Fall '06 NVIDIA GPU Refresh - Part II: GeForce 7950 GT and SLI

Retail 7950 GT Cards: EVGA and XFX

In a testament to NVIDIA availability, we have retail products from two different vendors today. Aside from giving us the ability to test SLI with the 7950 GT, we can take a look at what we can expect to see from cards that are currently hitting the shelves. From EVGA, the e-GeForce 7950 GT KO offers overclocked core and memory with a fairly conventional HSF (which covers the RAM in addition to the GPU). XFX has made a very bold move with their 7950 GT and is offering two different silent models: the one we have features an overclock as well. Let's take a look at the EVGA card first.






This card doesn't look much different than we would expect an EVGA card to look. It's a very straightforward design with a copper HSF covering the RAM and GPU. The XFX design is a little more extreme as we can see here.









While we certainly expect overclocked products from EVGA as we have seen many in the past, XFX offering a passively cooled overclocked 7950 GT is quite a statement: the 7950 GT is a very efficient card. In spite of the fact that the X1950 has done a better job on power, heat and noise than the X1900, ATI just doesn't make a card at the $300 price point that could ever hope to be passively cooled. With the 7950 GT essentially being an underclocked 7900 GTX, we are quite impressed that this GPU doesn't need more powerful cooling.