Tom's Hardware > All Reviews > Components > Graphics Cards > Seven of NVIDIA's Latest and Greatest Cards Tested

Seven of NVIDIA's Latest and Greatest Cards Tested

6:06 AM - December 9, 2005 by Tino Kreiss

1. Introduction
2. Introduction, Continued
3. A Detailed Look At The Candidates
4. Feature Set
5. Noise
6. Web Support
7. Asus GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme
8. Noise
9. Web Support
10. SLI 2x Asus GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme
11. SLI 2x Asus GeForce 7800 GTX Extreme, Continued
12. Gigabyte GeForce 6600 GT Silentpipe II
13. Tools And Software
14. Web Support
15. SLI 2x Gigabyte 6600 GT Silentpipe II
16. Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GT
17. Noise
18. Web Support
19. SLI 1x Gigabyte 7800 GT And 1x Asus GeForce 7800 GT Extreme
20. Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GTX Turbo Force
21. Noise

22. Web Support
23. SLI 2x Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GTX Turbo Force
24. MSI GeForce 6600 GT Diamond
25. Noise
26. Tools And Software, Continued
27. Tools And Software, Continued
28. Tools And Software, Continued
29. Web Support
30. Overclocking And Heat
31. Overclocking And Heat, Continued
32. EVGA GeForce 7800 GTX Black Pearl
33. Feature Set
34. Tools And Software
35. Overclocking And Heat
36. Test Setup
37. Benchmarks
38. F.E.A.R
39. 3DMark 2005
40. Power Consumption
41. Noise
42. Heat
43. Conclusion

This roundup focuses on graphics cards that manufacturers have sent to the THG lab in retail boxes. Retail, in this case, means that the card reaches us in one of the colorful boxes buyers would find at the store, not in a "plain brown box" as a system OEM would buy. It also means that the card itself is shipping with its full final bundle, as opposed to a pre-production sample without software.

Experience has taught us that getting a retail bundle of a newly introduced product is not always possible. Indeed, hardware testers usually find it much easier to get the reference card of a certain graphics card generation instead. The trouble is that these are usually hand-picked pre-production samples, and they come without any extra features or software. In some cases, the final shipping cards will actually use a different board layout or cooling solution - in short, reference cards are not always representative of the final product when it comes to feature set, software bundle and, in some cases, even performance.

Of course, hardware reviewers and card makers alike prefer that flagship and reference boards be reviewed as early as possible - albeit obviously for different reasons. Once the reference cards are out, the smaller cards can then ride on the success of the bigger models. The more recommendations the flagship models receive, and the higher their new performance results are, the better the middle-class cards will sell.