BFGTech GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP Gaming Evaluation

[FrgMstr]

I can understand where you're coming from, you follow the leading edge of equipment and the people coming here follow it as well so it's a symbiotic (or sympatico) existence. I'm just interested in the difference because it seems that the hardware MFGs are only interested in generating revenue by forcing ground up overhauls of systems that really don't need it. Other than the sadly limited choices in graphics cards out there, older AGP only systems that are still potent are being trashed just because they're being abandoned due to the claims that the AGP interface just isn't viable any longer. I'm calling BS on that claim and it would be nice to know definitively whether that's in fact a reality or if the hardware makers are correct.

I wish I could afford the hardware to do up such a comparo but my budget is non-existent at best.

You make some good points above that you are not going to be argued incorrect on that. Let's keep in mind that AGP did not just show up yesterday. Here is an article I wrote in 1998 that looked at system performance, and I am pretty sure there is an AGP slot on that mobo. (funny ass read too - wow how things have changed)

My point here is that while AGP is still a very viable interface, it is an aging technology. The fact is that PCIe X8 and X16 for video cards has several huge advantages over AGP. It is also a fact that you have not seen any of those advantages exploited yet. But before we get to the killer app that will catapult PCIe video to greatness, we have to have the hardware out in the marketplace for two reasons. First software developers have to have access to the hardware to easily develop for it. Second, software companies do not build software to exploit hardware that there is no install base for. While you can find some exceptions to this rule, it is pretty much the way desktop PC works. Hardware has to lead the software and we see it in every facet of desktop software.

Does this make the 7800 GS a great GPU? No, it is still a eunuch that should have been named the 7600....

 

[FrgMstr]

Whoa whoa there, please do NOT disregard mid range products. [H]ard doesn't equal rich, and alot of people on these boards love taking their midranged products and clocking them dead to get the most of our money. I bet you there are ALOT more 3/3200 Winchester users than FX57 guys. Don't leave us out.

-wil

Very correct. We are currently looking for a new video card editor in the DFW area to move into low and midrange video card evaluations. We have simply not taken a look at enough of them.

 

[Brent_Justice]

I'd say one of the killer advantages of PCIe right now are multiple video card configurations. The entire layout of PCIe works great for multiple cards, while with AGP that wasn't the case. That's one of the big positives about the new bus IMO, I love its scalability. Apps that are taking advantage of that right now are games, so that's pretty awesome IMO.

 

[Stoly]

Even though I don't like Kyle just giving his toughts about the card, I really can't blame him.

I better blame nvidia for releasing a card not worth reviewing.

I was expecting a "real" 7800 class card. I currently have a 6800GT and was looking to do my last AGP upgrade, but now I'm dissapointed for not having a real upgrade path.

If the 7800GS was $100 dlls lower or had 20 pipes then it would be a nice card.

 

[revenant]

wow... chiming in late here... just read the review.. good read... I would like to have seen what the overclock did to the playable settings... but other than that, very good! Seems like this card is a part of Nvidia's "no silicon goes to waste" plan, putting all the 7800 GPUs which weren't quite 7800GT material, or 6800GS material either, into a card called the 7800GS... *sigh* Anyways... I wonder how many of these will sell? hrm......

 

[FrgMstr]

I'd say one of the killer advantages of PCIe right now are multiple video card configurations. The entire layout of PCIe works great for multiple cards, while with AGP that wasn't the case. That's one of the big positives about the new bus IMO, I love its scalability. Apps that are taking advantage of that right now are games, so that's pretty awesome IMO.

You could argue that both PCI and AGP had many of the same offerings. SLI to multiGPU cards from 3dfx. Undoubtedly more planning went into it this time rather than being backwards engineered...which the excpetion of current crossfire, but RD580 will change all that.

 

[shig]

I feel like i have been kicked in the balls by Nvidia with this card.

