The NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS: A Closer Look
by Josh Venning on September 19, 2006 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Cards
We've recently looked at the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS and its architecture. To recap, the 7900 GS has identical clock speeds to the 7900 GT, but with one less vertex pipeline and four fewer pixel pipelines. NVIDIA intends for it to be a direct competitor to ATI's X1900 GT, but at reference speeds the 7900 GS doesn't quite perform as high as the X1900 GT. Overclocking may improve the situation somewhat as we'll see in the next section.
Here is a breakdown of the 7900 GS cards we have for this review along with their clock speeds and prices:
As sometimes happens, we weren't able to get prices for all of these cards at the time of this writing. The Albatron 7900 GS and the Leadtek PX7900 GS TDH Extreme are not yet available, but we've included the target street prices (marked by an asterisk) for these cards. The 7900 GS was predicted to retail at around $200, and just a few weeks after its release prices reflect this. We can't predict what the market will do, but hopefully prices for the 7900 GS will drop some in the coming months.
It's interesting that the 7900 GS card in this roundup that has the highest factory overclock is also (currently) the least expensive, and right away makes the BFG model stand out. We'll look at performance in a moment, but first let's take a closer look at the individual cards.
We've recently looked at the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS and its architecture. To recap, the 7900 GS has identical clock speeds to the 7900 GT, but with one less vertex pipeline and four fewer pixel pipelines. NVIDIA intends for it to be a direct competitor to ATI's X1900 GT, but at reference speeds the 7900 GS doesn't quite perform as high as the X1900 GT. Overclocking may improve the situation somewhat as we'll see in the next section.
Here is a breakdown of the 7900 GS cards we have for this review along with their clock speeds and prices:
| GeForce 7900 GS Clock Speeds and Pricing | ||
| Manufacturer and Card | Factory Clock | Price |
| Albatron GeForce 7900 GS | 450/660 | *$200-$250 |
| XFX GeForce 7900 GS RoHS Extreme | 480/700 | $211 |
| EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS | 500/690 | $216 |
| Leadtek Winfast PX7900 GS TDH Extreme | 520/700 | *$220 |
| BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC | 540/660 | $200 |
As sometimes happens, we weren't able to get prices for all of these cards at the time of this writing. The Albatron 7900 GS and the Leadtek PX7900 GS TDH Extreme are not yet available, but we've included the target street prices (marked by an asterisk) for these cards. The 7900 GS was predicted to retail at around $200, and just a few weeks after its release prices reflect this. We can't predict what the market will do, but hopefully prices for the 7900 GS will drop some in the coming months.
It's interesting that the 7900 GS card in this roundup that has the highest factory overclock is also (currently) the least expensive, and right away makes the BFG model stand out. We'll look at performance in a moment, but first let's take a closer look at the individual cards.
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sum1 - Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - link
Let me clarify:
"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 in this article (including the benchmarks).
DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
For some reason, BFG's website lists it as 525MHz. We'll double check our sample, but we listed the speed of the card we reviewed.http://www.bfgtech.com/7900GS_256_PCIX.html">http://www.bfgtech.com/7900GS_256_PCIX.html
EVGA is actually EVGA despite the fact that people tend to lowercase the leading 'e'. Check their own press releases on their site.
http://www.evga.com/about/pressrelease/default.asp...">http://www.evga.com/about/pressrelease/...t.asp?re...
Maybe uniqueness can come in shades of blue if it can't be grey :-) I see your point, but sometimes taking a little liberty with language gives us the ability to succinctly convey something like the idea that "this is mostly the same as everything else with a slight difference in one area".
yacoub - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I really don't like the line graphs... very hard to read when more than three or four lines are close together. Get much more meaningful data much more quickly from traditional bar graphs or a simple table with numbers.DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
the line graphs include a table -- just ignore the top part :-)the problem with bar graphs are that they don't clearly show trends between cards over different resolutions, they don't show the impact of increasing resolution for each card, and they take up qutie a bit more space.
we'd love to hear more good suggestions on ways we can better present our data though.
Questar - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Stacked bars do.
DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
i think those are harder to read than line graphs.VooDooAddict - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I agree that they are harder to read. Persoanlly I like the way they show how the cards scale. Unfortunetly while it's nice to have all the data right there. I used to be able to show non-techie friends a page or two from your review to pointout the performance advantages of one video chipset over the other.With the new line graphs and data grids I need to make my own simple bar graphs from your data to show friends info relivant to thier purchase decision. (I would never re-publish these graphs with your data... just used to give non-techie friends better direction.)
As a side note. I personally know quite a few people out there debating over the current $100-$240 range: The new X1300 XT (Which is baqsicly a X1600 Pro), X1600 XT, 7600GS, 7600GT, X1900GT, 7900GS, 7900GT (with rebates) ... you might want to take note of these if you ever toss up more Low-Midrange buying guides.
yacoub - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
"The EVGA 7900 GS's heat sink is slightly longer than the reference 7900 GS's heat sink and it has two gill-shaped cutouts exposing some copper ridges from the inside of the sink. Aside from that, the card has the signature EVGA black coloring, with their logo and card name in clear view on the face."You could also mention that it covers the RAM chips. That's kind of the point of its design and something nice to have.
Kougar - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Finally happy to see that eVGA only cooler get tested, looks like they knew what they were doing desiging it and using it on many of their G70 cards...Should also note the eVGA has had a $20 MIR on it for over a week, ties it with the XFX for best priced... but the warranty, non-stock cooler, and HDCP support ought to make it an obvious choice between the two.
mostlyprudent - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
XFX makes a passively cooled 7950GT, but puts a fan on their 7900GS? Maybe it's a price issue (more expensive to passively cool a card and less profit margin at the $200 price range)?