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AOpen Aeolus 7800 GTX-DVD256


Date
: 09/21/05 – 03:22:09 AM

Author
:

Category
: Video Cards

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer:
AOpen Inc.

Price:
$479 (newegg.com)

With Simon having just finished a review of the Aopen 6600-DV128LP, Aopen decided we should do a review on a more 'up to date' video card of theirs. This will be my first experience with an AOpen graphics card and I must say, I am being spoiled and cannot wait.

Today we will be looking at, and working over, an AOpen Aeolus 7800GTX-DVD256. This particular video card is at the top of the AOpen pile and loaded with all the features you would expect from a top-of-the-line video card. I also happen to have a pair of BFG 6600GTOCs sitting on my desk, so we will be putting the power of the single 7800GTX up against an SLI setup of the 6600GTs. Of course, we will also be looking at the overclocking abilities of the Aeolus 7800GTX on the standard cooling setup as well as in a watercooled environment. So sit back, buckle up, and keep your arms inside while the ride is in motion.

Page 2 : Package

I was pleased to see that the Aeolus 7800GTX doesn't come in a monstrous box but one of modest proportions.

The package itself is very nice. I am a big fan of the color swatch red/black/white that AOpen has used and I like the faces staring out at you. It gives the whole package an edgy feel so it that will appeal to gamers. It is also refreshing to see the lack of a female presence, or with the 7800GTX a really big guy! There is not a lot of info on the front except for a few logos which is to be expected. The rear of most packages is where all the details reside.

The rear of the box also seems to be void of any specifications. It mostly covers features that are offered with the NVIDIA chipset and its accompanying software as seen on the left of the highlighted area. On the right, I decided to enlarge the great diagram that maps out what the potential connection capabilities of the card are. The two charts you see just below this diagram list the different resolutions offered for the connection types.

This is the closest you will get to any specifications on the package of the Aeolus 7800GTX. Really though, what specifications do you honestly need to know? It's a 7800GTX and it will do anything you want and then some. I think the information provided by AOpen is better than a bunch of specs that most people don't understand anyway. Anyone that wants to know the nitty gritty info about a card will do their research on-line at web sites like, I don't know, Overclockers Online before even stepping foot in a store. That is if they even go outside to purchase their hardware as the majority of the gaming market does not do anymore. Thank you NewEgg. :)

A
bsolute,
E
xtreme,
O
ptimize,
L
uxury,
U
ltimate,
S
atisfied spells Aeolus. I was wondering what exactly Aeolus meant. The other two ends do not contain any info other than what we have already seen here and this wraps up any info on the package.

Page 3 : Specifications

Here are the specifications that are leading edge of the box. You can find this full list at the Aopen web site as well.

This is a list of the key features as laid out by AOpen:

• CineFX 4.0 Shading Architecture
• DirectX 9.0 Support
• Dual Display Function Support
• NVIDIA Intellisample 4.0 Technology
• nVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU Technology
• nVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology
• OpenGL 2.0 Support
• Pixel Shader Model 3.0
• PureVideo Technology Support
• Up to D4 (1080i) Resolution High Quality HDTV Output
• Multi-Language(9 Languages) Installation and Quick Manual
  
  

  
  Page 4 : Package Contents
  

  As you would expect when you open the box, there is something inside.

  

  AOpen has provided ample room at both ends inside the package to protect the valuable video card inside. A thin piece of foam has also been placed on top of the card to keep it from moving around. Directly underneath this foam is the card in an anti-static bag.

  

  There is a layer of cardboard that holds the video card on a small shelf above the rest of the contents that are located below. It looks like there is a lot of room down there for stuff to shift but if you shake the box with everything inside, it doesn't sound like much is actually moving around.

  
  User's Guide, Registration card, HDTV/S-Video leads, a double 4-Pin Molex connection > 6-Pin PCI-E cable, and two DVI > CRT adapters.
  I have laid the contents out here but somehow missed the driver CD that is included with the video card, but it does come with a driver CD. On the package and at the AOpen web site it is mentioned that the 'Psycho Psionic Thriller' Second Sight is also included but listed as optional on the press release for the Aeolus 7800GTX. Either way, the game is not one of the top tier games on the market today and can actually be purchased for $14.99 from the Second Sight website. I hope that video card makers realize that packaging a high-end video card like the Aeolus 7800GTX with a mediocre game is really a mis-allocation of funds. Either package a blockbuster like HL2, BF2, or the like; or nothing at all. I know I don't want an extra $5-$10 added to the price of my video card so I can get it with Second Sight, and I am sure I am not alone.
  

