User Overclocking
It would seem that at least for the card that we received, the modified heat sink didn't mean an incredibly greater overclock. We were able to overclock the core to 500MHz, which is a step up from the factory overclock, and we pushed the memory clock as high as 1.35GHz. This is the highest core and memory clock that we've managed to get out of overclocking any of our cards.The high memory clock speed that we were able to get was interesting, and even beat BFG's 1.3GHz when we overclocked it. This made sense though, considering the fact that this EVGA card is the first that we've seen with RAM sinks on the back.
We're continuing to look into how these cards overclock, and we hope to have some firm answers from NVIDIA soon. It's somewhat frustrating when you have two 7800s hypothetically clocked at 426MHz and the 445MHz, and the reality is that they perform exactly the same (give or take a few tenths of a FPS on average). To us, that seems a little irresponsible, especially when the different vendors can use this to mislead buyers. An example of this would be with three of the 7800s that we've reviewed (including this one), each of which come factory overclocked. They were the EVGA e-GeForce 7800GTX (with a core clock speed of 450MHz), the BFG 7800GTX OC (460MHz core), and the EVGA e-GeForce 7800GTX KO (490MHz ). It would be logical then to assume that because of this, the EVGA clocked at 450MHz wouldn't perform as well as the other two. In fact, that assumption would be wrong.
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rqle - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
I actually enjoy editors views on different issue, doesnt really bother me if it left or right or if i agree or disagree. It seems to make the website more of a discussion and community base site then a boring TECH newspapers. Same way i enjoy Anand blog, his views and how he sees things makes this site a whole lot friendlier . I'll admit, he does avoid certain 'heated' issue or doesnt want to be bother with them and i respect that. If plain tech info is all i want, i would be reading the manufacture website and graphs which get quite boring. Ill have to admit i do think the added heatsink(workable or not) and warranty does make it worth while. Probably going to end up disagreeing with Kyle, to me doesnt make him less of a person. I actually thinks it neat that he does express issue like this big or small.RaistlinZ - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
How can you say buying this card is not in your best interest? For those that want BF2 it's a decent buy, and the performance speaks for itself.These would make a good choice if you plan on running in SLI since you're GUARANTEED that you'll get 490core/1300mem out of the box.
SpaceRanger - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
You're paying extra and NOT getting BF2... This card sells for 60 bucks more, and all you get is a metal box around an old heatsink design, and no BF2..SpaceRanger - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
Ohh. Sorry.. unless you have an extra $112 to burn, get the KO BF2 bundle;..BF2 costs 112 bucks?? I doubt it..
DerekWilson - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
You forgot to count the premium they charge for the highest clock speed we've tested yet. Out of the box this is the fastest 7800 GTX we've seen. XFX has a card clocked similarly which we will be testing soon.The EVGA KO with BF2 is now listed as http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=evga+7800">$599 on our pricing engine. The 450/1.2 clocked EVGA with BF2 comes in at $529 making the overclock a $70 cost. Of course $540 could get yout the KO without BF2 now which is only $40 more than the 450/1.2 EVGA.
It's amazing how much prices can change in a day.
Anyway, RAM sinks on the back and a heatsink on the back of the GPU really do seem to make a difference in our overclock tests even if the HSF solution isn't revolutionary as a whole. At least EVGA is doing something different. And as someone who is constantly swapping cards, the fact that the entire pcb is protected is quite an advantage.
In the end it's up to the buyer. But our numbers show the performance advantages (both out of the box and in overclocking). Take it or leave it.
bob661 - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
You can get it at Monarch for $560 and on ZZF for $579. So I don't understand the price issue here.
DerekWilson - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
you're looking at the wrong product ... you can't find the KO with BF2 for less than 600 ... if you want the KO without BF2 its available for as low as 540 ... Those are the prices at Monarch. ZipZoomFly is more expensive ... I don't know what's up with your price info, but make sure you are looking at the KO version.SpaceRanger - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
http://www.hardocp.com/newsarchives.html?news=QXVn...">Link to HardOCP's calling out against EVGA.. It's down a bit in the news archive but its there.SignalPST - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
Does the EVGA e-GeForce 7800GTX KO come with Dual-Link DVI ports?DerekWilson - Tuesday, August 9, 2005 - link
As we've said before, we haven't found a 7800 GTX card without a dual-link DVI chip.We'll keep you guys posted if we find one without this feature.