Fall '06 NVIDIA GPU Refresh - Part II: GeForce 7950 GT and SLI
by Derek Wilson on September 14, 2006 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
The single 7950 GT card from NVIDIA does not seem to offer a greater immediate return on your investment than its major competitors in the X1900 XT family. First, the X1900 XT 256MB is cheaper than the 7950 GT. Both flavors out perform the 7950 GT in multiple games. Where the 7950 GT does lead the X1900 XT 256MB in a couple cases, it never leads the 512MB version. Obviously, the usual exceptions apply and those shopping with only one particular game in mind may form different conclusions, but in our eyes, the X1900 XT series are still better deals than stock speed 7950 GT parts.
Of course, there are already a number of overclocked 7950 GT cards out and about. These don't seem to be as highly overclocked as some of the 7900 GS cards we've been seeing around, but we are still planning on doing a 7950 GT mini-roundup in the next couple weeks in order to take a closer look at the differences in the overclocked options out there. If this card falls in price or if a highly overclocked version is available for the stock price, the 7950 GT may turn into a tempting deal. At this point, it just falls short in performance for the money. Of course, sometimes other factors matter more than performance in determining value. For instance, the passively cooled XFX 7950 GT cards provide zero noise with excellent performance.
The GeForce 7950 GT SLI can be a good deal compared to a $600 7950 GX2, but with the possibility of finding the GX2 for $550 and less (especially with mail in rebates) those who want the high end performance of SLI and the flexibility of a single card that can run in most motherboards will prefer the GX2. GeForce 7950 GT SLI is technically faster than a GX2 card, as the clock speeds on the individual GT cards are higher than those of the GX2, but performance is close enough that the GX2 is probably the better choice for SLI. The GeForce 7950 GT SLI option is probably better as an upgrade later on when the added performance becomes necessary.
In most cases, even the 7900 GS SLI setup performs as well as the X1950 XTX. If you don't need maximum performance right now, a $200 investment could offer a good performance upgrade for older GPUs, and you can eventually add a second card to get current high end single GPU performance for less money in the long run. You could also look at spending $400 to go straight to 7900 GS SLI, which will typically give you performance slightly better than a single 7900 GTX or X1950 XTX card at a lower price -- though of course you still need an SLI compatible motherboard.
With DirectX 10 and Microsoft Windows Vista on the horizon, we're hesitant to recommend dropping a lot of money on a GPU upgrade right now if you don't need it. DirectX 9 hardware should still remain useful for years after the DirectX 10 launch, but unless you really have a lot of disposable income and are willing to upgrade GPUs again in six months, our advice would generally be to stick with current generation cards costing $300 or less. Such cards offer more than enough performance for the vast majority of users, and even if DirectX 10 won't be a factor in the short term, DX10 class cards will be able to handle DX9 class games all the better. We expect high end cards built for DX10 to well exceed the performance of DX9 hardware even under current games.
The single 7950 GT card from NVIDIA does not seem to offer a greater immediate return on your investment than its major competitors in the X1900 XT family. First, the X1900 XT 256MB is cheaper than the 7950 GT. Both flavors out perform the 7950 GT in multiple games. Where the 7950 GT does lead the X1900 XT 256MB in a couple cases, it never leads the 512MB version. Obviously, the usual exceptions apply and those shopping with only one particular game in mind may form different conclusions, but in our eyes, the X1900 XT series are still better deals than stock speed 7950 GT parts.
Of course, there are already a number of overclocked 7950 GT cards out and about. These don't seem to be as highly overclocked as some of the 7900 GS cards we've been seeing around, but we are still planning on doing a 7950 GT mini-roundup in the next couple weeks in order to take a closer look at the differences in the overclocked options out there. If this card falls in price or if a highly overclocked version is available for the stock price, the 7950 GT may turn into a tempting deal. At this point, it just falls short in performance for the money. Of course, sometimes other factors matter more than performance in determining value. For instance, the passively cooled XFX 7950 GT cards provide zero noise with excellent performance.
The GeForce 7950 GT SLI can be a good deal compared to a $600 7950 GX2, but with the possibility of finding the GX2 for $550 and less (especially with mail in rebates) those who want the high end performance of SLI and the flexibility of a single card that can run in most motherboards will prefer the GX2. GeForce 7950 GT SLI is technically faster than a GX2 card, as the clock speeds on the individual GT cards are higher than those of the GX2, but performance is close enough that the GX2 is probably the better choice for SLI. The GeForce 7950 GT SLI option is probably better as an upgrade later on when the added performance becomes necessary.
