BFGTech GeForce 7800 GS OC AGP Gaming Evaluation

No numbers, just experience. Did we tell you what you wanted to know?

  • All I needed to know! 100%

    Votes: 80 32.7%
  • I got good information, but I would like a graph. 75%

    Votes: 65 26.5%
  • I got OK information, but need to see framerates, no exceptions 50%

    Votes: 77 31.4%
  • That told me NOTHING! 25%

    Votes: 16 6.5%
  • Pure idiocy, you don't even know what you are talking about. 0%

    Votes: 7 2.9%

  • Total voters
    245
  • Poll closed .
BLiTzKRiEG said:
I still say the AGP 6800GS is a better deal than the AGP 7800GS, especially if you are able to unlock the pipes in the 6800GS. I'm glad I upgraded my second system with what I did rather than hold out for this card... too expensive for too little.
Thats a good point, and it begs the question... are there pipes unlockable on the 7800GS AGP? If there are, that would make it really worth it. I guess the overclocking of the card would make it better value, but unlocking the pipes would be super.

I didn't expect the review to cover it, mind you. Just a thought about the card and its possibilities. I thought the review was pretty good, but some frame rate comparisons (graphs) would have been good to illustrate the points made. But, a good, honest review all round.
 
Almost every other review I have seen of this card (most linked to by HardOCP) gives benchmarks and shows it beating the 6800 and even the 6800 Ultra in some cases, they show the X850 with better performance, but that's not what you were comparing it to. A subjective review with no numbers and simply "this feels better at this resolution" is highly suspect, especially as you were running one after the other, there are a lot of variables and you may simply have played better the second time or been more used to the scenes that it seemed better. The whole "feels better"/"seems faster" is just too subjective to warrant a real review, had this been backed up by the results of other reviews then I might feel that your approach worked, but with ever other review saying the 7800 GS is a good card or faster than the older cards (even Toms Hardware which is considered (by me at least) a very good source) AND showing benchmarks to make their point it makes this HardOCP review seem wrong.
 
MD said:
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.
Chill out dude. There is no question wether or not a GTX would saturate the AGP bus, it's a matter of what would profit nVidia the most. I'm sure they have sat down and fully analyzed the situation and concluded that it is not in their best interests to port the GTX to AGP. Most likely because of R&D, which is expensive as hell.

You and everyone else here seem to forget: nVidia doesn't give a damn about you, me, or anyone. They are in the business to make money and if it isn't profitable for them to port the GTX to AGP then they are not going to do it. Simple as that.
 
Well, now I'm pissed off about this card but for a different reason. The one I bought I didn't work. I'm gonna return it and wait for the price to come down.
 
Originally posted by Rob94hawk
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.

Anyone knows if ATI is going to release an AGP version of X1800? Nvidia is playing alone here and needs its rival to play the cards right. Releasing now a limited AGP card (based in 110 nm technology and not in 0.90) is nothing but cheating. They DO know how to do it and CAN release a 20 pipes version based in the new Series 7 (0,90 nm). ATI should pressure Nvidia inmediately in this high end AGP range.
 
When I posted yesterday, I defended the pipeline counts of this card on the basis of the PCI-E version needing to slot in below the 7800 GT on the performance scale. When Anand previewed the card in November, it was PCI-E with a rumor of AGP. Anand's review of this AGP version mentions that nVidia has decided not to release it in PCI-E. I also didn't realize that they had nerfed the ROPs in addition to the pipelines and shaders. Now I think I'm starting to feel a little of Kyle's righteous anger myself. If this thing proves to be non-unlockable, I'll pass and wait for a full system upgrade.
 
I find this somewhat confusing

After reading anand's review I saw how the 7800GS got spanked in almost every bench by the X850 XTPE.

Then I read the conclusion

For now, we can certainly conclude that the 7800 GS is a worthy AGP part. We will take a further look into performance with the BFG and EVGA versions of the 7800 GS if there is any interest.

Worthly AGP part?? how do they get that conclusion??
 
Sigh............ I had hoped for alot more from this card. Hoping for something stronger than an ultra or an 850. I find this card more than a little insulting. It is aimed purely at the ignorant given it's price to performance ratio. Then when it doesn't sell they can say, "See we told you this was a waste of time." With ATI seemingly equally unwilling to provide a more powerful agp solution we are right back to no where we were before this gutless turd was introduced. Here a healthy FOAD to Nvidia for getting my hopes up only to then dash them with a non-solution.
I would feel the review to be too short normally but why dignify this crap with a real review?
 