  Ahhh, our first look at the amazing 7800GTX. If you think the card looks big, it's because it is. No question, this video card is very long. Measuring a full 9" in length, this board will stretch the entire width of almost every ATX motherboard out there. So if your case is a bit small and the hard drives hang over the leading edge of the motherboard, you might end up shuffling things around to get this beast in.

  

  Flipping the card over, we can see that there is plenty of support for the GPU and RAM heatsinks mounted on the top side. The card is really quite heavy and, when we start to tear the top side down we will see why, these brackets on the back indicate that some heavy duty hardware is being utilized on the top side. Also note the lack of any memory on the backside, it will be interesting to see what is underneath the cover up top.

  

  We already know from the specifications that the Aeolus 7800GTX offers double DVI outputs and an HDTV/s-Video output with the provided cables but seeing is believing.

  

  Here is one last look at the card before we get the screwdriver out and do some investigating. Shown here is the 6 Pin PCI-E connection that supplies the additional power that a monster likes this card requires. If your PSU does not have a 6-Pin connection, AOpen has you covered with the inclusion of the Molex > 6-Pin cable, seen a few photos up. Note that the Aeolus 7800GTX requires a 350W PSU minimum with a 22A rating on the 12v line, this is stated on the rear of the box.

  

  A few screws removed and we can take off the top plate that reveals the series of heatsinks mounted to the top of the card. The layout is designed to funnel the air being generated by the fan over the various heatsinks and to exit out the back of the cover and wash over the heatsink on the MOSFETs. This is no different from every other 7800GTX being sold today.

  

  Some more screwdriver work and 2 minutes later, we have a naked 7800GTX, not so intimidating now is it? The memory is scattered around the central GPU with the MOSFETs and the power generation district hanging out at the rear of the card.

  
  The underside simply confirms the fact that there are four more 32MB memory modules on the underside placed next to the topside modules that were being covered by the bracket/heatsink seen in the photos above.
  

  Depicted above is one of the Samsung K4J55323QF-GC16 memory modules used on the Aeolus 7800GTX. These modules are DDR3 DRAM rated at 600MHz for an effective speed of 1.2GHz. They carry a max data rate of 1200Mbps/pin and require 2.0V ± 0.1V of power to operate at these given speeds. Coming out of the box, the memory is already running at 1.25GHz so it will be interesting to see if any further overclocking on the memory will be possible.

  

  As advertised, the rear of the card is where the power regulation is. A 3-phase setup appears to be responsible for creating a steady flow of power to the card. The supply comes from the universal PCI-E standard 6-pin connection and just below that is a close up of the MOSFETs. AOpen use Infineon BSC032N03S 30V 100A MOSFETs on this card.

  

  Before having a look at the central GPU, I thought I would show off the chip that is responsible for the ability of the Aeolus 7800GTX to produce the HDTV signal that it is capable of. This Philips decoder is capable of producing a resolution up to and including 1080i for a true HDTV experience.

  

  There it is, the big bad GPU that is responsible for the power behind the Aeolus 7800GTX. There is definitely no mistaking this for any other GPU with the bold GF-7800-GTX etched in the top. This is a short blurb from NVIDIA describing the major differences between the 7800GTX and the 6800 Ultra chipset…

  GeForce 7800 GTX has brand new vertex, pixel and texture units when compared to the GeForce 6800 Ultra. Engineers at NVIDIA were able to pinpoint the key functions bottlenecking shading and graphics performance. By designing and enhancing these functions at the most fundamental level, NVIDIA has brought graphics performance to new levels in the GeForce 7800 GTX.
  More information specific to the 7800GTX chipset can be found here at the NVIDIA web site.
  

  The final photo in this little expose will be to show off the boring underside of the heatsinks that were removed to provide the wonderful photos above. The white patches you see is the thermal paste that provides a protective yet conducive connection to the heatsinks for the memory modules and the GPU gets a standard dose of thermal compound in the middle on the smooth plate in the center.

