SUMMARY: We've reviewed many ASUS graphics cards in previous years but we always wondered why they cost more than other brands. Sure, they always included a healthy package but does that alone really justify spending extra? Today we take a close look at two of ASUS's new GeForce 7800 GTX “T.O.P” cards in SLI which come factory overclocked with fancy and effective coolers. Read on find out why we think ASUS finally hit the nail on the head for a true premium (kick ass) high-end graphics card!
The only thing better than a single 7800GTX is two of them and the only thing better then that are two with some funky aftermarket coolers installed without risking your warranty. The Silencer line up from Arctic Cooling has been one of the most popular aftermarket coolers in a long time and the only company that comes close to competing with them is Zalman.
We can see that on the front of the cooler we have T.O.P. which stands for Top Overclocking Performance as we discussed in the introduction. This card comes in at a hefty 486MHz core and 1.35GHz memory which is a huge jump over the standard 400MHz core and 1.2GHz memory speed. These speeds are only obtainable with the help of the Silencer cooler which offers not only better cooling performance but less noise, so it really is a win-win situation.
Moving to the front of the card we have our Dual DVI ports which we find on all 7800 GTX’s and the S Video like cable which lets us plug our little box into giving us all the joys of VIVO and HDTV Out.
Moving around to the rear of the card we have our PCI E power connector. If you have a power supply that has this connector built into it (most new ones do), you can just insert it straight in and get up and running otherwise you will have to use the PCI E connector that comes with the package which requires you to use two Molex connectors. You really need to make sure you have some spare as when running in SLI you need a total of four spare Molex connectors – so keep this in mind before buying.
The top of the card shows us two things – first is our trusty SLI connector that lets us run two of these together so we can get up to another 90% performance and a big silver bracket across the top which stops the card from bending. While a little bit of flex in the past might have been okay, with the SLI connector on the top now, nobody wants to risk the flex in a card breaking the crucial connector.
Finally moving to the bottom of the card we have our PCI Express connector at the moment and as far as we can tell the 7800 GTX is going to be PCI Express-only with no word from nVidia in regards to an AGP version coming anytime soon.
