Gainward 7800GT 'Bliss' 512MB GS GLH in action

[The Stilt]

Theinquirer.net (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29252) recently posted some information and benchmarks from Gainwards upcoming 'Bliss' series. There are two 'Bliss' models available, 6800GS and 7800GT. Unlike the other 6800GS and 7800GT cards these cards come with 512MB of GDDR3 memory installed on board. Because there are no pcb´s available for such memory configuration, Gainward has made their own pcb for these cards.

Both of the models are available in two flavors.
The cheapest models are named as "6800GS 'Bliss' 512MB" and 7800GT 'Bliss' 512MB. The high-end models are named as "6800GS 'Bliss' 512MB Golden Sample, Goes-Like-Hell" and "7800GT 'Bliss' 512MB Golden Sample Goes-Like-Hell".

Compared to the cheaper models the Golden Sample, Goes-Like-Hell versions have following differences:

- Copper heatsink on GPU (instead of aluminium)
- Samsung memory (instead of Infineon)
- Rubycon capacitors (instead of United Chemi-Con aka KZG)
- Higher clock frequencies, 7800GT: 450MHz (GPU, instead of 400MHz), 1300MHz (Memory, instead of 1000MHz).
- Higher clock frequencies, 6800GS: 485MHz (GPU, instead of 425MHz), 1300MHz (Memory, instead of 1000MHz).


Few days ago I received few 7800GT 'Bliss' 512MB Golden Sample, Goes-Like-Hell retail cards.

As usual I had to rip the cards apart and see how will they run.


The card look quite different than any other 7800 series card.

http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/7800GT-Bliss/Front.jpg


After stripping the card, the differences could be seen more easily.

http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/7800GT-Bliss/Naked.jpg


The most visible difference is the power regulation.
The power regulation look like it have been loaned from a motherboard..
Which is a very good thing ;)

http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/7800GT-Bliss/Pr.jpg


A closer look to the memory chips show that they are manufactured by Samsung and rated to 1.4ns(!) / 1430MHz

http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/7800GT-Bliss/Samsung14.jpg

Time to put the heatsinks back on and start the testing.

I wanted to start testing with stock cooling and without any mods.

Even without any modifications, this test session wasn´t the easiest.
After installing the drivers I saw some artifacts in the windows loading bar.
When I got to the desktop I saw a pop-up notification which said that there isn´t enough power available for the cards to maintain functionality.
First I thought that it was somekind of bug, but when I lowered the vcore voltage of the cpu, I didn´t see any artifacts or pop-up notifications after bootup. Then I raised the vcore back up, and there was the artifacts and the notification again. I realised that my OCZ Powerstream 600W simply couldn´t supply enough power for two 7800GT cards and dual core cpu, since the psu has two 12V rails (18A + 20A).

After changing in my Tagan 580W 2Force (U22) psu, the problems went away. Tagan can supply 35A to 12V rail in combined mode. That is well enough for pretty much anything :D

After solving the psu problem, I was able to run 3DMark05 thru at 520MHz (GPU) and 1460MHz (Memory) with VERY minor artifacts. This is a fairly good result with stock cooling (which may have been enhanced little bit with cold Finnish winter breeze ;))

http://www.elektroni.fi/Stilt/7800GT-Bliss/3DMark05-14891.jpg

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1835371

The best thing with these card is the price.
The end user prices for these cards here in Finland are 365€ (430$) for the 7800GT 'Bliss' 512MB and 393€ (463$) for the Golden Sample, Goes-Like-Hell model.

btw. The cheaper model also has 1.4ns memory chips (made by Infineon) ;)

[andL64]

1,4ns that s what i saw first, i thought wow nice ;)

looks pretty good that card. i m getting a gaming rig for a friend maybe i ll take this card he want the pc to be oced some bit :D

seemslike its a very good card!

thx 4 sharing

seEn

[fullup3]

Looks nice. Great ram chips there.

[Cooper]

Single card score would be nice :)

[perkam]

www.pricegougingdeluxepackagelimitededition.com

;)

Not bad though :)

Perkam

[jmg823]

Table breaker, nice pics but even at 1280x1024 monitor res it breaks the table, try shrinking the ss down a bit.