  This wraps up the photos of the Aeolus 7800GTX while located in my studio. It is time to put this card where it belongs, in a case doing its job pumping out heart stopping frames per second in some of the most graphic heavy games on the market.

  
  Page 5 : Installation & Overclocking
  

  As you know, the installation of a video card is not a labor intensive process. In fact, a video card is one of the easiest components of a computer system to install. All that is required is a philips head screwdriver and if your case is that of a tool-less design then the screwdriver is not even necessary.

  

  With the old card removed, the 7800GTX just slides into the slot locking in place. From here we must secure the front of the video card to the rear of the case. The photo above shows the card being secured in both a tool-free case and the older style that requires a single screw.

  

  The length of the 7800 series card is greater than that of any other card. With some cases you may have to get creative to get everything fitted. I mounted the Aeolus 7800GTX in my Asus A8V-E Deluxe here to show that it does cover the top SATA slot, but does not interfere with plugging in an SATA cable because it sits high enough off the motherboard. With this card installed in a shorter mid-tower case I have, the back end of the card almost butts up against a hard drive mounted in the top hard drive slot so that may be an issue with short cases as well.

  

  We can see here that space will not be an issue in the Titan Robela case. Plenty of room for the rear of the card and the footprint it leaves is fairly small near the slots. AOpen has not strayed from the standard design of the 7800GTX, keeping the fan and heatsink thin to provide lots of room in this area. The Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS motherboard that will be used for testing provides ample room in between the two 16X PCI-E slots so having two of these cards would be a piece of cake and the top card would actually get pretty good access to fresh air. With the card in place and the drivers installed, it is time to see how well the Aeolus 7800GTX overclocks.

  

  For ATI based cards I use ATITool and for NVIDIA cards I simply use the Coolbits registry hack and adjust the frequencies in the standard NVIDIA control panel seen above. There is an auto find option in both programs but I do not trust any hardware to a piece of software running by itself so I do my overclocking manually. For the 7800GTX I will simply be raising the Core Frequency by 5MHz until the 'test' fails From there it is just a matter of testing the frequencies found by running 3Dmark05 in a continuous loop for 6 hours. If it fails, locks up, or shows artifacts I dial back the core 5MHz until it doesn't. I then rinse and repeat for the memory in the same manner.

  

  These are the maximum frequencies I could squeeze out of the 7800GTX. The core frequency went as high as 520MHz but would show artifacts during the 6 hour run in 3Dmark05 and would occasionally lock up. The memory passed the internal test up to 1410MHz but would cause issues until turned back to 1350MHz. At 505MHz/1350MHz the core/memory speeds of the card were rock solid for the full 6 hours of continuous 3DMark05 and showed absolutely no artifacts. The stock speeds of this card are 450MHz/1250, giving the core an overclock of 55MHz and the memory a full 100MHz overclock. Not amazing but still fairly decent for the stock cooling that the card is provided with and up near the top of what other 7800GTXs on the market will get to. In fact, it is one of the higher speeds of the core that I could find in reviews of other manufacturers cards.

  

  The card would run at around 75C during the overclock testing, I used Rivatuner to record the temperature throughout the 6 hours. After letting the card idle for an hour after this initial 6 hour test the temperature dropped down to, and hovered at, 48C. I also checked the temperatures at the stock frequencies of 450/1250 and the temperatures were pretty much the same hovering around the 75C mark and, for the most part, under load and 46-48 at idle. This load temperature is rather high and probably the reason for the limit on the overclock so I figured I would see if a lower temp would allow the core to overclock more.

  

  I hooked the AOpen 7800GTX up to the recently reviewed Titan Robela water cooling system to see if any further advantage could be had by cooler temps to the core. First I ran the 6 hour 3DMark05 test and was amazed to see the temperature not creep north of 50C. I was excited to see this as I thought I would be able to really overclock the core more, but temperature proved not to be the limiting factor. I was able to get the internal test to pass up to 525, but once again, 3DMark05 would either lock up or show heavy artifacts until the core was clocked back to 505MHz. It appears that the max this particular core was going to run was 505MHz no matter how cool I could keep it.

