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Albatron 7800GTX


Date
: 09/18/05 – 01:19:39 AM

Author
:

Category
: Video Cards

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Albatron

Price
: $459 USD

Albatron has been a pretty big name here at Overclockers Online. We've been given opportunities to look at three of their motherboards, K8SLI, PX915G4-Pro and PX915P Pro, however only one of their video cards, the PCX5750 Trinity. Today, all that changes.

We've been given the opportunity to take a look at the
Albatron 7800GTX
! This is one of the latest and most powerful nVidia video card your money can currently buy. If you have five big bills to toss around, this is what you buy. If you've
really
got the cash, the Albatron 7800GTX is capable of SLI, so get yourself two!

Albatron has been kind enough to loan a card to us, so let's check out how this puppy performs!

Page 2 : Package

The 7800GTX arrived in its retail form with plastic wrap around the entire box. The Albatron box only hints at the GTX model in a small textbox off to the far right.

Off to the sides of the box, we get some reasons why consumers should choose nVidia as well as a brief list of the features.

You'll notice that this single card requires a 400 Watt PSU with at least 26A on the 12V rail. The last generation, 6800's, only required 350 Watts.

On the backside of the box, we get some pictures and some additional features:

There's two things that will probably catch the average reader's eye. The first one is the chart showing the relative performance between different generations of cards.

You can see how well the 7800 compares to cards like the 6800, 6600 and 6200. There is no reference made to any ATi card….
The last interesting picture on the back of the box is how the 7800GTX compares to basic integrated graphics.

The superior picture quality is based on some advanced algorithms allowing the video card to model every last detail including each blade of grass.

All-in-all, a very generic box that shows the basics of what the 7800GTX can do. At no point does this box show you what the video card looks like, and had there been some advanced cooling technology used, the customer would have absolutely no idea!

Before we open up the box, let's take a look at the specifications.

Page 3 : Specifications

Albatron offers its buyers the reference nVidia card with no special tweaks. While this ensures that the card will perform exactly as it should, it doesn't help Albatron capture more of the sales. As a refresher, here are the specifications of the Albatron 7800GTX:

As expected, there's nothing out of the ordinary. Let's open her up and get ready for our first look at the
Albatron 7800GTX

Page 4 : Package Content

The contents of the box are well packaged and well protected. To one side is the video card, Albatron 7800GTX, and to the other side is the package of miscellaneous goods. We'll start things off with the manual and packaged CDs.

The manual is pretty standard and available online if you'd like to read it before buying the card. The package of CDs is pretty sub par, nothing spectacular whatsoever. It would have been easier for Albatron to package the basic drivers and exclude everything else. Maybe even have a chance to shave a few dollars off the retail package. Speaking from my own experience and maybe everyone else feels the same, but I sincerely doubt many people actually take a look at the provided CDs, because in my mind, the best thing I have here are some spare envelops for my own personal use!

Moving away from the CDs, we take a look at the next set of components in the package, cables! Albatron has packaged a number of cables for your use.

The only thing one could really complain about is not having two DVI to DSub connectors, and this is because the 7800GTX comes standard with two DVI connectors. What this means is that for those looking to use two CRT's, they will unfortunately have to invest a few extra dollars into another DVI to DSub connector.

Finally, let's get our first look at the card!

The only real difference between this card and the nVidia Reference design is the sticker on the 50mm fan.

On the backside of this card, we have a strip of metal to act as a memory heatsink and support plate for the GPU heatsink mount.

nVidia has made it a standard to adopt two DVI connectors instead of the DVI and DSub we still occasionally see. Unfortunately, Albatron only packages the card with one DVI to DSub converter. I still know a few people who would want to use a pair of CRTs for the ultra high resolution they provide.

The cooling system Albatron has installed is pretty basic. It's very similar to the designs of Arctic Cooling, though scaled down. Basically cold air is pulled in by the fan and shot across the video card between the fins. Under the fins is what appears to be a heatpipe, and if that is the case, it'll be going around the GPU and not over top.

Let's start taking this card apart and see what's below the surface. We'll start by removing the bottom strip of metal for cooling the memory ICs. This strip is held on by four simple screws.

It's unfortunate to see that there isn't any better cooling on these lower four modules. Certainly a disadvantage that will probably hinder us in overclocking the memory.