Stoly said:
I find this somewhat confusing

After reading anand's review I saw how the 7800GS got spanked in almost every bench by the X850 XTPE.

Then I read the conclusion



Worthly AGP part?? how do they get that conclusion??
Their statement there at the end clued me into something I had missed earlier in their review: They were benching a reference card at stock clocks. All other sites I have checked (including [H]) are benching the BFG with its "stock overclock." Even this mild OC is able to reverse the numbers and put the GS in the lead in most benches.

Add to this the fact that every reviewer so far has reported very strong OC headroom even above the BFG clocks, and the fact that the street price of the GS is expected to fall well under that of the X850, and I think it's fair to say the GS will be the AGP performance leader in the "real world," at a better price. How much more "worthy" can you get?
 
YmkFX said:
What the hell was that?

If you want to scold me for still having AGP, leave it for smacktards on the forums.


This type of posting is unacceptable here. Your account has been suspended for one month. If you can't post in a civil manner, you will not post at all.
 
sac_tagg said:
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.

Quite frankly it did not take a battery of tests to understand the card. I am not paying $350 for a new video card that only lets me play the latest games out at 800x600. Overall, it was a very solid card though, had the price tage fallen more to teh 225 level it would have been acceptable.
 
I think you mean 1280x960 or so with a bit of AA-AF. 800x600 limitation would be FEAR (the most demanding game) on a 6600GT/6800NU or something like that. 7800GS is basically a near equal of an X800XT but comes with SM 3.0. Very not worth it. AGP'ers deserve at least a 7800GTX or X1800/1900XT part even if on a limited basis.
 
zone_86 said:
I think you mean 1280x960 or so with a bit of AA-AF. 800x600 limitation would be FEAR (the most demanding game) on a 6600GT/6800NU or something like that. 7800GS is basically a near equal of an X800XT but comes with SM 3.0. Very not worth it. AGP'ers deserve at least a 7800GTX or X1800/1900XT part even if on a limited basis.

I meant what I said and I was referring to FEAR.
 
So the 7800GS really is limited to 800x600 for good playability? I thought people were playing FEAR with 6600GT's @ 800x600 though the frame taes would be low and settings would be medium/low. I would have thought a 7800GS would do 1152x864 at least with medium/high settings with SS off and get a around 40- 45 FPS average. I guess not.
 
It's not limmited as on anything higher it's unplayable.

Well My 6800GT AGP can play 1024x768 with no problems. 4200+ X2 1 GB Twinx Corsair.



MD
 
Most decently clocked 6600GT's are able to run the f.e.a.r. bench with everything high/1024x768, no aa, no ss, 4af, and never hitting below 25fps. In game I never noticed lag either, but then again the slo mo probably hides alot of it. I'm guessing Kyle might have been running the game with SS's on?

-wil
 
My own rig runs it fine and i use a X800XT AIW with a S754 and high/medium settings at 1024x768, but of course no aa-af is used to keep framerates solidly playable and soft shadows are disabled.
 
zone_86 said:
So the 7800GS really is limited to 800x600 for good playability? I thought people were playing FEAR with 6600GT's @ 800x600 though the frame taes would be low and settings would be medium/low. I would have thought a 7800GS would do 1152x864 at least with medium/high settings with SS off and get a around 40- 45 FPS average. I guess not.


I suppose if you want to turn all the eye candy off on your 350 dollar video card, then you could do so and run at whever res you wanted to. Personally that is not acceptable to me after paying that much money.
 
I would certainly agree with that. If the card was $240.00 it would be a bit different i suppose.
 
I think people forget to realize that comparing an X850 PE or the like ATI card is a little unfair in comparison to this newer card and in general the Nvidia 6 series. These Nvidia cards support SM3 when available and will provide a better experience and IQ compared. We are talking about comparing something that runs on an older spec to something that runs something newer while maintaining performance.

Anyways the review wasn't bad but graphs compared to popular AGP cards and the numbers or averages would be more fitting since this is comparable to other reviews.
 
I've been a follower of this site for some time now & refer to it's reviews often in making purchases.... Mostly because of fact that [H]ardocp doesn't seem to be in anyone's "pocket".

I fully agree with the premise at the beginning of the review - WTF was Nvidia thinking?!

The abject disappointment with the 7800GS and more to the point, the culture behind it that it seems to represent was enough to make me join this forum. I'm complaining today - I'll be more "constructive" in the future. On to beating this "dead horse".