Damn nice card there though

[vapb400]

damn nice power design!

[afireinside]

Looks great :slobber: These could take my GT records down easy...

[cMw]

nice ram :O

[cyron1]

oo i wonder how those 6800GS's bench

[Cpt Twitchy]

In case I just flat out missed it what is MSRP

[Clint]

I have had my eyes on that card for a while...I assumed it would rock coz the need for their own PCB...but they ahve gotten a step further and added some nice powerregs and those Samsung mems...:clap:

This will be an awesome OC'er, give it a voltmod and some cooling...:D

..good price as well, will hold for a while this one...gonna order I believe..

[SewerSide]

In case I just flat out missed it what is MSRP

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

[[cTx]Philosophy]

I just got a ocz 600 also and planned going SLI with my 7800GT and 170 opty, U think the ocz is gonna gimme a hard time?

This is really bad news for me...

[don_vercetti]

what's the lowdown on voltdmodding them?

Can you do a BIOS voltmod, for a start? That would be awesome, as that would probably take you up to 550 core, and on a stock 78gt, that would be out of this world.

Anyway, very nice results.

[igor0203]

What about scores with one card? Can you do some tests?

[massman]

nicely done by Gainward

[The Stilt]

Single card results will follow soon.
This day is hallowed to the ice hockey final game...
Maybe this time Finland can defeat the notorious Tre Kronor ("Three Crowns") of Sweden ;)

[Hicks]

So it's not a GT is it? Why call it a GT when it's clocked as a GTX and has the same ram as a GTX?:rolleyes:

[Ints99]

So it's not a GT is it? Why call it a GT when it's clocked as a GTX and has the same ram as a GTX?:rolleyes:
Because it still has 20 pipes ? :slap:
Looking forward to the single card benches.

[Clint]

Single card results will follow soon.
This day is hallowed to the ice hockey final game...
Maybe this time Finland can defeat the notorious Tre Kronor ("Three Crowns") of Sweden ;)

Hah! ...not this time dude ;)

..now you get on with that OC :D

[The Stilt]

Something ain´t right with these single card results.

In 3DMark06 this card scores 4940pts when it´s clocked to 510MHz (GPU) and 1450MHz (Memory). With 2.7GHz Athlon X2 cpu even 256MB 7800GT can defeat this score with lower clocks.

It looks like 3DMark06 hates these cards for some reason.
I even restored the operating system from a ghost image, but there was no change in the score.

Also in 3DMark05 a single card scores just over 9k with 520MHz / 1460MHz clocks...

In single, these cards look just as good as Finnish game did in the ice hockey final game... ;)

[The Stilt]

maybe the ram timings arent that tight on the 1.4ns ddr :)

Just checked them with Nibitor.
A reference 7800GT 256MB with 2.0ns chips use excatly the same timing that this card does.

[Malachia]

Single card results will follow soon.
This day is hallowed to the ice hockey final game...
Maybe this time Finland can defeat the notorious Tre Kronor ("Three Crowns") of Sweden ;)

nice game, just retourned home, great match, the result is only a matter of luck, both teams played great!

btw, nice card...can you compare it to a "normal" 7800gt?

[Dynasty]

Those gainward 7800GT GS's look :slobber: and very nice score on them. :)

[Cooper]

IMO those are good for games with high res - where 512mb become handy :)
Price tag on those is pretty high :(

[The Stilt]

IMO those are good for games with high res - where 512mb become handy :)
Price tag on those is pretty high :(

High?
That is about half of the price of 7800GTX 512MB.
It is true that the GTX have 4 additional pipelines, one additional vertex shader unit and faster memory chips. If you can get two of these cards for the price of one 7800GTX 512MB card which one would you take?

[OmegaMerc]

I just got a ocz 600 also and planned going SLI with my 7800GT and 170 opty, U think the ocz is gonna gimme a hard time?

This is really bad news for me...

Thats my setup right now, no problems, very stable.

