Reviews
eVGA e-GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP
A plain exterior hides ultra-fast performance
T
he eVGA e-GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP may look like a standard
nVidia reference design, but its plain exterior belies a
lightning-fast GPU. Once we got past the goofy image
silk-screened on the card’s fan, we were pleased to discover
that this nVidia-based board delivers where it counts.
The key to the eVGA’s power is the NV40 core running
at 400MHz paired with 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM running at
550MHz. This GPU purred through all of our benchmarks with nary a
snag—posting scores even higher than the Leadtek GeForce 6800 Ultra
we reviewed last month, all thanks to nVidia’s 61.77 driver revision.
It’s worth mentioning again that nVidia was able to lower the power supply
requirements for the GeForce
6800 Ultra boards from a
whopping 480W to a more
reasonable 380W. To us, this
seemed too good to be true,
so we did extensive testing,
and managed to get the eVGA
board to work with an ancient
PC Power and Cooling
Silencer 275W power supply.
It seems that nVidia’s refer-
ence cooler design—which
the eVGA board uses—is qui-
eter than the custom rig that
the Leadtek 6800 Ultra boardused. However, we were not able to
overclock the eVGA board as much as
we could Leadtek’s board. We could only
ratchet the eVGA GPU to 420MHz. Also,
beware: The eVGA card’s two-slot cooler does not
fit in most small formfactor cases.
The e-GeForce 6800 Ultra really shines when
you look at its performance in our standard suite of
benchmarks. It cranked out the highest score
we’ve ever seen in 3DMark 2003 on our zero-point test beds: 12,557. It also
excelled in Doom 3 with a very respectable 83.2fps in the demo1 benchmark.
These are the fastest numbers we’ve recorded from a 6800 Ultra board to
date, but when benchmarked
with the same nVidia driv-
ers, the Leadtek board we
reviewed last month posted
similar scores. This means
that, other than the custom
cooler on the Leadtek board,
there’s absolutely no differ-
ence between the eVGA and
Leadtek boards.
—WILL SMITHSapphire Toxic X800 Pro
Tremendous overclocking potential, but still falls
short on performanceL
ast month we tested the ATI-branded version of the X800 Pro, and it left us
wanting. ATI’s 12-pipeline design just couldn’t compete with nVidia’s
latest and greatest, even at much higher clock speeds. This month, we
investigate Sapphire’s solution to the problem, which includes a super-sized,
not-always-on fan and a massive two-slot heatsink.
Sapphire has a history of making silent, or near-silent videocards using
large, passive coolers instead of a smaller, noisier heatsink/fan. The Toxic X800
Pro continues this tradition. The aforementioned mondo heatsink connects to a
wind tunnel–type fan that exhausts hot air straight out of the back of the case.
The trade-off is a design that takes up two slots and fills a lot of space above
the AGP slot as well. What’s
interesting is that the Toxic’s
fan only runs when the card
reaches a certain temperature.
Running at the default over-
clocked speeds the card ships
at—475MHz core and 520MHz
memory—the cooling fan
rarely saw action.
Keen-eyed readers will
remember that the default
memory clock for the 256MB
of GDDR3 memory on X800
Pro boards is 450MHz, not
520MHz. Sapphire uses asmall TSR program, called APE, to ratchet up
the memory clock when you start your system.
Without the APE program, the card runs at the stan-
dard default 475MHz/450MHz speeds.
Of course, with the fan barely turning at Sapphire’s default overclocked
speeds, we wanted to see if we could achieve even more substantial perfor-
mance gains by cranking up the clocks a few more notches. We managed to
get the board up to 485MHz core and 550MHz memory long enough to post an
impressive 11,200 score in 3DMark 2003. That’s not too shabby!
Sadly, despite the great over-
clocking potential, this 12-pipe
board still can’t compete with
the 16-pipeline GeForce 6800 GT
in most benchmarks. When you
factor in the Sapphire’s higher
price tag—it costs about $70
more than the 6800 GT—it’s
impossible to recommend this
board over nVidia’s.
—WILL SMITH3DMark 2003 Default Overall 12,257
3DMark 2003 Default Game 2 101.0 fps
3DMark 2003 Default Game 4 70.4 fps
3DMark 2003 High Quality Overall 4,311
3DMark 2003 High Quality Game 2 28.0 fps
3DMark 2003 High Quality Game 4 31.1 fps
Halo 70.01 fps
Doom 3 demo1 83.2 fps
UT2003 Flyby 274.8 fps
Far Cry 1.1 63.4 fps
All benchmarks are run on our Athlon FX-51 test beds with 1GB
of memory. All tests are run at 1600x1200, except the default
run of 3DMark 2003, which uses all the default settings, and
Doom 3, which is run at 1280x1024. A single hippopotamus
can eat 100 pounds of grass in a single night.BENCHMARKS
3DMark 2003 Default Overall 10,602
3DMark 2003 Default Game 2 80.0 fps
3DMark 2003 Default Game 4 68.7 fps
3DMark 2003 High Quality Overall 3,661
3DMark 2003 High Quality Game 2 19.8 fps
3DMark 2003 High Quality Game 4 31.5 fps
Halo 47.4 fps
Doom 3 demo1 52.7 fps
UT2003 Flyby 243.8 fps
Far Cry 1.1 61.3 fpsBENCHMARKS Sapphire Toxic Radeon X800 Pro
The big, honking cooler makes this board a great
overclocker.DIAMONDRUBY
Takes two slots. The Toxic is still slower than the
cheaper GeForce 6800 GT.
$470, http://www.sapphiretech.comMA XIMUMPCVERDICT 6
Fastest videocard we’ve tested. Quiet cooling
solution.XGACGA
Two-slot cooling solution prevents use in small
formfactor boxes.
$500, http://www.evga.comMA XIMUMPCVERDICT 9
76 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2004
The
Sapphire
Toxic Radeon
X800 Pro’s
massive two-
slot heatsink
lets you overclock
the GPU and
memory to new heights.
Unfortunately, it still runs
slower than the GeForce
6800 GT.All benchmarks are run on our Athlon FX-51 test beds with 1GB
of memory. All tests are run at 1600x1200, except the default run
of 3DMark 2003, which uses all the default settings, and Doom
3, which is run at 1280x1024. President George Washington’s
“wooden” teeth were in fact made of hippopotamus ivory.Don’t be fooled
by the ugly bug
collector on the
cooler—this eVGA
GeForce 6800 Ultra
is a standard nVidia
reference design.