  With the maximum overclock found it is time to get to work and do some benchmarks, the next page will out line the testing platform and manner in which I will complete the benchmarks. The following pages will organize the large amount of charts that will plot the results.

  
  Page 6 : Test Machine
  

  Benchmarks will be run with the following set of components…

  AMD 3000+ Winchester @ 270*9 = 2430MHz
  Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8EKRS
  OCZ PDC 2*512MB PC3200 @ 442MHz
  MGE Magnum 500W
  Dual WD Raptor 36.7GB 10,000RPM configured in a RAID 0
  Windows XP Pro x64 + Latest updates
  Everything mounted in my generic mid-tower test case

  Video Cards:

  AOpen Aeolus 7800GTX-DVD256 (NVIDIA 77.77 x64)

  Sapphire Hybrid X700PRO 256MB (Catalyst 5.7 x64 WHQL)
  BFG 6600GTOC 128MB (NVIDIA 77.77 x64) 525/525 (stock) & 575/570 (OC'd)

  I will be running the standard set of benchmarks with a number of programs providing a synthetic gauge of the video cards as well as a hand full of todays popular games. The synthetic benchmarks will be comprised of 3DMark 01 se, 3DMark 03, 3dMark 05, SpecViewPerf 8.1, and Aquamark. These were run manually three times with reboots in-between each run. The results were then averaged for the graphs.

  For the games I will be using BenchEmAll to run the Doom III, Far Cry, Half-Life 2, Halo, and Unreal Tournament 04 benchmarks. Battlefield 2 benchmark results were attained using a program from Guru 3D. Once again, the benchmarks were run three times with reboots in-between each run. The results were averaged and charted.

  

  
  Page 7 : Synthetic Performance
  

  Synthetic benchmarks are sometimes scoffed at but the Futuremark series is an industry standard and provides an accurate measurement of a video cards capability. Using the 01, 03, and 05 version gives a wide range of results in DirectX 7, DirectX 8, and DirectX 9 games. Here are the results from those benchmarks.

  

  The results and scores are pretty much what is to be expected. The 7800GTX out performs the pair of 6600GTs in SLI mode even before we overclock the AOpen card. The 3dMark 05 and 03 scores really show a solid advantage over the pair of 6600GTs. The single 6600 and X700Pro are obviously far behind except in the oldest of the benchmarks 3DMark 01 se. We can easily say that the 7800GTX wins this first round quite easily and it will be interesting to see if the gaming benchmarks show similar results.

  

  The Aquamark results make it a closer battle by far showing almost no difference between the SLI setup and the single 7800GTX. The Aquamark benchmark is another DirectX 9 benchmark based on a real game. Being based on a real game, it can fallback to DirectX 8 or DirectX 7 for testing of older video cards.

  

  The last of our synthetic benchmarks is Spec View Perf 8.1 which tests the OpenGL rendering abilities of the video card as opposed to the DirectX gaming performance. As with all other benchmarks of Spec View Perf 8.1, the ATI chipset favors some tests, and the NVIDIA chipset favors others. The interesting note is that the SLI setup seems to be favored more than the single 7800GTX in a few tests.

  We will now take a look at the gaming performance of each video card, one game at a time. The results might be surprising based on these synthetic benchmarks, let's see.

  
  Page 8 : Doom III
  

  We begin our gaming benchmarks with the most graphic intensive of them all. Despite being a couple years old already, Doom III still challenges even the most powerful of the new graphics engines and will be a good comparison of the pure pixel pushing power of the AOpen 7800GTX. The default demo was run using BenchEmAll and here are the results.

  

  The results are very much what should be expected throughout the series of games benchmarked. The 7800GTX and 6660GTs in SLI mode prove the system to be the bottleneck at the low resolution of 1024×768 but once we step up to 1280×1024 the 6600GTs start to fall behind. At the maximum resolution used of 1600×1200 the AOpen 7800GTX walks away and never looks back showing double the performance of the single 6600GT card.

  

  There is no real difference in these results aside from the fact that they are scaled back slightly with 8 X anisotropic filtering turned on.

