Very high-end graphics cards are incredibly complex. Resources are so tightly controlled by the chip manufacturer and board tolerances so tight that it's hard to get creative and make a product that stands out among the competition. For instance, nVidia's GeForce 7800 GTX reference design is followed pretty closely by most board vendors, with a few choosing to sell more expensive versions that have been tested to overclock well.

XFX is trying to buck that trend somewhat with its high-end nVidia-based graphics cards, selling them overclocked by default. Its GeForce 7800 GTX card ($499 list) turns the core clock speed up from 430 to 450 MHz, and the memory up from 1,200 to 1,250 MHz. This small boost in clock speed is enough to give you a performance bump of 3 to 5 percent on the latest games. And this is just the clock speed of their basic model—XFX also sells a more expensive "OC" model that is overclocked to 490/1,300 MHz. The card also comes with a nice video dongle, offering S-video, composite, and component output, as well as S-video and composite input. And nVidia's drivers have excellent HDTV support, with resolutions all the way up to 1080p, including some of the "funky" native resolutions you can find on HDTV displays.

The most distinguishing characteristic of XFX's GeForce 7800 GTX card is the double-lifetime warranty. That's right, double lifetime. If you register the card with XFX, it will support and repair/replace it for as long as you live. And if you sell the card to someone else, that person can register it for the same warranty. That's some pretty impressive card insurance.

The software bundle in the basic 7800 GTX model is, well, nonexistent. You get a driver disc and nothing else. That's not to say that XFX doesn't do anything to sweeten the deal. There's a black XFX T-shirt in the box, which we could honestly do without. (They should pay you to be a walking advertisement!) We were more interested in the bundled "X Gear" USB gamepad. It's not the greatest PC gamepad, but it's no piece of junk; it offers dual analog sticks, four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, and vibration function.

Ultimately, the XFX brand GeForce 7800 GTX is a top performer. It is one of the fastest graphics cards on the market, bar none, and roughly 50 percent faster than the nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra; in most graphics-intensive games. The slightly overclocked speed really doesn't amount to a lot, though. Performance is just a few frames per second faster than other cards based on the GeForce 7800 GTX architecture. The real reason to buy this card over another is the price (nobody really undercuts XFX's price) and the fantastic double-lifetime warranty.

There are plenty of GeForce 7800 GTX cards on the market at the $499 price point, but XFX offers one of the most compelling deals by bundling a gamepad, overclocking the card slightly, and delivering the best warranty in the business. All this merits an Editors' Choice and makes it a better choice than the PNY GeForce 7800 GTX, which performs just a few percentage points slower and doesn't have the double-lifetime warranty.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out how the XFX GeForce 7800 GTX fared in our tests.