I currently have a 6600 vanilla agp, anf wen i saw the Review on the main page i got a little excited since i thought "sweet now i might get to play FEAR at 1280*960 @ 2ssaa/8af !", wich is a big improvment over 800*600 2aa/4af. Instead they release a 7800 gt with its balls cut off, then kicked it down the stairs. Since FEAR is a shader heavy game, get rid of its only real big preformance advantage [im no hardawre expert but look at the X1900 xt], then they charge you 100 dollars more than they should be for it. Like Kyle and Brent said, this should have been called the 7600gs.If this was atleast FIFTY bucks cheaper and had the extra quad, then this probabbly would have been a good card, then i wouldnt be so fucking mad right now. If they had done that, then it would have dropped the 6800gs a couple dollars, made that even more attractive, and then after a few months, 7800gs would have prolly replaced the 6800gs' current price point, dropping the 6800gs futher, making them both attractive since my 6600 will not be able to play some of the games coming out in the summer, it cant play some of the games i have right now above 800*600. If they had released this as the 7600gs and released a 7800gs later with a full 20 pipes all would be well with me. So now im probably going to buy the 6800 gs OR possibly a x1000 series if ATI does release some on agp, and build a new system when dx10/vista/AM2 rolls around

Sorry if the rant bothers you im so pissed at Nvidia about this card

In regards to your review, i appriciate the attept to shorten it, i hate having to load 7 pages on 56k when the information could have been fit into 4, but min/max/avg FPS would have been nice, as well as a few more games. Just my opinion.



-shig

 

[Commander Suzdal]

Good review and discussion so far, but I'd like to raise 3 points:

1. The protests regarding the number of pipes--the GT has 20, the GS has 16. This is simple product differentiation. If it had 20 pipes, it would be a GT. One thing I think everyone is forgetting is that this card is available on PCI-E also. It is NOT simply the "AGP GT," so it has to come down a step, or the PCI-E version would be overlapping the GT.

2. Price--Compare the MSRP of this card to that of the GT at launch, then do the math based on where the GT is now. Would a $250 GS be attractive? I think maybe so, especially since I paid $400 for my 6800GT right before they dropped by $100!

3. The system upgrade alternative--I am running a mobile Barton in an NF-2 motherboard. Vid card+motherboard PCI-E options may be attractive to A64 owners, but I would have to factor in another $200-300 for a good CPU (aside: whatever happened to good sub-$100 CPUs, anyway? I paid $80 for the Barton and it overclocked like a dream!). It's a lot easier to slip a $250 upgrade past the wife than a $600 one! Plus, a wholesale uprgade right before socket AM2 would bite me in the butt from another direction.

Bottom line, if I can find a review of this card running in a Socket-A machine and it pulls good gains against my 6800GT, I'm VERY interested.

 

[gia]

I've read a couple reviews lately and it concerns me. I've read that games are barely taking advanting of PCI express and the latest review on the agp 7800 seems to belittle it for being agp but there isn't a side by side comparison in the review versus the PCI express version of the card. So I'm at the point where I need to upgrade my video card and I can either keep my mobo and use an agp card or spend another 150.00 on a mobo for pci express.

Both these quotes are from reviews on the main page but are giving me two different impressions. So whats the real deal?

"The GeForce 7800 GS AGP is being launched today and is what can best be described as a fully emasculated 7800 GTX or heavily neutered 7800 GT. While it shares some of the best features of NVIDIA's shining new GeForce 7800 technology, you can't help but wonder what the hell somebody at NVIDIA was thinking when they decided the 7800 GS AGP should be a eunuch."

"For the most part, “X16 SLI” is currently no more than a marketing tool. With the games we are seeing today, we are still hardly realizing the benefits of 8X AGP over 4X AGP bandwidth. PCIe bandwidth simply towers above AGP limits in its base form. Now we are told that this new NVIDIA chipset allows a full PCIe X16 pipe to each video card. While this is all great in theory, I have yet to see anywhere that it actually allowed a true gaming experience advantage. You might find a couple of benchmarks that show an advantage, but the fact of the matter is that in real world gaming experience there is nothing to be realized. Is this a great forward-looking technology? Absolutely. Will you likely ever enjoy the true benefits of it in a gaming arena? I highly doubt it."

 

[shig]

Cmdr Suz<in regards to your pipe argumeent, true, but the cards name, 7800 gs, not 7700 or 7600, and if your paying 300 I would expect nvidia to make a card that can at least play the latest games at a higher resolution than my 6600

Gia<What they mean is the it has 7800gtx clock speeds but less pipelines than a 7800 gt

 

[Skrying]

Okay review, it got the point to me that the card is certainly not worth the money you would have to pay for it.