[afireinside]

I run my GT SLI + dual core 4 hdds and all that on an enermax liberty 500 watt. Dual 22a rails. Not sure why it works. My OCZ520 was on the verge of explosion with this setup.

stilt> 9k seems kind of bad, with a 2.8ghz dual core and a 527/1125 7800GT 256mb I scored 8.5k...

[The Stilt]

stilt> 9k seems kind of bad, with a 2.8ghz dual core and a 527/1125 7800GT 256mb I scored 8.5k...

True.

[IvanAndreevich]

So.. it costs like a GTX but it has 20 pipes. Hm, I think this thing is obsolete before even coming out - 7900GT will have MSRP of $299 USD very very soon.

[Cpt Twitchy]

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price
doh :slap: I meant to ask what is the MSRP on these cards going to be. Later I saw what Stilt paid which should be lower once they hit the US casue we always seem to get stuff cheaper.

[EvilCloudStrife]

i thought gainward declared bankruptsy and went out of buisness. They were not honoring warrantys anymore either

[varzmaster]

I've been playing with these new BLISS cards also. First thing I noticed was the fact the memory chips where positioned in an L shape which should cut down cost of production (the refference design has the mem chips plced in a semi-circle around the GPU).

The core is rather normal, 5 BLISS 7800 GT cards clocked around the 500 MHz mark on the GPU and the mem around 1400 MHz. Best I've seen is 510/1470 MHz. This is with stock cooling.

Regarding the VRM - efficency seems a little bit down as the card heats up quite a bit in that area compared to the refference design. But at least it prooves that the VRM wasn't the limmiting factor in reaching high OCs with the 7800 GT (random lok-ups at high freq rather than tons of artefacts) - this new VRM looks better than the old one but the OC problems are still there. :)

Anyway, the cards are nice and honour the Gainward brand... but did you guys see the Palit card (http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=3&id=1809)? Same PCB design, half the memory. ;)

I call this the shooting yourself in the foot manuver... :D

[Dillusion]

GOD gainward cards are SO COOL, I wish they never pulled out of the US market :(

[Kenetixx]

Nice looking card that , nice score to BTW

[EnJoY]

I'd buy a pair of these... ;)

[perry_78]

PNY Technologies bought gainward, and in my eyes Gainward has never been the same :(

[xtremetheme]

Just checked them with Nibitor.
A reference 7800GT 256MB with 2.0ns chips use excatly the same timing that this card does.

Hi could you send me the BIOS of your card?
xtremetheme@mvktech.net

I ordered the Non GLH Version here for 317€ (378$)
Shop lists it as 425Mhz/1050Mhz with 1.6ns RAM.
From your PCB pics it also looks like the card has the ADT7473 chip for fancontrol, which 7800GTX use.

[EnJoY]

Where are you guys buying these?

[Bennah]

We have them available over here... 3rd card down...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/7800__Series.html

I can help you out getting some of the cards if you want... Price might be a little high you guys across the pond though.

[EnJoY]

We have them available over here... 3rd card down...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/7800__Series.html

I can help you out getting some of the cards if you want... Price might be a little high you guys across the pond though.

I'd rather not pay for them if I don't have too. ;) Maybe I can snag a pair for review somehow, that'd be ideal.

[Bennah]

Hehehe, good luck if you get some cards... :D

[Radical_53]

@xtremetheme: I extracted the bios of the non-GLH version, maybe someone could get the GLH one?

Would be quite interesting to see if it's different in some way (clock speeds, sure, but maybe something else).

[SF3D]

Stilt

Can you take picture of backside of the card? Voltage regulation particularly :)

[madgamer]

Those are really cool cards. I hadn't seen anything on any tech sites on those either (big ones here in the US at least). Does that copper heatsink do any better at cooling the card than the standard heatsink?

[The Stilt]

Stilt

Can you take picture of backside of the card? Voltage regulation particularly :)

Maybe tommorrow.
Gainward has used very common components with these cards.
There is atleast LM358 and Richtek RT9214 chips on the back sides of these cards.

[The Stilt]

Hi could you send me the BIOS of your card?
xtremetheme@mvktech.net

I ordered the Non GLH Version here for 317€ (378$)
Shop lists it as 425Mhz/1050Mhz with 1.6ns RAM.
From your PCB pics it also looks like the card has the ADT7473 chip for fancontrol, which 7800GTX use.