In most cases, even the 7900 GS SLI setup performs as well as the X1950 XTX. If you don't need maximum performance right now, a $200 investment could offer a good performance upgrade for older GPUs, and you can eventually add a second card to get current high end single GPU performance for less money in the long run. You could also look at spending $400 to go straight to 7900 GS SLI, which will typically give you performance slightly better than a single 7900 GTX or X1950 XTX card at a lower price -- though of course you still need an SLI compatible motherboard.
With DirectX 10 and Microsoft Windows Vista on the horizon, we're hesitant to recommend dropping a lot of money on a GPU upgrade right now if you don't need it. DirectX 9 hardware should still remain useful for years after the DirectX 10 launch, but unless you really have a lot of disposable income and are willing to upgrade GPUs again in six months, our advice would generally be to stick with current generation cards costing $300 or less. Such cards offer more than enough performance for the vast majority of users, and even if DirectX 10 won't be a factor in the short term, DX10 class cards will be able to handle DX9 class games all the better. We expect high end cards built for DX10 to well exceed the performance of DX9 hardware even under current games.
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Genx87 - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
In this price category it is hard to justify Nvidia here. Nvidia's pressure from the top with the GX2 has pushed ATI's 2nd best card into this price range. The X1900XT is faster and better compared to this card IMO. It needs to be dropped to the 280-300 range and let it settle in around the 250 if it wants to compete with the X1900XT.ieskorp - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
What is the added value of a review/test when you are comparing Nvidia SLI configurations with single ATI 19k cards????JarredWalton - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
We've looked at the CF performance in the recent past, and nothing has changed. You'll notice in the conclusion that we really don't recommend getting two new current gen GPUs regardless of manufacturer. If you look at the X1950 XTX article, you can see where CrossFire sits in the performance ladder. Basically, it's competitive with SLI, though most will agree the SLI bridge is far more elegant than the CF dongle. Basically, the graphs were already crowded, and adding more cards/configurations just gets really messy. We included SLI numbers for the new cards mostly to show where they fall, i.e. 7900 GS SLI about equals 7900 GTX, while 7950 GT SLI is slightly faster than 7950 GX2.Quick summary of CF vs. SLI:
ATI "owns" Quake 4 now, along with Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. NVIDIA still clearly leads in Black and White 2. Performance in most of our other tested titles is very close. Price performance is more difficult to call, as X1950 are in very limited availability with no CF cards currently showing up, and prices are thus quite inflated. You can get Quad SLI for the cost of X1950 CrossFire... and neither one support the DirectX 10 feature set.
yacoub - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Would really appreciate temperature testing of the XFX card idel and under full 3D load. Passively-cooled cards notoriously run hot so it would be nice to know ahead of time just how well it's cooled. Additional overclocking potential would also be nice to know.DerekWilson - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
we are working on a 7950 gt roundup that will address this and other issuesyacoub - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
Great thanks.Looks like the traditional 10-15 degrees Celcius for passive cooling holds true by Guru3D's review:
Card Temperature in idle (Celsius) Temperature at 100% load in (Celsius)
GeForce 7950 GT 45 64
XFX 7950 GT Extreme 64 81
I can't fathom allowing a GPU to run at over 60-65C. That's REALLY hot. 81C is downright dangerous and life-sapping for sure.
SniperWulf - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
It's pretty gratifying to see that the card I bought at the beginning of the year is still holding its own pretty good (X1900XT)DerekWilson - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
X1900 XT has been a good performer. It's also be a much better value than the X1900 XTX for its entire lifetime. Definitely a good purchasing decision.Tilmitt - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
You'd have to be stoned off your head to find 20FPS "a good experience" in any game. Unless you're a girl...they can't see lag or jaggies.VooDooAddict - Thursday, September 14, 2006 - link
I greatly disagree. Most casual girl gamers that I've had sit down and play a PC game are MORE distracted by and less tolerable of lag and low framerates then guys who game frequently. Those of us who play often know it's a fact of life and can tolerate it. New PC gamers (male and female) who may be more used to console systems are frustrated easily by the little things we putup with in the PC gaming world.