NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX Linux Preview

Once the card was installed into an available PCI Express x16 slot, we booted up and to our expectation, the system ran without faults. Once Fedora was booted, we proceeded to re-install the NVIDIA 1.0-7667 drivers and then we were quickly back in action with 3D acceleration under Linux. With this done, we entered the NVIDIA settings menu (nvidia-settings). The different pages we found were the usual - X Server Color Correction, X Server XVideo Settings, Cursor Shadow, OpenGL Settings, OpenGL/GLX Information, Antialiasing Settings, Thermal Monitor, Clock Frequencies, Display Device, and nvidia-settings Configuration. Natively, the overclocking page doesn't appear until the proper statement is added to the xorg.conf configuration. For those unfamiliar with how to enable Linux CoolBits overclocking, we would recommend that you check out our how-to guide.

With the stock 3D frequencies of 430/1200, we were a bit hyped about giving CoolBits a shot at the 7800GTX. On our first shot at overclocking the 7800GTX using the automatic detection of optimal frequencies, we ended up maxing out our Leadtek PX7800GTX at 590/1440! Although this would be lovely if the 7800GTX card could literally run at 590/1440, this simply isn't the case as the so called "nVidia 7800GTX 3D World record" was set by OPPAINTER with water cooling and he only managed to push his card to 542/1438. We beleive this is a simple bug with the 7800GTX and CoolBits, as we hadn't felt much improvement in the frame-rate once overclocked with such a high value.

As for the antialiasing setup, from the Antialiasing Settings page we were able to adjust the antialiasing level and Anisotropic Filtering level. Unfortunately, none of the new AA modes appear to have been implemented yet by the Linux NVIDIA drivers. As you're able to see on the next few pages of the article, NVIDIA simply didn't leave out the new AA modes but there are some even more SIGNIFICANT problems with the 7800GTX matched with its 1.0-7667 drivers and the frame-rate performance.