  

  With anti-aliasing enabled, the 7800GTX even shows greater performance than the 6600GT results. In fact, the 7800GTX almost doubles the performance of the 6600GT SLI setup which tells us that the 7800GTX really outperforms the 6600GT SLI when the work increases. Notice that the X700Pro results do not change, this is due to the fact that the AA and AF are not recognized with the ATI chipset in Doom III, so those results are quite misleading.

  

  Again, very much the same as above with the anti-aliasing turned on, the 7800GTX just does not drop off as much when the resolution is increased and is able to maintain a solid 58 FPS at 1600×1200 with the AA and AF cranked up. This is very impressive results from a game that demands so much from the video card. We will now move on to Far Cry which tends to even the field out as it is not so reliant on the GPU, let's see if this holds true with this batch of cards.

  
  Page 9 : Far Cry
  

  Far Cry is a newer game that takes advantage of the latest hardware technologies such as 2.0 vertex and pixel shaders and 3.0 shaders for 6800 cards and up with DirectX9.0c.

  

  The results may seem striking but they are pretty much what I have come to expect from Far Cry. Being such a gorgeous game with jaw dropping graphics you would think it was GPU heavy but I have found that not to be the case. We see here that the SLI setup takes its first clear victory.

  
  With AF turned on the results start to come more in-line.
  

  Finally the 7800GTX shows up to play. Once AA gets switched on then it is not much of a contest. The previous results were once again the results of a system bottleneck and now that the GPU is the bottleneck, the stronger video card prevails.

  

  What is most impressive about the 7800GTX is the fact that it does not really drop in its frame rate, even at 1600×1200 with AF and AA turned up. The FPS hovers around 60 throughout the benchmarks with the only difference being that of testing error. This means that the system is still holding back the performance and the video card is not even being stressed. At the high resolution with AA and AF turned on, the picture is just beautiful, now if only NVIDIA could cure the 'shadow issue' in Far Cry.

  
  Page 10 : Half-Life 2
  

  Half-Life 2 is not so new anymore but still a great gauge for testing the abilities of the newest video cards. Its popularity is unrivaled and it will be used in our video game benchmarks for a long time to come. I expect similar results to Far Cry above and the 7800GTX to pull away at the higher resolutions once AA has been turned on.

  

  As expected, the results are very similar to Far Cry with a log jam at the lowest resolution and the 7800 chipset making its break in the higher resolutions.

  

  Even with 8 X AF turned on the log jam at the low resolution of 1024×768 is still there but the gap starts to widen at the higher resolution end. This will continue to widen once anti-aliasing is turned on.

  

  Wow, I must be psychic, The AA results show just how strong this Aeolus 7800GTX really is. The frame rate again does not drop off from that of the non-AA benchmarks, even at 1600×1200. It looks like I am going to have to increase the specs of my test system to keep up to these newer cards.

  

  This seems to be a pattern and that is that the 7800GTX produces twice the frame rate than that of the 6600GTs in SLI. Keep in mind these benchmarks are just timed demos but still outlines how these cards will perform in gaming situations. Next on the list is the game that put the X-Box on the map, Halo: Combat Evolved.

  
  Page 11 : Halo
  

  Halo is still one of the favorites out there among gamers so lets see how it performs with the 7800GTX.

  

  I fell like a broken record repeating myself yet again. The 7800GTX and 6600GTs in SLI are neck and neck at 1600×1200 while the lower resolutions show equality amongst the cards. It will be interesting to see whether the AOpen 7800GTX will be able to maintain the frame rate when AA and AF are turned on.

  
  {quote]No problems keeping the FPS around 75 here[/quote]
  

  Again we see the 7800GTX able to hold onto the frame rate of about 75 at 1600×1200. The 6600GTs seem to be holding on though as the drop off is not as much as it was for Far Cry or Doom III.

  

  With both anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled, the frame rate still does not really drop off too much from that of what it was without. I am quite impressed with the frame rates that this 7800GTX can reach in the GPU intensive games. Next up is the CPU intensive game of Unreal Tournament 04.

  
  Page 12 : Unreal Tournament 04
  

  As mentioned, Unreal Tournament 04 is not a game that is heavy on the GPU. We should see results similar to the other games though once the cards are asked to do more work.

