quality is not negligible.

Battle for Middle Earth 2
Official Website

This beginner friendly Real-Time-Strategy game was released this month, but the demo has been available for a few weeks now. The game engine features full 3D units and buildings with nice special effects and a dynamic animated world where you scroll through.

I played through the skirmish mission of the demo – the building process can be quite boring to watch, so I’ve skipped to the more active final battle scene:


Hit Play-Button to see the manual runthrough.

To be able to run this game in resolution higher than 1024x768 you have to edit a file and define your desired resolution, that file can be found here: Documents and Settings%username%Application DataMy Battle for Middle-earth(tm) II Demo FilesOptions.ini

The Battle for Middle Earth 2 graphics engine is capped at 30FPS which is enough for a game in this genre. At 1280x1024 I could enable 4xAA/16xAF with the GTX KO, smooth game play overall with only a few dips, average of 29 says it all.



The 7800GT handles this game also perfectly at these IQ settings, while there are more dips in FPS it never impacted the game play, even in the midst of battle.

User Overclocking

With its default overclocked speed of 490Mhz on the core (versus 430Mhz reference) there’s not much extra overclocking headroom, I could not get the GPU running over ~500Mhz stable and there simply was no increase in performance. This chart at Anandtech displays how the performance jumps up at certain core speeds, so it’s not really progressive. The memory speed of 1.3Ghz was also near the maximum without any noticeable headroom available.

CPU Speed scaling

I set the CPU to three different speeds, each time keeping the memory running as close to PC3200/200Mhz speed as possible. 2.7Ghz - 2.4Ghz – 1.93Ghz, I used the recently released 3DMark06 benchmark and also included the "performance test" build in FEAR (1280x1024 - 2xAA/8xAF) to measure the performance differences:



As you can see from the results, the difference is hardly worth mentioning, even at 2Ghz the system’s bottleneck is not the CPU but the video card.


Conclusion

In the old days only a small group of hardware enthusiasts overclocked their hardware, their main goal was to get more speed from their older hardware so it would last them a few more months before they had to upgrade to play the latest and greatest. While overclocking has not gone completely mainstream yet, it’s much more widespread now, with companies partaking in the fun, either with high end cards like this one here, or mid-end like the X800 series from ATI. The 7800GTX 256Mb is already plenty fast, EVGA delivers it overclocked and tuned for silent operation.

While it may not offer the best out of the box value for money compared to other mainstream 7800GTX cards based completely on nVidia’s reference design, you do get what you pay for: quality. Pre-tested and guaranteed to work at these overclocked speeds there’s no guessing work needed. In the US you get a life-time warranty which covers almost any (none physical) damage, including a faulty BIOS flash; the EU buyers have to settle with a 5-year warranty, which is longer than the lifespan of most high/mid-end cards.

If you’re in the market for a quality high end card without an extremely high price-tag, this product might be interesting for you. The upcoming launch of nVidia’s 7900 series might also help lower the price of their current crop – good news for the potential buyers out there!

I like to thank JPF Computing and Bytes@Work for lending me this high end card for testing.

Question/Comments: forum thread