The very first thing I noticed about BFG's 7800 GT OC was how loud they are when there are two of them installed together. It seems the fans spin very near 100% all the time in SLI, from initial boot all the way into Windows, even when running in normal 2D mode. They do seem to spin down a little, but certainly not near enough to ease the irritation. When they are used individually then they are fairly quiet, comparable to the reference 7800 GT, but not as quiet as the 7800 GTX. Thankfully you can quiet them down with a tweak tool such as RivaTuner.

Other than the increased clockspeeds there really isn't anything else noteworthy regarding the BFG 7800 GT OC. It's reference through and through in fact.

Components and layout are the exact same as the reference GT, and the cooler (save the BFG sticker on it) and the PCB color are also unchanged. Closely following the reference design isn't a bad thing of course, but it's always nice to see the board-partners trying to differentiate themselves even if it means something simple like a custom cooling solution or differently colored PCB.

The other impression I got, at least when I popped open the box, was that there are no games included in the retail bundle. The good news though is that NVIDIA and Activision recently struck a deal to give exclusive rights to NVIDIA partners, like BFG, which allows them to bundle Call of Duty 2 with their retail cards. A brand new kick ass game like Call of Duty 2 certainly jacks up the added value. There was no actual game or a voucher with these cards, but shipping retail versions should include Call of Duty 2 in some form. I would be willing to bet that if you recently bough a 7800 GT from BFG without CoD2 bundled then BFG would be happy to send along a free copy as well.

Fancy coolers with colored PCBs are all good things to have but I'm not going to slight BFG for keeping costs down. After all, when it comes right down to it the real value of a card comes from performance and image quality. Those two things (particularly the first) are all everyone really cares about, and with the 7800 GT OCs performance increase over the stock 7800 GT there's no reason to settle for something slower.

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Plus

• SLI is whiplash fast
• Previous major SLI limitations are no more
• Speed boost from the factory
• Excellent overclocking
• Single slot cooler
• Lifetime Warranty

Minus

• Loud when SLI is enabled