EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX EGS


Introduction, Specifications & Bundle

Almost immediately after we begun working with NVIDIA's reference GeForce 7800 GTX cards in the days and weeks leading up to the launch, we were contacted by a handful of NVIDIA's launch partners and informed that they'd have retail hardware ready to coincide with the official announcement of the GeForce 7800 GTX.  Leadtek, Gigabyte, BFG, MSI, Asus and EVGA were among the first to contact us with some specifics regarding their respective GeForce 7800 GTX cards.  The first one to send us a sample for review, however, was EVGA.

The e-GeForce 7800 GTX we'll be showcasing today is one of three 7800 based products EVGA currently has in their line-up, but we know a fourth model with a custom cooling solution should be available in the not-too-distant future as well. The e-GeForce 7800 GTX we have here, part number 256-P2-N528-AX, is essentially a duplicate of NVIDIA's reference design, with slightly different default core and memory clock speeds and a custom decal on the fan shroud.  EVGA's other 7800 GTX packages, part numbers 256-P2-N538-AX and 256-P2-N525-AX, are very similar, but one ships with a copy of Battlefield 2 in addition to what we're going to spotlight for you here, and the other has a lower default core clock speed...

  

EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX EGS Specifications
The New Flagship
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

    

EVGA included a nice assortment of software and accessories in the bundle for their e-GeForce 7800 GTX.  Along with the card itself, EVGA included a small folder that contained a basic user's guide, a couple of EVGA stickers, a driver / utility CD with trial versions of SnapStream's Beyond Media and Ulead's DVD Movie Factory 3, and EVGA's ResChanger 2005 tool, and another disc with a copy of Cyberlink's PowerDirector software. EVGA also included a pair of DVI-to-DB15 adapters, a dual-molex-to-PCIe power adapter, an S-Video cable, and a small breakout box that housed S-Video and composite inputs, and component and S-Video outputs.  The breakout box and PowerDirector software compliment the e-GeForce 7800 GTX card's ViVo (Video-In / Video-Out) capabilities.

EVGA's bundle was decent, but we would have liked to have seen a couple of other items included as well. Noticeably absent in the e-GeForce 7800 GTX's bundle was any type of game or full-version DVD playback software. Although, the trial version of Beyond Media can playback DVDs and the 256-P2-N538-AX model is available for only a few dollars more, that includes a copy of the excellent Battlefield 2.


Tags:  GeForce, evga, GTX, VGA, force, GT, 7800, 780

Related content