Asus Extreme N7800GTX Top - GeForce 7800 GTX

When NVIDIA launched the GeForce 7800GTX back in June, most of the retail cards we saw were cookie-cutter replicas of each other, at least physically.  About the only things that differentiated one card from another were various clock speed tweaks depending on the manufacturer or the software and game bundles that were included.  Regardless, with the design elegance that the reference GeForce 7800 GTX offers, we were certain it wouldn't be long before the various AIBs brought out their own customized variations on the product.

Although its PCB design is still very much a stock GeForce 7800GTX layout, the ASUS Extreme N7800GTX Top is the first retail board we've seen that incorporates a significant departure from the cooling solution NVIDIA designed for its reference 7800GTX cards.  We recently took a pair of these new ASUS boards for a spin in the HotHardware test lab in an effort to see what they were made of, and if the new cooling system ASUS has put together for the GeForce 7800GTX offers benefits above and beyond the high-performance and relatively quiet product that NVIDIA has already brought to market. 

ASUS Extreme N7800GTX Top Specifications When Killer Fast Just Isn't Fast Enough

Core GPU Clock - 486MHz 256MB - GDDR3 Memory @ 1.35GHz (675MHz DDR) NVIDIA CineFX 4.0 Shading Architecture •_Vertex Shaders ·_Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shader 3.0 ·_Displacement mapping ·_Geometry instancing ·_Infinite length vertex programs •_Pixel Shaders ·_Support for DirectX 9.0 Pixel Shader 3.0 ·_Full pixel branching support ·_Support for Multiple Render Targets (MRTs) ·_Infinite length pixel programs •_Next-Generation Texture Engine ·_Accelerated texture access ·_Up to 16 textures per rendering pass ·_Support for 16-bit floating point format and 32-bit floating point format ·_Support for non-power of two textures ·_Support for sRGB texture format for gamma textures ·_DirectX and S3TC texture compression •_Full 128-bit studio-quality floating point precision through the entire rendering pipeline with native hardware support for 32bpp, 64bpp, and 128bpp rendering modes API Support • Complete DirectX support, including the latest version of Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 •_Full OpenGL support, including OpenGL 2.0 64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending •_Full floating point support throughout entire pipeline •_Floating point filtering improves the quality of images in motion •_Floating point texturing drives new levels of clarity and image detail •_Floating point frame buffer blending gives detail to special effects like motion blur and explosions NVIDIA Intellisample 4.0 Technology •_Advanced 16x anisotropic filtering (with up to 128 Taps) •_Blistering- fast antialiasing and compression performance •_Gamma-adjusted rotated-grid antialiasing removes jagged edges for incredible image quality •_Transparent multisampling and transparent supersampling modes boost antialiasing quality to new levels •_Support for normal map compression •_Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data at even higher resolutions and frame rates •_Fast z-clear NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology •_Designed to enhance the performance of shadow-intensive games NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0 Technology •_DVC color controls •_DVC image sharpening controls NVIDIA SLI Technology •_Patented hardware and software technology allows two GPUs to run in parallel to scale performance •_Scales performance on over 60 top PC games and applications

NVIDIA PureVideo Technology •_Adaptable programmable video processor •_High-definition MPEG-2 and WMV9 hardware acceleration •_Spatial-temporal de-interlacing •_Inverse 2:2 and 3:2 pull-down (Inverse Telecine) •_4-tap horizontal, 5-tap vertical scaling •_Overlay color temperature correction •_Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple video windows with full video quality and features in each window •_Integrated HDTV output Composited Desktop Hardware Engine •_Video post-processing •_Real-time desktop compositing •_Accelerated antialiased text rendering •_Pixel shader-driven special effects and animation Advanced Display Functionality •_Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 at 85Hz •_Dual DVO ports for interfacing to external TMDS transmitters and external TV encoders •_Full NVIDIA nView multi-display technology capability Advanced Engineering •_Designed for PCI Express x16 •_Designed for high-speed GDDR3 memory Operating Systems •_Windows XP/Windows XP 64 •_Windows ME •_Windows 2000 •_Linux •_Macintosh OS X Software Bundle •_Project Snow Blind •_Xpand Rally •_Second Sight •_Power Drome •_Chaos League •_ASUS DVD •_Media & Show •_Power Director 3 •_ASUS Driver & Utilities •_Leather CD caseAdapter/Cable Bundle •_VIVO cable w/ breakout box •_DVI adaptors •_Power cord

Again the base technology that the Extreme N7800GTX Top is designed around is standard-issue NVIDIA reference design.  In fact, as you'll see in the pages ahead, the PCB is very much the same as any other 7800GTX out there.  Where ASUS took steps to differentiate was with respect to the integrated active cooling solution on this product. This allows ASUS to bump up clock speeds to 486MHz on the GPU and 1.35GHz on the memory, versus 430MHz and 1.2GHz respectively with NVIDIA's reference design. ASUS decided to go the way of a dual-slot cooling system to achieve this; we'll have more details on it and how it performs in the pages ahead.  We'll also be comparing performance of the ASUS Extreme N7800GTX Top against a standard reference design approach product from BFG, which also comes overclocked out of the box at 460MHz/1.3GHz.

Beyond that however, ASUS bundles a rather uninspiring offering of software to accompany this high-end card, with such titles as Project Snow Blind, Xpand Rally, Second Sight, Power Drome, Chaos League, ASUS DVD, Media & Show, Power Director 3, ASUS Drivers & Utilities.  They are also all wrapped up with a leather CD case, but for what it's worth, we would much rather have seen a more popular game title thrown into the mix.  ASUS seemed to opt for quantity not quality with this game bundle of no-names, while others such as BFG and MSI are tossing in titles like Far Cry and Riddick.  Regardless, there is still some level of play value with some of these titles.  More on this to come.