  

  The frame rates may be higher but the story is the same. The SLI setup has no problem keeping up with the more powerful 7800GTX in UT 04 at 1600×1200 but I don't expect that hold up when the AA gets turned on.

  
  AF doesn't really affect the results that much, so let's move on to the anti-aliasing results.
  

  It is almost surprising to see that the pair of 6600GTs falls off as much as it does here in UT 04 when the AA gets turned on. What is not surprising is that the 7800GTX still chugs along not skipping a beat and hardly breaking a sweat.

  

  UT 04 proved not to be a challenge to the 7800GTX as it was able to maintain a FPS of about 100 on the highest resolution. Up to this point the AOpen 7800GTX seems to be a complete powerhouse in gaming performance. Maintaining impressively high FPS at the highest resolutions is just one part of it. Being able to maintain those frame rates even with AA and AF turned on means this card is really not being pushed as hard as it can be. Hopefully the newest game in the benchmark suite will be able to put up a fight.

  
  Page 13 : Battlefield 2
  

  I thought I would leave the most demanding and newest game for last. The other benchmarks were run using BenchEmAll with the default demos being used. For Battlefield 2 I had to download a little utility from Guru 3D to allow me to benchmark it. Here are the results…

  

  Right off the bat we can see that the 7800GTX is not going to be able to breeze through these benchmarks without dropping its frame rate. At 1600×1200 we see results that look similar to the other games with AA enabled. Even at 1024×768, we can see that the other cards are just no match for Battlefield 2 while the 7800GTX happily leads the way.

  

  Even by turning AF on we can see the FPS start to drop off slightly. This is the first time we have seen the 7800GTX start to struggle, lets see how it does with anti-aliasing turned on.

  

  As expected, even the mighty Aeolus 7800GTX feels the shot to the body when the AA gets turned on here. Not as much as the pair of 6600GTs in SLI as it is able to maintain an amazing 35FPS gap between the two.

  

  Again the gap is huge, even at the resolution of 1024×768 between the SLI setup and the single 7800GTX. Really though, this game is the only one along with Doom III that even made this 7800GTX break a sweat. The ability to maintain the frame rate right through testing is an impressive feat and in Battlefield 2 it only dipped about 20 FPS at 1600×1200 when switching on anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

  I will now be giving my overall thoughts about these benchmarks and the AOpen Aeolus 7800GTX on the next and final page.

  
  Page 14 : Conclusion
  

  What can you say about a 7800GTX? The most powerful video card on the market at this time certainly did not disappoint in this review and managed to make me look twice at certain results. The AOpen Aeolus 7800GTX-DVD256 is not a lot different from any of the other 7800GTX cards out there and is pretty much identical to the other manufacturers such as EVGA, XFX, and BFG brands. They are simply clones of each other with just different logos on the HS/Fan assembly. The KO version from EVGA comes clocked at 490/1300 and this Aeolus 7800GTX had no problem reaching those speeds and more. The overclocking of this card was very good and, after reading some reviews and talking with other 7800GTX owners, I realized that the 505/1350 I was able to achieve is higher than most of these cards will go.

  The performance gains from that extra little bit are negligible, but it is still nice to know that it will handle just as fast if not faster speeds than any of the other manufacturers. What is most impressive is the fact that the Aeolus 7800GTX is able to do it on stock cooling. The temperatures the card reaches at stock and overclocked frequencies were the same and this tells us that the additional HS/Fan setups that the factory overclocked models from other manufacturers have is pretty much just window dressing.

  The software package is very minimal and as I mentioned a top quality game like Battlefield 2 or Half-Life 2 would have really been nice as the game included is nothing to get excited about. You are provided with all the standard hardware to connect the video card to your TV and also two DVI > Analog converters are included so you can hook up dual monitors of any kind without having to purchase additional hardware. The inclusion of the dual 4-Pin molex connectors > 6-Pin PCI-E power connection rounds out a complete hardware package and puts the AOpen Aeolus 7800GTX-DVD256 right up there with the rest of the 7800GTX cards from other manufacturers.

  Advantages

• Very good overclock
• Price
• Complete package

  Disadvantages

• Limited software bundle

  Overclockers Online would like to thank AOpen for sending us a sample!