GeForce 7950GT & 7900GS
PCI Express x16 graphics cardsChipset GeForce 7950GT 512 MB, 256 bit and 7900GS 256 MB, 256 bit
Those of us who bought the GeForce 7800GTX and still uses it today can be considered lucky. Especially, those who managed to get their hands on a GeForce 7800GTX 512 MB (or two). More than a year after its launch, the GeForce 7800GTX continues to be a benchmark for newer high end graphics cards. If you don't remember, the GeForce 7800GTX is actually the first card in the GeForce 7 series. Excluding the GeForce 7800GTX 512 MB, only the GeForce 7900GTX offers significantly faster performance compared to the GeForce 7800GTX.
Since its launch, there have been several updates for the high end GeForce 7 series, like the GeForce 7800GT, GeForce 7900GTX, GeForce 7900GT and GeForce 7950GX2. The latest updates are the GeForce 7900GS and GeForce 7950GT, launched early last month. The GeForce 7900GS and GeForce 7950GT should mark the final end of the GeForce 7 series (though there are rumors of a GeForce 7950GS).
As we said earlier, only the GeForce 7900GTX and GeForce 7950GX2 offers a significant performance upgrade over the original GeForce 7800GTX. The other updates either offer performance below or on par to the GeForce 7800GTX and the newest updates are no exception.This fact is can be viewed in two ways. You can say that high end performance got much affordable this year, but you can also say 3D graphics is not making much progress in performance. We think it's about time. Games are becoming too heavy for these cards and a new graphics API is just on the horizon. That's why we considered those who bought the GeForce 7800GTX when it came out very lucky indeed - look at just how long it can cope with the demands of new games this year.
Undoubtedly, SLI (Scalable Link Interface) also help the longevity of the GeForce 7 series. If single card performance is not enough for you, you can stick an additional, identical card to the one you're using for a healthy boost of some pixel processing power. There are some caveats with this line of thinking, since proper SLI support are needed for the game to work correctly with SLI.
With next generation graphics card on the horizon, users will less likely be willing to pay more for a graphics card than they want to. Particularly if that graphics card will be obsolete in three to six months time. Users looking to upgrade their high end graphics card will likely wait for the launch of the next generation graphics card instead of buying one right now. However, those who have to buy a PC today don't have that luxury. There's also users who want to upgrade their mainstream graphics card to a high end card to have better performance. They will also most likely be budget conscious as well. The GeForce 7900GS and GeForce 7950GT are targeted for users in this situations - the GeForce 7900GS for its value and GeForce 7950GT for its feature and price / performance.
Overview
As the name implies, the GeForce 7900GS and GeForce 7950GT are new additions to the GeForce 7900 family of products. The GeForce 7950GT is an upgrade to the GeForce 7900GT, retaining the full specification but with a higher clocked core and memory. Instead of 450 MHz and 660 MHz for core and memory clock, the GeForce 7950GT runs its core and memory at 550 MHz and 700 MHz. You'll undoubtedly notice these clocks are not that much different to higher clocked GeForce 7900GT versions offered by various vendors (520 MHz / 720 MHz). We expect performance to be similar if not the same between the higher clocked GeForce 7900GT and 7950GT. The swing factor in this case may be the HDCP support integrated to all GeForce 7950GT cards. Like many other series before it, manufacturers have also released higher clocked GeForce 7950GT cards, but we weren't able to test one for this article. Hopefully, we'll manage to get some for our GeForce 7950GT round up.The GeForce 7900GS is another matter. It has the core and memory running at 450 MHz and 650 MHz, still very close to its faster brethren. However, NVIDIA decided to 'snip' one vertex and shader unit, so in total there are only 7 vertex shader unit and 5 pixel shader quads (20 pixel pipelines) on the GeForce 7900GS. In this regard, the GeForce 7900GS closely resembles its earlier brethren, the GeForce 7800GT. But with a price tag of USD 200, you really couldn't complain that much. This is the first GeForce 7900 series card to reach that price point, no doubt a move by NVIDIA to counter ATI's price reduction on their Radeon X1900 series products and the soon to be introduced Radeon X1950 Pro.
We're going to take a closer look at what these cards have to offer in terms of performance. We will be comparing them to the parts they are meant to replace - the GeForce 7900GT. Since many vendors also released higher clocked versions of the GeForce 7900GT, we also included the ASUS EN7900GT TOP which runs its core and memory at 520 MHz and 720 MHz. However, let's look at the some other information before we begin.
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