MSI NX7900GT
450/660 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7900GT, 256 MB GDDR3Core Clock : 450 MHz
Memory Clock : 661 MHz (1322 MHz GDDR3)
Overall Score: 84 points
The NX7900GT is certainly the odd one out of the GeForce 7900GT card in this round up. For one, it's running on standard / reference clocks. It also comes standard with video input capabilities. This card should make an attractive package for gamers who want a well rounded card. Although the cooler is similar to the one used on ASUS EN7900GT TOP and Leadtek PX7900GT Extreme, there are some subtle differences. You couldn't see it on the photo, but the top and right sides of the cooler are hollow, enabling hot air from the fan to quickly blow through the fins on the heatsink upwards and sideways to the left.
The packaging is similar to the MSI NX7600GT. The card itself sits inside a Styrofoam box, though not all the way through. A single piece of plastic helps keep the card inside the Styrofoam. We think it would've been better to use a piece of Styrofoam instead, that way there's protection on both sides of the card which should keep the card safe from harm's way from mishaps and mishandling. Inside the box, you'll find the standard accessories such as HDTV / video input dongle and cables, a 6 pin ATX power cables and two DVI to analog dongles. We say dongles and cables, because MSI was kind enough to include an S-Video cable that you could use to extend the HDTV / video input dongle by 3 feet, very generous of them. Bundled applications are standard fare though: one installer CD with drivers and some MSI utilities, another CD for DVD and multimedia software plus a full version of Peter Jackson's King Kong. Well, at least this time they're kind enough to include one game.
Firing up RivaTuner, we can see the fan control settings are set to the standard values, just like the ASUS EN7900GT and Gigabyte GeForce 7900GT TurboForce. Those levels are enough to keep the card cool while maintaining low noise levels, even in a quiet environment like an HTPC setup.
Next up we have a screenshot of RivaTuner's hardware monitoring for the NX7900GT. With a pretty standard fan speed settings and roughly the same size cooling solution, we expect pretty much the same full load temperatures from the NX7900GT as from the other cards in this round up. Of course, all of them are tested under the same conditions (the same ambient temperature).
A full load temperature of 62° Celsius is practically the same as the other cards in this round up. The graphs stays fairly the same all through the test, so it's not very likely the core will get any hotter than this. Of course, if you're thinking about using a pair of them in SLI, it's pretty likely the temperature will be slightly higher because ambient temperature is higher when there are two cards in close quarters dissipating heat together.
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