But then again, I like having framerate graphics. As your idea of a playable framerate may be different than mind, so with a graph I can see the numbers and judge for myself on what I think of the numbers.

Okay review, it was enough to get the point across about the quality of the card.

 

[nobody_here]

i think the format and content was exactly on-spot given the obvious downsides to even dumping that much more money into an AGP system when there are clearly better uses of your [H]ard earned money out there

and who is going to really expect considerably more from a G70 core with a 16/6 layout vs. the NV40 16/6 layout with only changes to the IQ for the most part with TSAA modes and whatnot, so no, i didn't miss the charts, nobody should be expecting stellar improvements to begin with

i myself am a firm believer in "it costs less to stay recent", usually upgrading my mobo, cpu, memory, psu, and vid card once a year, if one does his or her homework and makes wise buying decisions and even attempts to time things right, you typically can re-invest proceeds from selling your existing hardware with little-to-no out of pocket expenses and stay current with great performance vs. spending $1200 and waiting 2-3 years to spend another $1200 all over again and putting up with bad performance for half of the duration

 

[mrkram]

nice quick read...i just have too throw in my 2 cents real quick(at work and busy) and say...lets hope we can unlock more pipelines!

 

[nobody_here]

nice quick read...i just have too throw in my 2 cents real quick(at work and busy) and say...lets hope we can unlock more pipelines!

unless NV has changed their ways, no, they now laser cut all their "neutered" cores

 

[Frank DC]

Other than the sadly limited choices in graphics cards out there, older AGP only systems that are still potent are being trashed just because they're being abandoned due to the claims that the AGP interface just isn't viable any longer. I'm calling BS on that claim and it would be nice to know definitively whether that's in fact a reality or if the hardware makers are correct.

We already know that answer, at least for currently released software. Just look at game benchmarks at popular res's (1280x1024 and lower) between 4X and 8X AGP. I've never seen more than a few percent difference between the two. Not once. Ever.

And somehow we need a completely new bus? At 16X? Yeah, suuuuure we do.

The ease with which PCI-E is being foisted upon an unwilling and often unable market is just astonishing. Read some of these rabid responses from people who want to stick knives into AGP, yet none of them can give a half coherent explanation why. Just amazing.

 

[nobody_here]

The ease with which PCI-E is being foisted upon an unwilling and often unable market is just astonishing. Read some of these rabid responses from people who want to stick knives into AGP, yet none of them can give a half coherent explanation why. Just amazing.

because the system platform options that include AGP are non-existant for the most part, 754, 478, etc.............if you want a system that can properly support these new high end cards, you either need a very high end AGP based system, with little to no upgrade paths, or you can go with a PCI-E based platform with lots of upgrade paths.......

change is not always a bad thing guys

 

[FrgMstr]

I've read a couple reviews lately and it concerns me. I've read that games are barely taking advanting of PCI express and the latest review on the agp 7800 seems to belittle it for being agp but there isn't a side by side comparison in the review versus the PCI express version of the card. So I'm at the point where I need to upgrade my video card and I can either keep my mobo and use an agp card or spend another 150.00 on a mobo for pci express.

Both these quotes are from reviews on the main page but are giving me two different impressions. So whats the real deal?

"The GeForce 7800 GS AGP is being launched today and is what can best be described as a fully emasculated 7800 GTX or heavily neutered 7800 GT. While it shares some of the best features of NVIDIA's shining new GeForce 7800 technology, you can't help but wonder what the hell somebody at NVIDIA was thinking when they decided the 7800 GS AGP should be a eunuch."

"For the most part, “X16 SLI” is currently no more than a marketing tool. With the games we are seeing today, we are still hardly realizing the benefits of 8X AGP over 4X AGP bandwidth. PCIe bandwidth simply towers above AGP limits in its base form. Now we are told that this new NVIDIA chipset allows a full PCIe X16 pipe to each video card. While this is all great in theory, I have yet to see anywhere that it actually allowed a true gaming experience advantage. You might find a couple of benchmarks that show an advantage, but the fact of the matter is that in real world gaming experience there is nothing to be realized. Is this a great forward-looking technology? Absolutely. Will you likely ever enjoy the true benefits of it in a gaming arena? I highly doubt it."