Bios sent :D

[zakelwe]

The soon to be released 7900GT is rumoured to be faster/cheaper than the 7800GT and so if Gainward could do the same trick and produce a 7900GT GLH with 512MB of RAM that might be a very nice buy indeed.

Regards

Andy

[Radical_53]

@mad: It should. The standard heatsink is so bad, it won't even keep the card stable without any oc ;) Even at 100% fan speed I get random freezes... it's just a tiny piece of aluminium.


Btw., this is how the non-GLH version looks:

http://www.forumdeluxx.de/gallery/data/500/908P1010371.jpg

[EnJoY]

What waterblock is that and where did you get it?

[Radical_53]

It's a Watercool GPU-X (www.watercool.de). Flow drop is only around 5-6% with a DDC pump, so it just fits my needs ;)
Still got to make it fit, they don't have a 100% fitting block from factory right now.
Maybe their 5900XT block fits, I'll check that later on.

[varzmaster]

Btw., this is how the non-GLH version looks:
What mem is on the non-GS/GLH version? Still the 1.4ns ones (the footprint says they are)? Gainward lists this part with 2.0ns chips. :confused:

[ABATAP]

hi guys
i have the non-GS version but it can't go any faster than 1200 mem, although the chips are 1.4ns. :( can anyone measure what is the Vdd (if possible on both cards) or say what does gainward cut to not be possible to oc the memory?

i tried to loose the mem timings but no use of that :confused:

@The Stilt, can you send me BIOS of the GS version on ivcho_n@yahoo.com, because it has not been uploaded in mvktech yet?

[The Stilt]

hi guys
i have the non-GS version but it can't go any faster than 1200 mem, although the chips are 1.4ns. :( can anyone measure what is the Vdd (if possible on both cards) or say what does gainward cut to not be possible to oc the memory?

i tried to loose the mem timings but no use of that :confused:

@The Stilt, can you send me BIOS of the GS version on ivcho_n@yahoo.com, because it has not been uploaded in mvktech yet?

GLH version has 0.1V (1.98V vs. 2.08V) higher memory voltage than the non GS GLH version with Infineon 1.4ns memory.

[ABATAP]

GLH version has 0.1V (1.98V vs. 2.08V) higher memory voltage than the non GS GLH version with Infineon 1.4ns memory.

do you think it could be the reason for the bad oc. i think 0.1v is not a big difference...

voltage regulator is the NCP 5424. is it possible to be Vdd modded?

[xtremetheme]

Hi, i now have my 7800gt no glh.
In difference to the shop info, it is clocked 400/500 but has 1.4ns ram.
I cant go past 1200 also :(
Timings are totally not for 1.4ns, but loosening them didnt help, i suspect its getting not enough voltage, but dont know the measuring points.
But with tightend timings i get 1100 points more in 3D05.
Also, the cards bootup clocks is really wrong, its set to 700Mhz for the ram (!)
Luckly there is no display corruption, and when windows loads the driver sets the right speeds from performance table.

I attached my BIOS with fixed bootup speed, tight timings, and 460/600 default clocks.

[Tibu]

So an OCZ 600w PSU doesn't cut it for dual core and 7800gt SLI? WTF? :confused:

[Doc Holiday]

Hi , I also have the Non-GLH with the 1.4 ns Infineon RAM . Even at 1120 Mhz it produces random grafic errors. I think it is due to low voltage , even 0,1 V should make a big difference in overclocking , Gainward is undervolting the RAM by purpose. With 2.2 or 2.3 V speed at least in the level of a regular GLH should be possible.
I have tried to flash the card with the bios of the GLH card , but only got loads of graphic errors , so there seems to be no hidden setting for the gaphic RAM voltage in the bios.
We need a hardware voltage mod , anybody suggestions?

