Conclusion

The Albatron 7800 GTX is to say the least thoroughly impressive.  Even with eye candy maxed out even at 1600 resolution, game play was smooth as glass.  What is easy to forget is that our testing is with ONE card.  The 7800 GTX benefits from NVidia’s SLI dual card technology which can allow two cards to operate in conjunction with one another splitting the work load.  While SLI isn’t exactly going to give you double the performance, the increase is something akin to swatting a fly with a hammer.  For benchmark rodeo purposes this is the way to go.  As far as playing games, a single 7800 GTX will give you performance to the point that your system may not be able to take full advantage of the card and may in fact be a bottleneck to the card’s performance unless you have all your settings turned way up.  Which by the way is spectacular to look at, giving full and very very vivid glory to the details of your first person shooter or sim.

Several review sites have really popped the 7800 GTX from a price point of being around $500.  For the past few years, be it ATi or NVidia, the pinnacle of VGA performance has always hit the market around $500.  The increase in performance with the 7800 GTX is much more than just the next logical step as we have seen before.  With this said, your dollar is actually much more future proof here than it has ever been before.  Albatron’s only negative point with their reference designed 7800 GTX is the lack of a fat bundle.  This lack of a big bundle cuts two ways; sure you don’t have loads of extras but you also aren’t paying for them.  Albatron’s card is pricing out roughly $50 less than the average 7800 GTX.  It has been rare that I’ve played (much less installed) anything in a bundle so I’d rather keep my money in my pocket than spend it on something I won’t be using/playing.  One very positive point about the bundle I want to underscore is the variety of cables Albatron choose to include.  HTPC owners will fully appreciate these.

On the issue of money and price point, the end user will have to evaluate for themselves if are they willing to drop this kind of money down on an upgrade.  Up until just a few years ago, I never would.  However, after tasting the very addictive 1600 resolution eye candy it is hard to go back.  All things considered, its impossible not to fully recommend this card not only for its performance now but for it being more future proof than any other video card we’ve ever seen.  Albatron keeps the packaging and pricing simple and low, to help get more folks hooked on this very addictive card’s performance and image quality. 

Pros

• Tim Taylor type performance

• Quite operation

• Performance high enough to make the Albatron 7800 GTX much more future proof than average

• Cables included with bundle will thrill HTPC/Gamers

• Image quality

• Priced at  ~ $460

Cons

• Needs a minimum 400w PSU

• Priced at ~ $460