What impressions does each statement give you?

The first statement is an introduction to the crippled pixel pipes of the 7800GS. The second statement is talking about PCIe implementations.....two different things.

 

[FrgMstr]

Well - they're both fast peripheral buses, but AGP is limited to memory read write only, and can only have a single target device...(I think)... leaving it very much the lesser cousin of PCIe in those respects... anyways.. this has the danger to veer OT badly from here...

You are correct, but my is that it is not utilized by any dekstop gaming software currently. AGP is still a great thing...UNTILL the killer app/game shows up and that is a ways off.

 

[gia]

I was getting the impression from one review that pci-e isn't that much of an upgrade with current games and the other review i was getting the impression that the agp card is not even a "man". Both can be attributed to literary devices, but I just wanted the quick to the point low down truth which was not evident in the reviews with out benchmarks.

 

[Damar]

For me this was just enough information about a lackluster product that made me glad I planned to upgrade to a PCI-E motherboard with my tax money.

As for the cost of that limp willy, I snagged a nice EVGA 7800 GTX from the FS/FT forum for only $400, Artic Silver and all. Hopefully its on its way and will be here tomorrow!

Good information, though I guess we are all so used to seeing numbers to validate statements and give us that warm fuzzy feeling that we made the right decision. Look at how many people still live or die by 3dMark scores. I'd rather see that a card has a high average framerate in a game than to see that it can hit 100 fps, but has an average of only 23.

I'm just soooo glad I made what I think was the better choice.

Thanks [H]ardOCP (OCP = OverClocking Project)

 

[FrgMstr]

I was getting the impression from one review that pci-e isn't that much of an upgrade with current games and the other review i was getting the impression that the agp card is not even a "man". Both can be attributed to literary devices, but I just wanted the quick to the point low down truth which was not evident in the reviews with out benchmarks.

AGP video cards are not being held back by the AGP, they are being held back by weeny GPUs on the new cards.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1028953571&postcount=87

If you want to stick with AGP, be prepared to still have a great experience, but it will be limited by the power of the GPU on the card, not the bus it is plugged into. Hope I have made this more clear and not fuzzier.

 

[gia]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll go for the manly card

 

[somecallmeTim]

Finally got a chance to read the review once I got home - and for this card, this was damn near perfect. Why?
1. The technology is nothing new, it's a 7800 that's undergone the knife, and this was covered well.
2. It told me where this card sits - for those on AGP for a while (like me) it offers an alternative once the price comes down.
3. The comparison was to another good AGP card, the 6800GT which can be had for a lot less.
4. There was no BS, it went right to the point, and didn't hold any punches.
5. The absense of graphs and frame rates (which get a little crazy sometimes) was fine - we've seen them, and pretty much know that we'll see dips in about the same place for any given card.

I saw a typo when I first saw the article at work, but it either had been fixed or I just couldn't find it (which is quite possible after today...)

For this type of release, this review was spot-on. No new GPU, No new Interface, Just a different version of what's already there.

Peace,
Tim

 

[gia]

"It is also a fact that you have not seen any of those advantages exploited yet. " Must be nice to be on the inside....

 

[Chris_Morley]

We already know that answer, at least for currently released software. Just look at game benchmarks at popular res's (1280x1024 and lower) between 4X and 8X AGP. I've never seen more than a few percent difference between the two. Not once. Ever.

And somehow we need a completely new bus? At 16X? Yeah, suuuuure we do.

The ease with which PCI-E is being foisted upon an unwilling and often unable market is just astonishing. Read some of these rabid responses from people who want to stick knives into AGP, yet none of them can give a half coherent explanation why. Just amazing.

Not to get off topic, but PCI-E, when looked at as a total solution, is a vastly superior solution in just about every regard.

AGP has always been a hassle when it came to drivers and different implementations by chipset vendors, and the different interfaces, specifications, and voltages as outlined by AGP 1.0 and AGP 2.0.

PCI-Express is a point to point serial protocol on a shared switch bus topology. This is vastly superior to the AGP port/PCI bus technologies we have been stuck with for quite some time.

