The NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS: A Closer Look
by Josh Venning on September 19, 2006 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Our third and final benchmark is from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This is a fairly recent game which boasts some of the most advanced graphics of any game available to date. Oblivion is one of the most beautiful games we've ever played, and unfortunately it is also one of the most graphically demanding. It can easily put a huge strain on most graphics cards when quality settings are turned up.
We mentioned recently in our silent GPU review that we don't recommend playing Oblivion on a budget or low/midrange graphics card, and we stand by this statement. The game loses a lot of playability without things like Distand Land turned on. This is why we test the game with higher quality settings enabled. Here are the quality settings we used for these test.
For this benchmark, we use FRAPS to measure the average FPS while walking towards an Oblivion gate at night. The margin of error is about 5% for each card, so smaller differences can be ignored. This is one of the more graphically intensive benchmarks we have for this game, and that's why we see such low framerates across the board, even among the faster cards.
This is a game where having a higher clocked 7900 GS is really ideal over a lower clocked one like the Albatron 7900 GS. With a framerate of 25.2 FPS at 1024x768 (which is a very playable resolution for this game), the BFG 7900 GS OC offers much better performance than the 20.4 FPS we see from the Albatron 7900 GS. Considering this, we would recommend either the overclocked BFG or Leadtek 7900 GS to anyone interested in a 7900 GS for playing Oblivion.
Also, because this game tends to favor ATI hardware over NVIDIA, we see that this is one case where the X1900 GT beats out all of the 7900 GS cards in performance in spite of their factory overclocks. If Oblivion is your game of choice and you are looking for a graphics upgrade at around the $200 range, the Connect3D Radeon X1900 GT is available at the time of this writing for $220 and is a good option.
Our third and final benchmark is from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This is a fairly recent game which boasts some of the most advanced graphics of any game available to date. Oblivion is one of the most beautiful games we've ever played, and unfortunately it is also one of the most graphically demanding. It can easily put a huge strain on most graphics cards when quality settings are turned up.
We mentioned recently in our silent GPU review that we don't recommend playing Oblivion on a budget or low/midrange graphics card, and we stand by this statement. The game loses a lot of playability without things like Distand Land turned on. This is why we test the game with higher quality settings enabled. Here are the quality settings we used for these test.
| Oblivion Performance Settings | |
| Texture Size | Large |
| Tree Fade | 100% |
| Actor Fade | 100% |
| Item Fade | 66% |
| Object Fade | 90% |
| Grass Distance | 50% |
| View Distance | 100% |
| Distant Land | On |
| Distant Buildings | On |
| Distant Trees | On |
| Interior Shadows | 95% |
| Exterior Shadows | 85% |
| Self Shadows | On |
| Shadows on Grass | On |
| Tree Canopy Shadows | On |
| Shadow Filtering | High |
| Specular Distance | 100% |
| HDR Lighting | On |
| Bloom Lighting | Off |
| Water Detail | High |
| Water Reflections | On |
| Water Ripples | On |
| Window Reflections | On |
| Blood Decals | High |
| Anti-aliasing | Off |
For this benchmark, we use FRAPS to measure the average FPS while walking towards an Oblivion gate at night. The margin of error is about 5% for each card, so smaller differences can be ignored. This is one of the more graphically intensive benchmarks we have for this game, and that's why we see such low framerates across the board, even among the faster cards.
This is a game where having a higher clocked 7900 GS is really ideal over a lower clocked one like the Albatron 7900 GS. With a framerate of 25.2 FPS at 1024x768 (which is a very playable resolution for this game), the BFG 7900 GS OC offers much better performance than the 20.4 FPS we see from the Albatron 7900 GS. Considering this, we would recommend either the overclocked BFG or Leadtek 7900 GS to anyone interested in a 7900 GS for playing Oblivion.
Also, because this game tends to favor ATI hardware over NVIDIA, we see that this is one case where the X1900 GT beats out all of the 7900 GS cards in performance in spite of their factory overclocks. If Oblivion is your game of choice and you are looking for a graphics upgrade at around the $200 range, the Connect3D Radeon X1900 GT is available at the time of this writing for $220 and is a good option.
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Bonesdad - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I'd have to go with the Leadtek card. Near to the BFG in almost every level of performance, nearly equal in watt consumption, lower heat output under load, a couple of (suspect, I admit) games included. the (maybe) $20 more is worth it for the heat output alone to me.Also, why no noise output comparisons?
Nimbo - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Why ATI cards are not overclock in the reviews? Are they bad overclokers? Why are not factory overclock versions?DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
ATI's current generation of GPUs have not been good overclockers. It is also not as easy to find ATI factory overclocked cards.We will look at ATI overclocking in similar roundups of ATI cards.
formulav8 - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I was hoping to see a 7600GT including in the mix to see what I would have to gain from a 7900gs. :(Jason
Josh Venning - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
The 7900 GS launch article compared the 7900 GT to the stock 7900 GS, which you can take a look at here: http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827">http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827. We tested these overclocked 7900 GSs on the same system, so you can compare the numbers directly (with the exception of Oblivion which we tested with different quality settings for this article).yyrkoon - Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - link
Hmm, only roughly 5FPS more on the 7900GS vs the 7600GT acrossed the board. Thats pretty sad, but I think I know what I'll be doing when I get a conroe system going, I'll be adding another 7600GT for SLI . . .DerekWilson - Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - link
across the board is a little off I think ... in bw2 and oblivion, yes the fps difference is low. But when 4.2 fps is the increase over 17 (a 24% difference), you can't ignore it -- it does make a big difference. I would tend to argue that at these very low framerates, a 5 fps difference is much more noticable than the difference between 60 and 120 fps. In most other tests (especially with AA) frame rate differences were much higher in addition to being higher precent differences.DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827">http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827sum1 - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
"The BFG 7900 GS OC's core clock is set at 520MHz, a 70MHz increase over the standard NVIDIA 7900 GS"It’s listed at 540MHz everywhere else.
"EVGA"
Is usually written eVGA.
"Something slightly unique about this 7900 GS..."
Uniqueness does not come in shades of grey.
rushfan2006 - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
You are WRONG on all 3 of your points....Stop being so damn anal for the sake of just busting stones because you are bored.