Instead of using thermal paste or thermal gum, Albatron uses a type of fabric. It has a slightly greasy feel to it and really resembles a gauze type of material.

With the underside bear, we can see that BGA memory modules are used.

After a couple more screws, we can isolate the fan and the heatsink.

This fan moves 11CFM of air at 2900 RPM creating 39dBa of noise. In all honesty, during its operation, the fan was never all that loud. Only when it first spun up during boot did it emit a loud whirring sound.

With this larger heatsink, we see it covers the GPU and the top four memory modules. For the actual GPU, Albatron uses some stock thermal paste, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Now that we have everything removed, here's a close up picture of the thermal pad/mesh/sheet used on the memory ICs:

Here's a picture of the GPU below. A very fine layer of paste is still present.

Last but not least, I leave you with pictures of both sides without any cooling:

Flip to the next page as we take a better look at the GPU and memory ICs.

Page 5 : 7800GTX Power

Beneath the thin layer of thermal paste lies all the technology behind the 7800GTX. We're talking about the processor. While the jump from the top end of one generation to the low end of the next is generally marked by only a few changes and a small performance gain, nVidia has blown the socks off the enthusiasts by giving them a lot more power with these few changes. It all began with the three characters 'G70' and we now know it as the 7800GTX processor.

While we could talk and type all day and night on the technology behind the 7800GTX, we're not going to do that. This isn't that kind of article. Instead, we're going to take a look at some of the key features and move on.

Let's begin!

38.4 GB/s of bandwidth
24 Pipeline technology
8 Vertex shader units
10.3 Gigatexels fill rate
CineFX 4.0
Delivers advanced visual effects at unimaginable speeds. Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 enables stunning and complex special effects. Next-generation shader architecture with new texture unit design streamlines texture processing for faster and smoother gameplay.
Intellisample 4.0
The industrys fastest antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. Visual quality is taken to new heights through a new rotated grid sampling pattern, advanced 128 Tap sample coverage, 16x anisotropic filtering, and support for transparency supersampling and multisampling.
UltraShadow II Technology
Enhances the performance of bleeding-edge games, like id Softwares Doom 3, that feature complex scenes with multiple light sources and objects. 2nd-generation technology delivers more than 4x the shadow processing power over the previous generation
PureVideo
The combination of high-definition video processors and NVIDIA DVD decoder software delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for all video content to turn your PC into a high-end home theater.
PCI-E SLI compatible

As I said, we could essentially go on and on about the great things the 7800GTX has on paper, but in fact, nVidia has already done that. Just head over to this page where you'll find all you'll ever need to know about the 7800GTX.

The other piece of hardware behind the power of the 7800GTX is the memory. The Albatron 7800GTX uses 256MB of Samsung's DDR3 modules.

These BGA modules are rated for 1.6ns! A quick search on Google and we get these specs from Samsung.

When we visit the overclocking page, we'll get to see just how far we can push the 7800GTX.

Page 6 : Installation & Overclocking

Like every video card on the market, installation is pretty easy. I'm going to assume that you already have a PCI-E motherboard, otherwise you've bought yourself a really expensive paper weight. With the simple stock cooling, you won't be blocking any of the slots around the Albatron 7800GTX.

Albatron recommends a 400 Watt power supply with at least 26A on the 12 volt rail. If you don't have a power supply that supports PCI-E, Albatron has included a converter. While you can start the system and boot into Windows without the additional juice, once you get in and install the drivers, it'll tell you that there isn't enough power. Be sure to plug in the PCI-E connector.

Now that we've got everything up and running, it's time for the fun part: overclocking! The 7800GTX starts off at 400/1200, but even though we have the most powerful video card on the market, it'll spare no abuse. We began by installing the CoolBits registry hack and slowly increasing the GPU speed 5 MHz at a time. Once we found the max GPU speed, we did the same for the memory. I stopped at 495/1370. This was only stable in the desktop. I ran loops of 3DMark 2005 and progressively lowered the clock settings until everything was stable. In the end, I hit a final speed of 470/1350. This isn't exactly what I would call a huge gain, but with a top of the line video card, do we even need that much more? Of course we do. ;)

Page 7 : Test Setup

Our suite of benchmarks will be composed of a select number of titles to give us an overall gauge of this card's performance. We'll be starting our tests with three synthetic benchmarks: FutureMark 3DMark 2003, 3DMark 2005 and SpecViewPerf 8.1. Our selection of games for benchmarking includes Half-Life 2, UT 2004 and Doom III. Note that the results for a single application are not the end-all be-all of performance judgment. First our, test setup:

Let's begin!