This is an insulting product for the price point - a full $50 bucks more than a GT, which cruise around at $300 all day long. Less, if you're an enterprising shopper. And don't get the idea that I'm sour grapes because I'm cheap - look at some of the hardware in my sig. But I like value for money as much as the next guy.

If Nvidia had made this a GT class card, I wouldn't have minded them asking a bit more for it (and I would have snapped one up in a second). Since they had to go to the expense of implementing a bridge chip on to the design - not that it's a new piece of hardware, mind you. I'm also not opposed to a company making a buck, but this fobbing off of lackluster hardware (disabled GPU features) is starting to get out of hand.

It was perfectly acceptable in the case of the 6800GS AGP, as it was never touted to be a "premium" solution to begin with and was priced accordingly. But as a hobbled "last hurrah" for AGP'ers... Disgusting. Come on, Nvidia could have easily given people their money's worth and "softened the blow" of the invevitable upgrade & generated some "goodwill" at the same time. But no, this product's price & lack of performance is a compelling arguement for a mobo AND vid card upgrade - which is probably the corporate message that was intended all along.

Don't even get me started on SLI - add another card when they get cheaper... right. A 6800 Ultra didn't get significantly cheaper, it just went away... But I'll probably buy one anyway, since Crossfire is such a half-baked solution - All those cables/dongles, what a mess!

Nvidia's new Ad slogan should be - "Nvidia, We've got you where we want you."
 
isma said:
350 $ ???? :eek:

I've just bought a x850xt for 350$ CDN taxes included.



where did you buy it from??? I'm in Calgary, only saw it once due to open box sale.
 
coldgin said:
where did you buy it from??? I'm in Calgary, only saw it once due to open box sale.

Just a heads up that Future Shop has the X850 Pro AGP for $299 this week.

As far as the 7800 GS goes, well, I am dissapointed to say the least. It seems like a pointless product to me. It is targetted as a high end AGP card, and those "power" users already most likely had a 6800 / X800 class card. The 7800GS simply does not offer that much of a performance boost, however, for those users to upgrade. Had the card come specced out with the full 20 or even 24 pipes, they would have had a sure winner on their hands, and users would have had a genuine reason to upgrade.

Seems like such a wasted opportunity.
 
loafer87gt said:
As far as the 7800 GS goes, well, I am dissapointed to say the least. It seems like a pointless product to me. It is targetted as a high end AGP card, and those "power" users already most likely had a 6800 / X800 class card. The 7800GS simply does not offer that much of a performance boost, however, for those users to upgrade. Had the card come specced out with the full 20 or even 24 pipes, they would have had a sure winner on their hands, and users would have had a genuine reason to upgrade.

It seems to me more like an upgrade path for the 6600GT/9800Pro 8 pipe card users. I haven't seen new 6800GT's for cheap around lately, and the 6800GS upgrade to 12 pipes doesn't seem like it would be as big a deal as a jump to the 7800gs for 16 pipes. Also I'd hate to jump to a x850 with only sm2.0 after getting used to running sm3.0 whenever possible . True true, the price is WAY off, but hopefully the B+M stores will start dropping their 6800GT's to reflect that.
 
loafer87gt said:
Just a heads up that Future Shop has the X850 Pro AGP for $299 this week.

As far as the 7800 GS goes, well, I am dissapointed to say the least. It seems like a pointless product to me. It is targetted as a high end AGP card, and those "power" users already most likely had a 6800 / X800 class card. The 7800GS simply does not offer that much of a performance boost, however, for those users to upgrade. Had the card come specced out with the full 20 or even 24 pipes, they would have had a sure winner on their hands, and users would have had a genuine reason to upgrade.

Seems like such a wasted opportunity.

Yeah... I already have a 6800 NU with unlocked hardware, so a 7800GS is a waste to me for what they're asking for it. Especially in light of the fact that it barely beats a 6800 Ultra.

At about $265 - $285 I might think about it. Not at $300+.

If they had just done the right thing and just bridged a 7800GT - one would have been on the way to me right now. But at $350, I could add a $100 & get a GT & mobo, $75 more for an SLI board.... You get the idea.

Then its "gotcha" for both of those tems as well.
 
loafer87gt said:
Just a heads up that Future Shop has the X850 Pro AGP for $299 this week.

As far as the 7800 GS goes, well, I am dissapointed to say the least. It seems like a pointless product to me. It is targetted as a high end AGP card, and those "power" users already most likely had a 6800 / X800 class card. The 7800GS simply does not offer that much of a performance boost, however, for those users to upgrade. Had the card come specced out with the full 20 or even 24 pipes, they would have had a sure winner on their hands, and users would have had a genuine reason to upgrade.