PCI-Express does not require GART drivers, nor do we have to worry about Side Band Addressing or Fast Writes causing issues every time there are new chipsets or chipset drivers, video card drivers, or even new video cards altogether. (SBA and interrupts are now handled by MSI - we no longer have the limitation of flat memory-based communications)

PCI-Express is cheaper to produce than PCI-X, and with its ridiculously high bandwidth, we no longer have the need for proprietary technology like Intel's CSA, which increased bandwidth to bandwidth hungry devices like Gigabit ethernet. Now all you need is to 'hook' your on-board peripherals to the PCI-E bus. Same with SATA and especially SATA RAID. When running several HDDs in RAID, you can quickly saturate the PCI bus's limitation of 133MB/s - something that is shared across other devices in a "legacy" system - which includes audio and network devices. Having a unified, scalable, and easy to implement high bandwidth bus negates the requirement of proprietary "super-pumped" connectivity that we were starting to see as a stop-gap.

So PCI-E is more than just a replacement for the AGP bus, it's a top-down replacement for legacy connectivity in a computer's subsystem communications.

It's a "Good Thing", and it's here to stay.

 

[revenant]

[snip]
So PCI-E is more than just a replacement for the AGP bus, it's a top-down replacement for legacy connectivity in a computer's subsystem communications.
[snip]

well put!

EDIT: and to Kyle Bennett - yes, I wholeheartedly agree that AGP is a good thing, and we're not looking at the end of it's life-cycle because we've tapped it's performance out by any means... anyways, I still have my old AGP nforce2 system and am not about to get rid of it... still a great machine.

 

[Frank DC]

Chris, I've never heard anyone claim AGP is an end-all or be-all solution. What I'm questioning is the timing. Of course PCI-E is faster and superior, but you still haven't explained why there's a compelling need to drop AGP now, and altogether. I mean c'mon, when's the last time you heard of widescale problems with GART drivers? Aside from Via of course, but they're a moving train wreck anyway.

 

[InorganicMatter]

Chris, I've never heard anyone claim AGP is an end-all or be-all solution. What I'm questioning is the timing. Of course PCI-E is faster and superior, but you still haven't explained why there's a compelling need to drop AGP now, and altogether. I mean c'mon, when's the last time you heard of widescale problems with GART drivers? Aside from Via of course, but they're a moving train wreck anyway.

The hardware always come before the software and that's a fact. If there is no hardware, then what are the software developers supposed to write to? If it suits your fancy, just wait until the software is out and the hardware has come down in price, then make the jump.

 

[FrgMstr]

Chris, I've never heard anyone claim AGP is an end-all or be-all solution. What I'm questioning is the timing. Of course PCI-E is faster and superior, but you still haven't explained why there's a compelling need to drop AGP now, and altogether. I mean c'mon, when's the last time you heard of widescale problems with GART drivers? Aside from Via of course, but they're a moving train wreck anyway.

I think you sort of answered your own question there. You just saw a brand new latest tech video launched today for AGP, it is hardly being dropped. Is it being treated like a red-headed step child? Maybe so in that regard. I wish there were more robust products in the pipeline from NVIDIA and ATI. Both NVIDIA and ATI are in the motherboard chipset market now though, there might be big gains by forcing a move now. They are going to sell you the video card anyway, might as well tack on a mobo chipset along with it.

 

[Skrying]

PCI exrpess is a replacement for PCI and as a add on AGP.

We need PCI express, the PCI bus is just so old and is failing in many places for add on cards that are getting faster and faster. There's many advantages to PCI express, it was needed.

As for the PCI express slot used for graphics, its a good thing to. Was a replacment for AGP truely needed right now? No, I dont think so. But its a nice move to replace it and move on to a technology that is easily superior and offers some compeleing features for the future.

Nvidia and ATi are done, IMO, of supporting AGP with their top of the line products. I dont blaim them, the people who buy top of the line cards will most likely have PCIe motherboards. Its easier and probably a bit cheaper for them to just stop creating new AGP cards.

So, I can not say AGP needed replacing, but its happening and you're not going to stop it by complaining, just be happy with the pleasent surprise of a card in the 7800GS, even if its extremely over priced.

