The 3DMark 2005 fill rate, pixel shader, and vertex shader tests were run at 3DMark default settings. AA/AF were disabled in the NVIDIA control panel.

The 7800 GTX falls into second place here, beaten only by the 6800 GT SLI setup. Single-texturing performance sees the 6800 GT SLI leading the 7800 GTX by approximately 28.5%, whereas multi-texturing performance only sees an approximate 8.8% lead. The 7800 GTX gives the 6800 Ultra a run for its money in multi-texturing performance, leading it by 80%.

Wow! The G70 architecture has obviously been optimized extensively for heavy pixel shader work. The 7800 GTX leads the 6800 Ultra by over 100%, and even manages to beat the 6800 GT SLI pair by 6.5%. Just imagine two of these 7800 GTXs in SLI ... that is some serious pixel-shader-pushing action.

It doesn't seem that NVIDIA has done too much tweaking on the vertex shader front. The 7800 GTX places third, being beaten by ATI's last-generation X850 XT PE. To be fair, the 7800 GTX still sees about a 32% improvement in vertex shader performance -- but remember that it has a slight clock speed advantage too.