Seems like such a wasted opportunity.

i think just as many if not more users still in AGP have 6600's or 6600GT's though, and going from a 6600GT to a 6800GT is a significant step up, so going from a 6600GT to a 7800GS would be more of a leap, albeit in the wrong direction, the only direction an AGP user should be headed is out of AGP, unless they don't mind being perpetually behind the curve
 
nobody_here said:
i think just as many if not more users still in AGP have 6600's or 6600GT's though, and going from a 6600GT to a 6800GT is a significant step up, so going from a 6600GT to a 7800GS would be more of a leap, albeit in the wrong direction, the only direction an AGP user should be headed is out of AGP, unless they don't mind being perpetually behind the curve

I'm going to be headed out then... I was hoping for 1 more decent AGP upgrade to last until M2 got going & got the bugs out.

Oh well.
 
nobody_here said:
i think just as many if not more users still in AGP have 6600's or 6600GT's though, and going from a 6600GT to a 6800GT is a significant step up, so going from a 6600GT to a 7800GS would be more of a leap,



i have a 6600GT now and with 4 kids under 10, i cant afford to upgrade everything at once, i will be getting a 7800gs but after seeing so much resentment for it i now feel guilty about it...
nvidia now says the etail price will only be $300US.
with the old 17" crt i have all i can do is 800x600 so i think there realy is a market for this card and nvidia will probably sell quite a few of them.

next year socket M2. till then it should hold me over.
 
YmkFX said:
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 am a 5950 Ultra owner and although I didnt get much info from this the front page has a list of other reviews for which I am thankfull had the info I needed to make my decision to buy this after the price drops below $300.
 
This review was exactly what I went through this past month. To stay with agp or move to pcie. I have been running a BFG 5950 Ultra since it came out and it has served me well. I could play most games comfortably in 1280 x 1024 (some with AA and AF enabled) but when I started playing Battlefield 2 my res dropped, or should I say plummeted, to 800x600 and almost no eye-candy enabled!! BlaH!! :( After ALOT of research and review reading I decided to move onto better things and go with a PCIe Video card. Considering there are no agp video cards coming out that are any significant performance boost when compared to an PCIe setup, the choice became pretty clear. I ended up buying another BFG, a 7800 gt oc, and I am now only waiting on the case to build my new system! :D I know its hard to let go a system that you probably built from scratch but AGP is DYING. Its time to move on. But hey, you can build a NEW system and, IMO, if you go with an SLI board then a quick upgrade in the future with a second video card will keep your pc around a bit longer without having to upgrade a whole system.
Just think..a NEW, faster gaming pc that uses the latest tech, Mmmm... LOL!!
 
i could get one of these cards for a little over $250, would that be a worthwhile upgrade from my x700 pro agp?
 
zone_86 said:
So the 7800GS really is limited to 800x600 for good playability? I thought people were playing FEAR with 6600GT's @ 800x600 though the frame taes would be low and settings would be medium/low. I would have thought a 7800GS would do 1152x864 at least with medium/high settings with SS off and get a around 40- 45 FPS average. I guess not.
Yea, I play FEAR on a 6600GT ([email protected] / 1GB RAM) at 1280x1024, AA off, 8X AF, and I feel most settings are pretty high...why would a 7800GS be stuck at 800x600? :eek:

If somone can tell me where FEAR stores its settings, I'll post the config file (Allthough that might be a bit hard if it hides them in the registry...)
 
its nice to see short but pint point precise reviews now and then from hardcore gamers ^^
as for graphs... i rather see a video demostrating where the ingame "lags" and "runs" . graphs show info but really doesnt say much about the gaming experience much, but you guys are damn frank about the overall gaming experience . just my 2cents
 
Unknown-One said:
Yea, I play FEAR on a 6600GT ([email protected] / 1GB RAM) at 1280x1024, AA off, 8X AF, and I feel most settings are pretty high...why would a 7800GS be stuck at 800x600? :eek:

If somone can tell me where FEAR stores its settings, I'll post the config file (Allthough that might be a bit hard if it hides them in the registry...)

It's not stuck @ 800x600. Not even close. I like the site so i'll take the occasional not-so-great article with all of the great articles and not get bent out of shape about it. It's just a GPU afterall. Though Kyle and staff are right that it is a lackluster offering considering what nVIDA should have given as the last AGP card. It should have been a bit faster than an X850XT PE. As it is it's just barely competetive witth an X800XT (non-PE).
 