 

[Rob94hawk]

because the system platform options that include AGP are non-existant for the most part, 754, 478, etc.............if you want a system that can properly support these new high end cards, you either need a very high end AGP based system, with little to no upgrade paths, or you can go with a PCI-E based platform with lots of upgrade paths.......

change is not always a bad thing guys

The problem with your statement is that change with computer gaming is OPTIONAL.

As for the card, I guess stupid people that see the 7800 on the card will actually fall for a card that is associated with the latest tech but will get a fraction of the performance.

Had nvidia had brains and put the full blown version on AGP, I would have bought one but they blew it. Maybe ATI will be smarter.

 

[nobody_here]

The problem with your statement is that change with computer gaming is OPTIONAL.

oh no, that was exactly my point, although i didn't spell it out.......the manufacturers are forcing us to go PCI-E if we want to stay on top of the latest technology, it's getting to a point where the latest graphics cards are not choked by the AGP bus necessarily, but they can get choked by the CPU/Memory/Bus systems, we've already seen that some cards perform better when paired with a faster CPU, etc.....even in a purely GPU intensive application, which means the previous system was holding back the GPU and it's flow of data

they have effectively forced PCI-E on us by controlling, as someone else mentioned, the chipset support for new CPU's and such so that it's getting to the point now that to have that super fast CPU, you must go to PCI-E..........

i dont think it's a bad thing, moving on to new tech promotes further advances in technology, we can't wait until the old systems are at their maximum performance level to start moving on, that would only serve to stifle progress and competition

 

[coldpower27]

Hey, it's the lowest of the 7800 line, it's named apropriately. It's based on the G70 Core and has a 256Bit Memory Interface, features of a high end product. Same reason why you get X800 SE, 6800 LE, 9800 SE....

At least it beats out the 6800 Ultra, albeit just barely, and comes with G70 features.

When we get the 7600's they will be 128Bit Memory Interface which is typical of the mid range segment.

I agree, in the fact though that this card gives us a glimpse of what G73 will be like when it comes, out, all it would take is a G73 12Pipe/8ROP/5VS card at 500MHZ and it would match this card easily in non memory bandwidth bottlenecked situations. It's probably the upper limit of what the 7600 level cards will be able to do. But this is perfect, the 7800 start exactly where the 6800 leave off.

 

[Steve01S4]

Like a lot of people here, I'm pretty annoyed with this card. I was hoping for one video card upgrade for my main system, and it appears I'm not going to get one. Switching to PCI-E is not a cost effective option right now. I've got $500 in a dual opteron workstation board that has AGP. A replacement that has PCI-E is also going to be in the neighborhood of $500. I'm not in the mood to spend $1k to upgrade my video card, so it looks like I'm waiting. ATI is not an option. I use Linux.

 

[YmkFX]

What the hell was that?

If you want to scold me for still having AGP, leave it for smacktards on the forums. I expect the review to give us real numbers. Why not compare the 7800GS to an X800 Pro or 6800 GS? Why not give us some real benchmarks, would you just eyeball a rough guess as to whether the X1800XT or 7800GTX is faster? I could've written up a more thorough review in 10 minutes without having ever touched the card. Yes I have an AGP system. No, I don't need you dedicating a whole review to bitching at me about how "unplayable" all my games are. I don't care how honest the reviewer was, or how upfront they were in showing their immediate bias against this card for it's being AGP, it still doesn't give them an excuse to half ass a review.

Some of us out there are still running Geforce MX cards, or 9200 series cards. I'm running a 5600 Ultra and after reading that review, I didn't learn a goddam thing about whether or not I should go ahead and buy a 7800 GS because the reviewer was too busy spouting off his head about my "dead platform" and how I was "trapping" myself on "outdated hardware" that would hardly be able to run the latest games at "acceptable" levels. And to think the editor didn't drop this review in the can at first sight, gimme a goddam break....

 

[InorganicMatter]

What the hell was that?

If you want to scold me for still having AGP, leave it for smacktards on the forums. I expect the review to give us real numbers. Why not compare the 7800GS to an X800 Pro or 6800 GS? Why not give us some real benchmarks, would you just eyeball a rough guess as to whether the X1800XT or 7800GTX is faster? I could've written up a more thorough review in 10 minutes without having ever touched the card. Yes I have an AGP system. No, I don't need you dedicating a whole review to bitching at me about how "unplayable" all my games are. I don't care how honest the reviewer was, or how upfront they were in showing their immediate bias against this card for it's being AGP, it still doesn't give them an excuse to half ass a review.

