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High Dynamic Range Rendering

Although this game supports HDR, it's not an integral part of gameplay and you don't really gain that much. At most you'll notice more details and overall better lighting and color saturation. Personally, for this game we prefer AA (and transparency AA) over HDR. HDR performance penalty is similar to AA on the GeForce 7 series, so you can choose either but not both. Again, we're seeing the GeForce 7900GTX coping better with the demands of HDR than the GeForce 7800GTX.


Another good news for gamers who want HDR performance. The GeForce 7900GTX can offer the same level of frame rate at 1600 x 1200 as the GeForce 7800GTX at 1280 x 1024. We're using the Lighthouse demo here, so that minimum fps doesn't happen that frequently - you'll no doubt be seeing higher than that throughout most of the game.

Conclusion:

What does the GeForce 7900GTX offer that you can't have with the GeForce 7800GTX? 1600 x 1200 performance in most games. F.E.A.R is the exception here and although the average frame rates are higher than the GeForce 7800GTX, it's not really that different when push comes to shove. So, unless you really can't stand 1024 x 768 or even 1280 x 960 / 1024 with AA and AF, there's really no point of replacing your GeForce 7800GTX with a 7900GTX.

If you're still hanging on to that aging GeForce 6800GT or god forbid, Radeon 9800XT / GeForce 5950, this is one hell of a buy. It's fast enough for most games available right now, although you're limited to 1024 x 768 for newer games like F.E.A.R and other shader heavy titles (Oblivion anyone?). Another plus point is that you can get it cheaper than most GeForce 7800GTX, particularly the extremely expensive GeForce 7800GTX 512. Be warned though, check the prices before you buy - some retailers / distributors with left over GeForce 7800GTX may still price the GeForce 7900GTX higher.

If you're really not into resolutions above 1024 x 768, the slower GeForce 7900GT may be a better buy. From reviews around the web, you can expect performance similar to a reference clocked GeForce 7800GTX, so you can still play F.E.A.R at 1024 x 768 with AA and AF (with newer drivers). The more adventurous gamers might even want to try overclocking it to reach GeForce 7900GTX performance levels.

The clincher for us (and most probably for the demanding gamers who nitpick about image quality) is of course, transparency antialiasing. After waiting for nearly half a year (hmm, the GeForce 7800GTX 512 doesn't count!), we finally have a card that's fast enough for 4x transparency antialiasing with supersampling. Yes, it's only 1024 x 769, but it's better than dropping down to 2x or 800 x 600.

There are some things we feel NVIDIA should addressed with the GeForce 7900GTX. From what we've seen on the image quality comparison, there's at least two things they should fix quickly: image quality with transparency antialiasing in Battlefield 2 and HDR differences. We admit, these are very minor issues and hopefully they will be fixed with a new driver release. There are also two other things which we griped about in the past: HDR with AA and AA performance penalty. The GeForce 7900GTX is fast, but it still behaves pretty much like the GeForce 7800GTX (albeit a very fast GeForce 7800GTX, mind you). With almost a year after the release of the GeForce 7800GTX, why is there still no change except for fabrication process and speed bumps? The slight increase performance in shader heavy games is also a concern - will the GeForce 7900GTX be able to cope with coming games like Unreal Tournament 2007, ES: Oblivion, Quake Wars etc? We don't know, but from what we've seen, we don't expect playing these games above 1024 x 768 with AA and AF.

Most GeForce 7900GTX feature dual slot cooling, with an improved design over the old dual slot cooling solution. No more stuck fans on an SLI setup like we had on the ASUS EN7800GTX TOP. It is slightly louder than the reference cooling on the GeForce 7800GTX or even the dual slot cooling, but its still much better than the annoying howl of the Radeon X1800 / X1900 cooling solution.

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