The Verdict
In many ways this review has been similar to our reference review and even more similar to the Point of View GeForce 7800 GTX that we tested a little while ago. Again we see a card that is 100% reference based and up to a few MHz similar. So from that perspective there really isn't any difference at all. That by itself is not an issue, but I do like to see manufacturers alter small stuff, even if it's only the active fan or PCB coloring. I don't know why but I like to see the products a bit different. From a performance perspective it's all pretty much the same though.
What you can't deny though is that sheer computing power this offers.
The GeForce 7800 GTX from MSI is a beast! An exotic one though as the price is so high it'll make you a little dizzy. The cheapest price I found was 500 EUR and the highest 669 EUR. That's quite a lot. A little strange as in America you can pick this baby up for 479 USD.
The single slot reference design cooling that actually is silent and working efficiently. No, I'm really impressed by this GeForce 7800 GTX. We've had absolutely no stability issues or incompatibility. Everything worked straight out of the box yet it offers you heaps of performance and the possibility to play your games at extremely high quality.
A high-end graphics card needs a symbiosis with a high-end CPU. 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 or a rather sizable AMD Athlon 64 3400+; this is something you need at the least. Even with our Athlon 4000+ testing rig we ran into CPU limitation here and there. That's does not mean games run like crap though, oh of course not. They are way up there in the highest ranking scores and performance. Yet the graphics card can go faster then it's allowed. The CPU simply isn't presenting data fast enough to the graphics card driver. Even a game like Half-Life 2 for example can run into that limitation if you turn off stuff like AA and AF and then measure in 1024x768. Of course you'll have incredible framerates and let me emphasize this again, at blazing speeds. But the graphics card could compute faster if it were allowed to receive more data from the CPU in certain games.
Quite honestly that's a luxury problem though as future games will happily utilize all that power. If you can afford it, hey I can recommend it, though I think it's an awful lot of money to play games. If you like to safe a hundred bucks, het then please go for the plain 'GT' version as that one is the second in command and will float your boat.
MSI is offering a great graphics card here and although for the most of you this is half a month salary, it was an honor to have this little beast in our gaming rigs. Of you can't afford a GTX .. hmm keep the GT series in mind okay ? Other then that, a full game included, fastest card available to date, Video in and outputs, HDTV block .. you pretty much receive all you'll need for a while. Two thumbs up and recommended.
Special thanks go out to MSI Netherlands for providing this sample.
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