The 7800GT is still a great card for the high-end enthusiast. While it has been replaced in NVIDIA's lineup by the 7900GT, there currently isn't a higher performing card that's passively cooled. ASUS has done an admirable job with an excellent card. Their TOP is default clocked at 420MHz/1.62GHz, a 20MHz core jump and 120MHz memory jump over the reference card.
Hopefully we'll see more high-end cards with passive cooling this year. There's a market for it, and the ASUS 7800GT TOP Silent card is excellent for those wanting a quiet system. The advent of the 7900 series earlier this year means the 7800GT is not the highest performing NVIDIA part. However, the EN7800GT TOP Silent card is ASUS's fastest silent card, with the 7600GT and two 6600 models also in this lineup.
The next major inflection point for video cards will be Microsoft's Vista operating system due out later this year for businesses and early next year for the consumer. Along with the new OS will be the next generation of graphics API Direct3D10 and Shader Model 4.0. Its likely NVIDIA will have a SM4.0 card before the end of the year, but the 7800GT is still a good card that plays all current games well.
