Why You Can Trust CNET PNY Verto GeForce 7800 GT (256MB) review: PNY Verto GeForce 7800 GT (256MB)
PNY's Verto GeForce 7800 GT 3D card delivers almost everything you want in a $400 3D card. It performs as expected, knocking out ATI on Doom 3 and running nearly alongside it on Half-Life 2. Its bundle covers all the modern connectivity bases. If it came with an overclocking utility and better Web support, it might be perfect.
It's easy to like the $400 PNY Verto GeForce 7800 GT. As a stand-alone 3D card, it delivers the 3D performance we expected, but it really shines with its upgrade path. By offering a card that supports SLI, which allows you to add two graphics cards to one PCe, PNY puts itself on the winning side of the 3D-graphics-card wars, since ATI's competing CrossFire dual-card 3D technology has proven itself a late-to-market underperformer. The Verto also comes with an extensive set of adapters and cables that make it easy to install in a variety of configurations. If it had an overclocking utility and more robust Web support, it might be perfect.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Like all GeForce 7800 GTs, the Verto is a single-slot PCI Express card. It requires a direct connection to your computer's power supply, but PNY includes a splitter cable in the packaging if your current supply doesn't have the right number of connectors. You'll also want to make sure that your power supply has enough juice to power the Verto. Single-card users will need a 350-watt supply; if you plan to run two cards in SLI mode, you'll need 450 watts. That's more than comes standard in most desktops (although those are the standard power requirement ratings for all GeForce 7800 GTs), so you may need to consider upgrading your power supply as well.
PNY was thoughtful with the bundled adapters, too. The Verto card has two digital video outputs--a great feature for those with LCD monitors. PNY also provides two DVI-toVGA adapters, which you'll need if you still have a CRT or an analog-only LCD. Like all GeForce 7800 GT cards, the Verto is capable of running dual-link DVI. This lets you achieve a maximum resolution of 2,560x1,600 at a 60Hz refresh rate, which high-end monitors such as Apple's 30-inch Cinema HD Display require.
With PCs taking over more and more home-theater duties, it's important that your graphics card work with several different components. The Verto comes with both a standard S-Video output and an S-Video cable for plugging into your television. More exciting, it comes with an HDTV-out adapter, which means you can output content from your PC at HD resolution of up to 1080i.
The PNY Verto GeForce 7800 GT's software bundle is a mixed bag. You get Nvidia's drivers, some stock Nvidia 3D demos, and the full version of Call of Duty 2, a hot new 3D shooter that shows off what the card can do. Unfortunately, you don't get an overclocking utility. You can get to the CoolBits overclocking software through a Registry tweak, but it's not readily accessible. It would be much more convenient if PNY invested in a software front end that allowed easy performance tweaks to Nvidia's drivers.
We also have a gripe with PNY's Web support. Component-level support is never that impressive, and true, there's a world of Nvidia-enthusiast Web sites out there with more advice than you could possibly want. The problem is that you have to sift through all of it to find what you need. It looks as if PNY took a stab at putting together some useful info, but it's badly in need of an update. The glossary, the FAQ, and the other features need a revamp. Adding a user forum wouldn't hurt, either.
Speaking of performance, the PNY card scored as expected, which is to say better than its ATI competition on Doom 3 but not as fast on Half-Life 2 and Direct3D-based games in general. On our Doom 3 tests, the PNY Verto achieved 47 frames per second (fps) on our demanding 1,600x1,200 resolution test. This score is especially impressive: four frames per second faster than ATI's more expensive 512MB Radeon X1800 XT card. Half-Life 2 proved more challenging; the Verto scored 48fps to the 256MB ATI Radeon X1800 XL's 51fps. This result is not as much of a win for ATI, because the Radeon X1800 XL is in the same price category as the Verto GeForce 7800 GT, and you would expect the two to be competitive.
The performance results become even more interesting when you compare the results of two PNY cards running in SLI mode. In every test, the pair of cards posted the fastest results we've seen in a 3D-card review (granted, we didn't compare two GeForce 7800 GTX cards this time around, which should be even faster). The closest ATI could come with its Radeon X850 XT cards in CrossFire mode was on the Half-Life 2 1,024x768-resolution test, where the PNY cards had only a 6 percent advantage (true, the CrossFire test bed used the slightly slower AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU, but the difference shouldn't be that significant). Otherwise, ATI can't compete with the PNY cards in dual-card mode. And that's not even taking into account differences in image quality (read our review of the GeForce 7800 GT chip for a breakdown of its features).
We should say outright that we don't have an appropriate crosscompany comparison. ATI doesn't yet offer a CrossFire version of the Radeon X1800 XL card, which you would need to link two of them together. That makes our results more of a current-state-of-the-market comparison rather than a technology head-to-head. Two ATI Radeon X1800 XLs could be faster than two PNY Verto GeForce 7800 GT cards, but we won't know until ATI releases the CrossFire edition. At this point, the PNY cards give us the fastest 3D results we've seen.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | 1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,600x1,200, High Quality, with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 1,280x1,024, High Quality, with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 1,024x768, High Quality, with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,600x1,200 | | 1,280x1,024 | | 1,024x768 |
ATI driver used: Catalyst 5.9 (WHQL), Beta X1x00 drivers (for X1000-series cards), Catalyst CrossFire (WHQL)
Nvidia driver used: ForceWare 78.01 (WHQL)
Find out more about how we test graphics cards.
Graphics test bed
2.4 GHz Athlon 64 FX-57; (2) 512MB Corsair XMS 3200XLPRO DDR, giving 1,024MB DDR SDRAM running at 400MHz; Seagate 7200.7 160GB NCQ SATA hard drive; Asus A8N SLI motherboard; Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
ATI CrossFire test bed
2.4 GHz Athlon 64 X2 4800+; (2) 512MB Corsair XMS 3200XLPRO DDR, giving 1,024MB DDR SDRAM running at 400MHz; Seagate 7200.7 160GB NCQ SATA hard drive; ATI Xpress 200 CrossFire reference motherboard; Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2