Page 8 : Synthetic

We kick things off with the classic FutureMark 3DMark tests. While some may argue the usefulness of synthetic benchmarks such as 3DMark, we feel that they provide an accurate gauge of relative gaming performance among targeted generations. 3DMark 2003 provides an excellent indication of performance one can expect compared to other cards in DirectX 7, DirectX 8, and early DirectX 9 games. 3DMark 2005 provides us with an indication of performance one can expect compared to other cards in new and upcoming DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 titles.

We can see that the score of the 7800GTX is over double that of the 6600! Given a more powerful processor, it's possible we could have broken the 10,000 mark!

Taking a look at Spec View 8.1 performance numbers…

The results from Spec View are OpenGL oriented results. It uses real world applications and puts them to the test. A lot of information is available at SPECviewperf. The 7800GTX takes a small edge over the rest of the cards. A few of the benchmarks favour the ATi X700 but it's really hit or miss with them.

Flip to the next page where we start our look at some games.

Page 9 : Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 is one of the newer titles out and a favourite to many. While its engine relies heavily on the CPU, we see that the 7800GTX is really pulling ahead. You'll notice the difference in frame rates between 800*600 and 1280*1024 on the 7800GTX are minimal. This is because the CPU is now bottlenecking the video card. It's been a while since this was possible, but it's happening. It's days like these where I wish I had an FX core!

With anisotropic filtering, there's next to no change in performance. Even when we crank it up to 16XAF!

With anti-aliasing enabled, there's still no change; Not even at 8X AA! The way things are turning out, this is going to be a pretty boring bunch of benchmarks.

With AA and AF enabled, we see our first dip in performance when we enable 16XAF and 8XAA.

So far, the 7800GTX is pretty top notch. You should have no problems running it at 1600*1200 with some of the extra eyecandy such as AF enabled.

Page 10 : Unreal Tournament 2004

Another commanding lead by the 7800GTX. Things certainly look better for the Albatron 7800GTX when we're up at the higher resolution.

The older generation of cards really can't handle it.

No matter what anisotrophic filtering you set the card at, it kicks the butt out of its competitors. Once again, we see no difference in the 8X AF and 16XAF as our CPU has bottlenecked the GPU.

With AA enabled, we see the 8XAA knocking down the performance by a hefty amount. Regardless, at over 120FPS, no one will really complain.

With both AA and AF enabled, we get a slightly lower performance than with just AA. At the maximum resolution my monitor could handle, the 7800GTX still doubles any of the competitors I throw at it.

For our last game, we check out Doom III.

Page 11 : Doom III

Once again, there is more of the same story with this DirectX 9 game. The performance of DX9 is slightly worse than that of DX8, based soley on the UT 2004 run. This doens't mean the game is unplayable, it's still amazing!

With AF:

With AA:

Wrapping it all up with AA and AF:

As you can see, there's not too much of a difference in terms of frame rate with AF, but when we enable AA we see a pretty good hit in performance. While some of the other cards become more or less unplayable, the 7800GTX offers decent performance all the way through the benchmarks. Out of all the runs, this was the first time the frame rates dropped below 50 FPS. This only occurred when we were playing with 16X AF and 8X AA!

Page 12 : Conclusion

Without a doubt, the 7800GTX offers the best performance possible from a single video card at this point in time. While it certainly costs
a lot of money
, those who can afford it won't be disappointed. During my tests, the picture quality was simply superb. Having played at such high levels of image quality, it'll be hard to go back.

The only place Albatron falls short is with the lack of changes it made to the reference card. As it stands now, Albatron's 7800GTX will only have brand and price to differentiate it from the crowd. I look forward to the day when Albatron releases a model that has their Cold Fusion (Wise Fan III + Heat Pipe Technology) cooler! With hope, we should be seeing something new from Albatron in the very near future.

Advantages

Latest technology offering superior performance
Relatively quiet
Potential for overclocking

Disadvantages

Reference design

Overclockers Online would like to thank Albatron for providing with us this sample.