I'll go back to commenting on the article itself rather than debates the merits of the card. Now I happen to be one of those aging AGP motherboard owners not because I want to, but because it's what I can afford. Like some others who have posted before me, I'd like to upgrade, but can't because of the price involved to buy both a new motherboard and a videocard and the fact I'd have to install the OS. So a product that upgrade my current vanilla 6800 has got my attention. An article that reviews it, is getting read.

The newly tested brief review format has merits and drawbacks. It's short which gives me the basic information I needed, but in this case it was a bit too short. If I'm upgrading, I wouldn't have minded a comparision to something I already have and not just something comparable to something on the market. Especially in an article like this, it's totally appropriate to show me where I've been, where I'm going and what the future is. In this review if a vanilla 6800 or a 5950 were shown, it would bolster your case that for $350 you aren't getting much of an upgrade from what you currently have.

I thought the BOO! section was a bit awkward. You tell me that you're not going to show me the graphs and squiggy lines, but not why. I'd drop this sentence or quickly refer what you stated in the first paragraph: you're getting right to the heart of the matter. The rest of the paragraph does tend to sermonize a bit. Yeah, tell me something I don't know, I need to upgrade. I didn't feel any compassion for those of us who can't upgrade at the moment or just want to squeeze the last bit of life out of a great system. Overall, it didn't fit your audience who is reading this card because they want a AGP upgrade. What you are saying is correct and is a bitter pill, but does it have to be here? Wouldn't this be better in a feature story?

The testing section is curious. You want to cut to the chase, but show a picture of control panel of the GS. I found it extraneous. I'd much rather cut this picture out and put a performance graph in it's place. I mean, if you're going to find that "sweet spot", why not spend 10 seconds writing down the basic framerate numbers? (I know you've addressed this Kyle in other posts. I just want to make sure that I mentioned it.)

Now to the good stuff: I liked that you quickly summarized the games played and gave your overall impressions. I don't need huge screenshots showing me a still of a game. That doesn't tell me jack. In this case, your words tell more than a picture can. For me, the most important line in the entire review was:
I just feel as though that you guys tied to an AGP platform, for whatever reason, deserve a bit more for your money.
Perfect. I can sum up the entire review in one sentence. That's exactly what I'm looking for in a review. You were also to provide insight into the hardware that won't be shown on the box. ("The GS! Now with 30% less pipelines!")

I might have some quibbles on some phrasing, but I can take that up with Morley on my own time. ;) Summary: Good format, but still needs to flavor it up with some sympathy and a few more stats.
 
I wanted to make this a separate post about AGP cards. I know that there's this big movement to upgrade to PCIe because it's future and it's here and all that. For those of us who are still on AGP, there's something to be set to keep your system running as long as you can, overclocking it and tweaking it, just to stick it to The Man for whatever reason. I mean, isn't that part of the spirit of HardOCP?

Isn't this the same group of guys that took all those Celerons and overclocked them saying, "Hey, I don't need that fancy schmancy new Pentium. Look what I can do for much, much less!" So, if I can find a video card for my AGP bus that does much the same that a PCIe card, why is there so much flak for taking that route? Now, clearly the 7800 GS isn't going to be that card (at least for that price) but if another AGP card comes out that lets me ride off into the sunset feeling happy I extended my system another year, am I going to have a bunch of people making fun of me for doing that rather than upgrading to PCIe?
 
Torgo, you really put your finger on why I'm also astonished at this berating of AGP owners, being seen on just about every forum.

It goes way beyond the example you cite (Celeron v. Pentium). 80% of the whole freaking computing world is still on AGP. Yet when reading some of these rants it's like the technology has been obsolete for a decade.

No one is arguing whether PCI-E is the next step forward. But c'mon people, few if any current games take full advantage of even an 8X AGP bus, let alone a 16X PCI-E bus. Telling 80% of the computing world that we're just wasting our money, trying to get some further value out of our investments -- which in many cases is substantial and goes far beyond just a motherboard and video card -- is just pure BS.
 
Frank DC said:
Telling 80% of the computing world that we're just wasting our money, trying to get some further value out of our investments -- which in many cases is substantial and goes far beyond just a motherboard and video card -- is just pure BS.

IMO wasting your money would be buying a new mobo now when a few months down the line we're going to have to get ANOTHER new mobo if we want a new processor or new ram.

-wil
 
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