August 11th saw the launch of the second card of NVIDIA's 7800 lineup, the GeForce 7800 GT. nV News received a reference sample of the GeForce 7800 GT a few days before launch to prepare a article covering our initial impression. The commentary, written by Mike Chambers, can be found here.
This report will take a more comprehensive/exhaustive look at what the GeForce 7800 GT brings to the table and what it means for the high-end gamer.
GeForce 7800 GT Logo
Arriving almost two months after the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GTX, the 7800 GT shares many aspects with its more powerful brother, as it name would imply. Most importantly, they are both based on the same next-generation 7 Series architecture. Thus, all the new features and attributes announced with the 7800 GTX will also be found within the 7800 GT.
If this is the first 7 Series review you are reading, then please take a look at Mike's informative NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX preview. Mike's article will provide you with all the features, technical specifications, and an excellent image quality investigation of the 7800 GTX.
Today may also mark the end of era an NVIDIA did not provide information in regards to an AGP version of the GeForce 7800 GTX. They are also announcing the GeForce 7800 GTX today and declined to provide any further information at this time concerning additional GPUs that are expected to make up the GeForce 7 Series.
Reference GeForce 7800 GT
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The 7 Series architecture ushered in updates to numerous existing NVIDIA technologies. The CineFX Shading Architecture, which is responsible for the vertex and pixel shaders as well as the texture engine has been rewritten to improve performance, as well as support new anti-aliasing functionality built into Intellisample 4.0.
These new anti-aliasing modes, Transparent AA and Gamma Corrected AA focus on improving image quality in area where the previous AA modes were not capable of further improving.
Gamma Corrected AA improves the color reproduction functionality of the video card / monitor combination. The overall improvement provided by this feature is fairly subjective, but a slight improvement can be seen around thin objects, such as power lines.
Transparent AA improves the quality of transparent edges and textures. Use of transparency varies from game to game but it tends to be used on thin objects, such as foliage and metalwork.
An excellent investigation of the new antialiasing effects provided by the 7 Series, written by Chris Ray, can be read here.
Reference GeForce 7800 GT
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Along with the launch of the 7800 GT, NVIDIA has commenced a new marketing campaign entitled "The Power of 3". The "3" being NVIDIA's SLI technology, High Dynamic-Range (HDR) lighting support and Shader Model 3.0 support. Three technologies currently available exclusively in NVIDIA products.
To be honest, support for the "Power of 3" technologies is not exclusive to the 7 Series cards, as all versions of NVIDIA's 6600 and 6800 series cards support the features. However, HDR is extremely taxing on the GPU, as such, only 7 Series cards will be capable of providing an enjoyable gaming experience with this feature enabled.
