Asus Extreme N7800GT Dual
Asus likes to see who is the strongest. After this manufacturers dual GeForce 6, they have now released a card equipped with two 7800 GTs. We feel that the production of these cards is better controlled, especially in its finishing touches and size. The size is much more reasonable even if it’s much bigger than a card equipped with a single GPU (3 cm higher and 1.5 cm longer than a GeForce 7800 GTX). It can fit into many towers if the hard drive isn´t in the way.
It comes with a power adapter, which looks like the Voodoo 5 6000´s, whose use is obligatory only if your power supply isn´t capable of powering the card by itself. This was the case of the Enermax 535W that we used for these tests.
As this article concerns very high-end graphic cards, Asus´ collosus definitively belongs here, because even if it uses SLI there is only a single card. The only thing is that you will have to spend approximately 1000€ / $1000 to obtain one.
The cooling system is relatively discreet despite the fact that it cools down two G70s, which even if they are GT models have 20 pixel shading pipelines and are clocked at the same frequency as the GTX (430 instead of 400 MHz). This is the same for the memory, which is clocked at 600 MHz instead of 500.
Radeon X1800 and GeForce 7800 GTX
We compared these 2 cards to the latest high end cards tested, the Radeon X1800 XT, Radeon X1800 XL, GeForce 7800 GTX and GeForce 7800 GT. As the 7800 GTX 512 MB chip is a G70 (identical to the 7800 GTX) we won´t linger on its architecture. If you want more information, take a look at
GeForce 7800 GTX and
Radeon X1800 tests.
We remind you that ATI benefits from more advanced architecture. Amongst other things there is its redesigned memory controller to improve the effective use of available memory bandwidth, and a more subtle branching management, which is more efficient than NVIDIA’s. The consolation of the GeForce 7800 is its higher calculation power. We won’t give the specifics on this subject, because of the major differences in architecture of these two companies and there being no identical way to calculate calculation power. We’ll just say that overall NVIDIA is in the lead.
We also included a Radeon X800 XT and GeForce 6800 GS to this test. The GS was added as it’s the new reference for an "efficient but not too expensive" card. It can give you a good idea about the differences between high mid-range and high end products. Why the X1800 XT? Simply because it has similar frequencies to the X1800 XL. Because of identical calculation powers and bandwidth, we can measure performance gains brought by ATI´s new architecture.
Specifications
Power consumption
We measured the power consumption of different graphic cards used in this test. Measurements were taken directly at the power outlet, which therefore represents the computer’s entire power consumption, here an Enermax 535W. We reported figures obtained under Window’s desktop and in use with a 3D scene and Prime95. Prime95 makes it possible to have constant CPU use regardless of a graphic card’s performance.
In 2D, the Asus Dual N7800GT has the highest power consumption and the X1800XL has the least. The 7800 GTX 512’s figure isn´t higher than the 7800 GTX’s.
In 3D, consumption clearly increases and in different ways depending on the load. In the fillrate test, ATI´s cards provide moderately good results and are probably capable of deactivating unused groups, whereas NVIDIA cards runs at full speed and have much higher power consumption. The 7800 GTX 512 figure is 38 Watts higher than the 7800 GTX. With 3DMark05, the situation is different and this time NVIDIA´s power consumption is lower, except of course for the Asus´ card which is twice as high. The GeForce 7800 GTX 512 is at the same level as the Radeon X1800 XT and is 25 watts higher than the GTX.
The test
For these cards, we updated our test protocol to include new games and modified some procedures. F.E.A.R., Serious Sam 2 and Age of Empire III are now included. Quake 4 replaces Doom 3, and Half-Life 2 Lost Coast is now used. Far Cry is still here, but with a different demo, which relies mostly on GPU power. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Act of War, Colin McRae 05 and Pacific Fighters remain the same.
We also decided to keep anisotropic filtering activated in all tests. It significantly increases texture sharpness and the higher the resolution the better it is. Its use is logical with high end graphic cards even if anti-aliasing is deactivated. When the game allows direct configuration, we selected the highest mode, or we forced 16x anisotropic filtering via the driver control panel. "Anisotropic sample optimizations" were deactivated, which increased NVIDIA´s shimmering. It doesn´t change performance much, but gives us similar graphic quality for ATI and NVIDIA in tests.
Test configuration:
Asus A8NSLI Premium
AMD Athlon FX 57
2 x 1 GB of Corsair XMS 3200
Western Digital Raptor 74 GB
Enermax 535W
Windows XP SP2
Catalyst 5.11
ForceWare beta 81.89