[Mavke]

Just checked them with Nibitor.
A reference 7800GT 256MB with 2.0ns chips use excatly the same timing that this card does.
And you happen to have a Gainward 7800 GT 512MB and a 256MB? Cause if else by just checking with the BIOS you will not be able to compare the timings! The timings need to be read from the video card to know which ones are active and will then get matched with the TimingSet available in NiBiTor... :rolleyes:

[God_Lx]

Well, i have a XFX 6800GS xXx (The cheapeast i could find) and does 1300 stable on the ram stock, no vmod... Anyone knows a price on this one ?

[The Stilt]

And you happen to have a Gainward 7800 GT 512MB and a 256MB? Cause if else by just checking with the BIOS you will not be able to compare the timings! The timings need to be read from the video card to know which ones are active and will then get matched with the TimingSet available in NiBiTor... :rolleyes:

Ok, my bad :D
I have never been that familiar with nVidia.
ATI is much easier ;)

:slapass:

:toast:

[Radical_53]

I just checked the differences between GLH and non-GLH bios. The memory timings are exactly the same.
The non-GLH has geo clocks +40, GLH geo clocks +0. Maybe that's why it seems as if the GPU runs better on the GLH models.
Nevertheless mem clocks on the GLH are much better, even if both use 1.4ns memory.
My two non-GLH both ran at around 1150MHz, the GLHs now go up to near 1400MHz without changes to stock cooling been made.

[DjLeco]

Hi!
I'm an owner of that kind of card,but on the box (wich is green)it writes only Nvidia.
On the back side it writes AGP 8X/4X,and on the other (front side),where officialy writes AGP 8X/4X, is sticked an PCI Express sticker...:slapass:
That's ok for me.



I unmounted the GPU cooling too ,and on the chip it writes:

050926009 0539A2
KOREA

GF7800-GT-A2
P03482.Y00

That videocard performed succesfully all tests, 3DMark(03-05-06) at 530 Mhz GPU and 1530 Mhz Memory O/C, (standard is 450/1300 Mhz).

The videocard runs perfectly,at those settings,with no artefacts,with stock cooling.
Running GPU around 535 Mhz, i saw some small artefacts.
If I try to increase memory around 1540 Mhz,some artefacts appear on Flight Canion test.
What can you tell me about this videocard?
Have someone that kind, with 1,2 nsec memory?
Trying with Riva Tuner, I succesfully unblock the last 4 Pixel Pipeline ant the last 1Vertex Shader,after restart (is possibly???)

Thanks for reading my post!

[IvanAndreevich]

That's an amazing 7800GT you got there. No doubt you could set a world record with it with some voltmods and good cooling ;)

1.2 ns memory.. damn!

[Radical_53]

1.2ns sounds nice. My GLH cards both came in the same box as the non-GLH, only with an additional sticker on it. RAM is just the 1.4ns Samsung as in the first post here, clocks around 1.4GHz somewhere.

[DjLeco]

None...

[DjLeco]

anyone have this type of card,waiting for impressions

[ABATAP]

it costs me a lot of flashes but finally I moded the BIOS, so 1.5ghz mem clock on non-GLH version is reached (no volt mods). CL is increased from 8 to 10. anyone who wants to try the BIOS, here it is...

driver test passes even on 1.6ghz, but artefacts appear in 2D :(

some results: 3dmark05 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1971233)

P.S. my 7800GT non-GLH version is with hynix 1.4ns memory. do not flash this bios on GLH version. probably it will not run, because GLH version is with samsung memory

[Doc Holiday]

Hi ABATAP

THX a huge lot for your super work! I also have the non-GLH -version too , with 1.4 ns Infineon rams. The bios-flash let me improve to 1450 Mhz stable , 1500 with some tearing , and improved 3D Mark 2005 to 8150 , a gain of about 500 points!

[ABATAP]

i'm glad to see it works for others :toast:

[DoubleE]

I recently got my 7800GS+ for agp (24 pipes... g71 gpu) and without any volt mods I get some, for me, decent figures... however, being so close to the 10k limit in 3d5 I'm very tempted to do some volt modding....

Would the 1.4V mod do the thing?

btw... is there a significant diff between the Corsair 3500LL Pro and the OCZ 2gig PC-4000 EB DDR Platinum Edition... which one to choose?