NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX
Despite the rather odd performance issues witnessed in Half Life 2, we cannot help but be thoroughly impressed with NVIDIA's new GeForce Go 7800GTX. In addition to this GPU producing the fastest mobile benchmark results we have witnessed to date, the fact that you can buy a system configured with this card today makes this product launch a total success. It was very impressive to see a notebook outscore more than 95% of single-card desktop systems on the market. In fact, it's amusing to realize that a notebook with this GPU could realistically be the fastest system at a local LAN party. Regardless of the game being played, and almost regardless of the resolution and features selected, the GeForce Go 7800 GTX makes it all playable with exceptional framerates.
Voodoo PC's CEO Rahul Sood made a comment directly to this point: "By using the new Geforce Go 7800GTX in our Envy Heavyweight notebook we put most desktop computers to shame. This video card is not your average notebook piece - it behaves like its desktop counterpart and schools anything in its class."
The performance issues we witnessed and the comparison with the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra require some explanation, however. Ideally, we would have had a single notebook and been able to test both the GeForce Go 7800 GTX and GeForce Go 6800 Ultra modules on the same system, with the same drivers. However, the time constraints for this review prevented this from happening. As a result, we must be aware of the architectural differences between the systems. As we know, the Pentium M CPU from the Dell Inspiron XPS with the GeForce Go 6800Ultra is much more favorable than the 3GHz Pentium 4 CPU we're using on the GeForce Go 7800 GTX test system. In addition, it would have been ideal to have 2GB installed on our systems to ensure that the amount of system RAM did not have any adverse effect on the overall performance. We have every intention of obtaining a single platform with these characteristics to follow up this review.
The only wild card to the success of the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX is what ATI might have up its sleeve for their own next generation mobile GPU. As is always the case with computer hardware, there is always the potential of something faster on the horizon. However, it is critical to realize that we haven't seen ATI's new mobile GPU and have no idea when it will be released. In stark contrast, we are well aware of how NVIDIA's new GPU performs and you can actually purchase a notebook with this technology at this very moment. Make no mistake about it, the GeForce Go 7800 GTX is the fastest mobile GPU money can buy and will likely be the fastest mobile GPU for quite some time. If you're looking for high-end desktop level performance with the pseudo-portability of a desktop replacement notebook, you need look no further than the GeForce Go 7800 GTX.
We Give the GeForce Go 7800 GTX a Hot Hardware Heat Meter Rating of 9...
