The ASUS N7800GTX TOP is a great card, using the powerful and most recent nVidia G70. The largest part of the card's surface is occupied by the large cooling system from Arctic-Cooling, the NV Silencer which is a much more efficient cooling system keeping the temperatures close to 42°C in idle and 50°C while running 3DMark05. With NVidia's stock cooling system, the temperatures are approximately 50°C and 65°C for idle and 3DMark05 loads respectively.

The ASUS N7800GTX TOP dominates in all tests, and no other card can compete with its outstanding performance. The 3DMark05 score of 8508 is the highest we have ever seen from a single card. Moreover, this could be even higher but we chose to use the AMD 3500+ instead of an FX-55 or FX-57, due to its popularity. Otherwise, the score could reach around 8700 3DMarks for example. The actual performance, meaning in games, of the ASUS N7800GTX TOP was higher in framerates than the already excellent 6800Ultra and X850XT. Filters such as Antialiasing, Anisotropic Filtering and Transparency Antialiasing are not a problem for the card. You won't notice any drop in framerates even at 1024X768 with all those enabled. However, even at 1600X1200 the performance remains awesome.

The overclocking capabilities of the ASUS N7800GTX TOP are limited, something logical since the card already has increased clock speeds from the manufacturer, 486MHz for the Core Clock Frequency and 1.35GHz for the Memory Clock Frequency instead of the default 430MHz and 1.2GHz that a normal 7800GTX has. However, you can still go a little higher, 500MHz and 1.37GHz, something that indicates that the manufacturer has chosen the clock speeds not only for highest performance but also for reliability and stability. Although we rated as low the "Overclocking" capabilities, we strongly believe that this is something you should ignore.

The retail package has everything users will need to get started, including a DVI adapter and power cables. As for software, there is not only the Driver & Utilities disc but also Project Snow Blind, Xpand Rally, Chaos League, Second Sight and Power Drome games as well as ASUS DVD, Media & Show and Power Director 3. However, the games don't take advantage of the full capabilities of the card and this is mainly the reason we didn't rate the "Bundle" as 5 star at the bottom of this page.

At this point, we will explain why we decided to compare the performance of the ASUS N7800GTX TOP with that of the 6800Ultra and X850XT. At the time of this review, the price of the ASUS was close to $550 on the e-market while the 6800Ultra costs approximately $400~550, $400 for our AOpen, and the X850XT close to $350~550, $400 for our Sapphire. This makes the ASUS N7800GTX TOP a very tempting offer, despite the extra cost, since you get the most recent in technology and the highest performance in a single card.

Pros:
- Awesome performance in all tests
- Excellent cooling system
- Rather low noise levels
- Great nVidia features for unique image quality
- Very good retail package

Cons:
- Highly priced, aiming PC enthusiasts

Performance:
Overclocking:
Bundle:
Value for money: