Introduction

Since its introduction earlier this year, NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GTX GPU has been dominating the high-end graphics card market. Thanks to the GeForce 7800 GTX’s unique combination of not only more pixel and vertex shading units but also more refined pixel and vertex shaders (as well as high clock speeds), the GeForce 7800 GTX was able to deliver twice the performance of anything else on the market, all while doing so in a single-slot package that requires less power than a GeForce 6800 Ultra!

The BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 512MB

NVIDIA reference board (top) sits alongside BFG and XFX GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB cards

The X1800 XT 512MB and BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 512MB

ATI attempted to reestablish parity with the unveiling of the RADEON X1K line. On the high-end, the RADEON X1800 XT 512MB is more than capable of giving a GeForce 7800 GTX a run for its money, in fact newer ATI drivers have given the X1800 XT 512MB the performance edge over the GeForce 7800 GTX in games NVIDIA has traditionally dominated such as DOOM 3. Meanwhile, the X1800 XL is meant to compete with the GeForce 7800 GT while the RADEON X1600 and X1300 were intended to challenge NVIDIA’s position in the mainstream and value segments respectively.



NVIDIA has since responded with a slew of new products, all of which we’ve detailed in the past few weeks. NVIDIA started at the lower end of the market first, quietly releasing the GeForce 6600 DDR2. The 6600 DDR2 is meant to replace the original GeForce 6600 DDR1 and ships with faster clocks and new DDR2 memory. We found it delivers more performance for less money than ATI’s RADEON X1300 PRO. Then, just last month NVIDIA introduced two more new GPUs, the GeForce 6800 GS and the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB.

Right now, the GeForce 6800 GS really has no natural competitor, as ATI’s X1600 cards still haven’t hit retail in massive quantities, while the GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB’s supercharged clock speeds have propelled it ahead of the RADEON X1800 XT 512MB in performance. This GeForce 7800 Ultra card in disguise is the unquestionable king of the hill among 3D graphics cards.

The BFG card is much bigger than GeForce 6800 GT

Even the BFG GeForce 7800 GT looks small in comparison to the 512MB 7800 GTX

BFG uses NVIDIA reference board design

BFG, already well known for building cards that cater to enthusiasts, has taken NVIDIA’s reference GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB board and put their stamp all over it. The result is a card that definitely stands out from the rest of the pack. Read on to see why we were so impressed with this board!