Gigabyte GeForce 7900GTX TurboForce
525/720 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GT, 256 MB GDDR3Core Clock : 526 MHz
Memory Clock : 720 MHz (1440 MHz GDDR3)
Overall Score: 82.5 points
The Gigabyte GeForce 7900GT TurboForce is the only dual slot card in this round up. As you can see, unlike the other GeForce 7900GT, the cooler uses a unique design and is made of aluminum radial fins attached to a copper base. There's still room under the fins, so if you want to, you can even put some RAM sinks to cool the memory. The pass-through air from the fan should be enough to cool the RAM sinks and other components near the core. There is one caveat to this design: although it's still technically possible to put two of these cards in a space constrained SLI setup, we would recommend against it. In addition to the of danger of damage to the fan blades, placing an object so close to the fan would also generate a very noticeable noise, though still quite low in pitch.
Another factor that differentiate this card from the other GeForce 7900GTs in this round up is Gigabyte's choice of power connector. Yes, that's a traditional 12 volt ATX molex power connector you see on the card, not your typical 6 pin ATX power connector. This allows Gigabyte not only to forgo a power cable / converter (no doubt saving some cost), but also a boon for those who do not have a power supply with a 6 pin ATX connector.
Inside the usual Gigabyte box, you'll find the card and the standard accessories - a HDTV dongle and two DVI to analog dongles. No S-Video cables though, so you'll have to get one if you want to hook up the card via S-Video or extend the dongle to reach your HDTV set. In addition to the must have CD driver that includes a DVD playback software, Gigabyte was kind enough to bundle one game with this card - Serious Sam II. We know, the bundle is quite sparse compared to the other cards and normally this would irk some people, but understand that Gigabyte wanted to save cost and still deliver performance at the same time with this card. Certainly, some compromises had to be made and we think it's not that big of an issue.
Let's take a look at the fan's control speed settings via RivaTuner.
Well, it's the standard values we see in just about every other GeForce 7900GT. At these settings, the fan is barely audible. This doesn't tell the whole story. Keep in mind the fan is larger than any other card's here today. The blades are also thicker. All these factors may just be enough to keep the core down to standard GeForce 7900GT temperatures. Let's look at how the Gigabyte GeForce 7900GT fares in our heat test.
Yep, the temperature is right there with the other cards. The cooling solution is as effective as the other cards and at the same time quite successful in maintaining the same noise levels. The only drawback we can think of with this cooling solution is that it's makes the card a dual slot cooled card, which may limit its appeal to those who do not have enough space in their motherboard or PC.
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