Some of us out there are still running Geforce MX cards, or 9200 series cards. I'm running a 5600 Ultra and after reading that review, I didn't learn a goddam thing about whether or not I should go ahead and buy a 7800 GS because the reviewer was too busy spouting off his head about my "dead platform" and how I was "trapping" myself on "outdated hardware" that would hardly be able to run the latest games at "acceptable" levels. And to think the editor didn't drop this review in the can at first sight, gimme a goddam break....

I'm pretty sure the review was truncated because this card is a niche product that won't see much light of day, especially given the horrifically high price they are asking for it. It doesn't have anything to do with bias against AGP.

 

[nobody_here]

What the hell was that?

If you want to scold me for still having AGP, leave it for smacktards on the forums. I expect the review to give us real numbers. Why not compare the 7800GS to an X800 Pro or 6800 GS? Why not give us some real benchmarks, would you just eyeball a rough guess as to whether the X1800XT or 7800GTX is faster? I could've written up a more thorough review in 10 minutes without having ever touched the card. Yes I have an AGP system. No, I don't need you dedicating a whole review to bitching at me about how "unplayable" all my games are. I don't care how honest the reviewer was, or how upfront they were in showing their immediate bias against this card for it's being AGP, it still doesn't give them an excuse to half ass a review.

Some of us out there are still running Geforce MX cards, or 9200 series cards. I'm running a 5600 Ultra and after reading that review, I didn't learn a goddam thing about whether or not I should go ahead and buy a 7800 GS because the reviewer was too busy spouting off his head about my "dead platform" and how I was "trapping" myself on "outdated hardware" that would hardly be able to run the latest games at "acceptable" levels. And to think the editor didn't drop this review in the can at first sight, gimme a goddam break....

hrm.......pent up rage? animosity? or just truth hurts?

it's a 16/6 4-pipe neutered 7800GT bridged to AGP, you shouldn't need anyone to tell you it performs somewhere in-between a 6800Ultra and a 7800GT.......thats a given

the price is the only big determining factor here to me, makes an even bigger case for moving on to PCI-E

 

[Rob94hawk]

hrm.......pent up rage? animosity? or just truth hurts?

the price is the only big determining factor here to me, makes an even bigger case for moving on to PCI-E

I have a socket 939/AGP board and I have no intentions on upgrading cause it's just a waste of money. If nvidia was actually smart they would build a AGP 7800 that didn't suck then I would upgrade. But I'll wait for ATI to take care of that. I'm sure ATI will one-up nvidia like they always do and they'll get my money.

 

[MD]

I have Shuttle XPC SN95G5 SFF with 4200+ X2 and 6800GT. There are no mainboard swaps for it. I want to keep it it is great mashine. It's my gaming box so I want new generation Video card in AGP that is on level with PCI-e versions.

AGP 8x is dead for many people and people capable of changing their mainboard are better off changing mobo. I can't and dont want. I find Nvida policy Fashistic. They give You no option. They just cut You off. You've both second best grafic card jst few months ago and now You can't upgrade so f*ck You end user.

We ask for GTX AGP version and they give Us this?

They Push PCI-e because of Sli and they have pushed it withouth any other option. Now they rubb this pathetic card in out face and say: Look AGP can't preform so take two 7800GTX 512 MB and You will be able to game. In process take mobo with Our chipset and give 1300$ for grafic cards.

I'm 100% shure that AGP card with two power connectors and full features GTX chip Would preform just a same as PCI-e version. Only there would be no Sli option.

SLi was Nvidia solution to have faster grafic solution then ATi even when Ati makes new generation and faster chip then current version of Nvidia.

It's way to ensure they sell nice amount of mobo chipsets to.

I gave so much money for Nvidia products and I'm ready to give nice amount of money for new gen grafic solution. Nvidia ain't getting my money for this sharade card.

Also I'm bit disapointed with [H] review of this card. It's bit like You have no PCI-e You doo not deserve real review. Firing Squads review was 10x better. This is first time that that happens










MD

 

[Nidhogg]

i would liked to have seen some info on how much higher you could get the IQ with that oc as aposed to stock.