Factory Overclocked: GeForce 7900 GT
In looking around the internet for prices on these cards, we noted that there are quite a number of overclocked NVIDIA cards available. Some come with a hefty price premium and some are sold at about the same price as their stock counter parts. While we'd like to just look at value with stock clock speeds, the market is just not that simple. In order to better understand the impact of these factory overclocked products without benchmarking every single clock speed combination on the market, we decided to pick a few key speeds and games and run some tests. We will use this information to determine whether the overclocked products are worth more than their stock counterparts, and whether looking at overclocked cards changes our recommendation for what to buy.
We chose to run our overclocked part at our sweet spot resolutions in order to see how each game would be affected. Note that we are only looking at factory overclocked options, which is why we are not including ATI overclocking. These are manufacturer warranted clock speeds, so they are guaranteed.
We've seen everything from 500MHz up to 600MHz being advertised, but the most common core clock speeds (increased from the stock 450MHz) seem to be between 500MHz and 580MHz. For these tests, we chose to run a 580/790 (core/mem) overclock in order to see what the higest performing overclocked 7900 GT parts are capable of doing. Stock memory speeds come in at 660, so a 130MHz memory overclock and a 130MHz core overclock beyond stock are both very significant. The 580/790 clock speeds are chosen based on the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClocked card. This is the product listed in our Contenders page available from newegg for $290, which is quite a deal.
The EVGA 7900 GT KO SuperClocked does very well in BF2, improving significantly over the stock 7900 GT to best the X1900 XT and lead the pack at this resolution.
The overclocked 7900 GT is able to just edge out the X1900 XT in Black & White 2.
Under F.E.A.R., the 7900 GT can't best the X1900 XT even with a 130MHz core overclock.
While the overclock gives the 7900 GT a major boost over stock, it merely hangs with the X1900 XT under HL2:Ep1.
ATI remains solidly in the lead under Oblivion, though the overclocked 7900 GT does manage to surpass the stock X1900 GT.
With the added power, the EVGA KO SuperClocked is able to take the performance lead back, not only from the X1900 GT, but from the X1900 XT as well.
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends falls in favor of ATI's X1900 XT.
Moving up from equivalent performance with the X1900 GT, the overclocked 7900 GT is still unable to attain X1900 XT levels of performance under SC:CT.
The significant lead the X1900 GT has over the stock 7900 GT is eroded when we look at our overclocked card.
While not enough to best the X1900 XT, all of our overclocking tests have shown the overclocked 7900 GT to outperform the X1900 GT, even in cases where the stock 7900 GT lagged behind.
From the data we've collected here, it looks like the overclock on the EVGA 7900 GT is enough to make it a competitor to the X1900 XT. There are plenty of 550+ core clocked 7900 GT parts available from different manufacturers, and these should perform quite well. The X1900 XT still outperforms the 7900 GT at 580/790 in the majority of our test cases by a significant margin. For this reason, we feel that the price difference between the two cards is justified: you get what you pay for by going with the X1900 XT over the 7900 GT.
At the same time, the 7900 GT is no slouch and can hold its own. If the X1900 XT isn't available or is just beyond budget range, an overclocked 7900 GT is a very attractive option. Because of the similarity in price between the stock and overclocked 7900 GT parts, we are recommending that people stay away from the stock 7900 GT no matter what the budget.
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Sharky974 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
I tried comparing numbers for SCCT, FEAR and X3, the problem is Anand didn't bench any of these with AA in this mid-range test, and other sites all use 4XAA as default. So in other words no direct numbers comparison on those three games at least with those two Xbit/FS articles is possible.Although the settings are different, both FS and Anand showed FEAR as a tossup, though.
It does appear other sites are confirming Anand's results more than I thought though.
And the X1900GT for $230 is a kickass card.
JarredWalton - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
The real problem is that virtually every level of a game can offer higher/lower performance relative to the average, and you also get levels that use effects that work better on ATI or NV hardware. Some people like to make a point about providing "real world" gaming benchmarks, but the simple fact of the matter is that any benchmark is inherently different from actually sitting down and playing a game - unless you happen to be playing the exact segment benchmarked, or perhaps the extremely rare game where performance is nearly identical throughout the entire game. (I'm not even sure what an example of that would be - Pacman?)Stock clockspeed 7900GT cards are almost uncommon these days, since the cards are so easy to overclock. Standard clocks are actually supposed to be 450/1360 IIRC, and most cards are at least slightly overclocked in one or both areas. Throw in all the variables, plus things like whether or not antialiasing is enabled, and it becomes difficult to compare articles between any two sources. I tend to think of it as providing various snapshots of performance, as no one site can provide everything. So if we determine X1900 GT is a bit faster overall than 7900 GT and another site determines the reverse, the truth is that the cards are very similar, with some games doing better on one architecture and other games on the other arch.
My last thought is that it's important to look at where each GPU manages to excel. If for example (and I'm just pulling numbers out of the hat rather than referring to any particular benchmarks) the 7900 GT is 20% faster in Half-Life 2 but the X1900 GT still manages frame rates of over 100 FPS, but then the X1900 GT is faster in Oblivion by 20% and frame rates are closer to 40 FPS, I would definitely wait to Oblivion figures as being more important. Especially if you run on LCDs, super high frame rates become virtually meaningless. If you can average well over 60 frames per second, I would strongly recommend enabling VSYNC on any LCD. Of course, down the road we are guaranteed to encounter games that require more GPU power, but predicting what game engine is most representative of the future requires a far better crystal ball than what we have available.
For what it's worth, I would still personally purchase an overclocked 7900 GT over an X1900 GT for a few reasons, provided the price difference isn't more than ~$20. First, SLI is a real possibility, whereas CrossFire with an X1900 GT is not (as far as I know). Second, I simply prefer NVIDIA's drivers -- the old-style, not the new "Vista compatible" design. Third, I find that NVIDIA always seems to do a bit better on brand new games, while ATI seems to need a patch or a new driver release to address performance issues -- not always, but at least that's my general impression; I'm sure there are exceptions to this statement. ATI cards are still good, and at the current price points it's definitely hard to pick a clear winner. Plus you have stuff like the reduced prices on X1800 cards, and in another month or so we will likely have new hardware in all of the price points. It's a never ending rat race, and as always people should upgrade only when they find that the current level of performance they had is unacceptable from their perspective.
arturnowp - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
I think another advantage of 7900GT over X1900GT is power consumption. I'm not checking numbers of this matter so I am not 100% sure.coldpower27 - Saturday, August 12, 2006 - link
Yes, this is completely true, going by Xbitlab's numbers.
Stock 7900 GT: 48W
eVGA SC 7900 GT: 54W
Stock X1900 GT: 75W
JarredWalton - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Speech-recognition + lack of proofing = lots of typos"... out of a hat..."
"I would definitely weight..."
"... level of performance they have is..."
Okay, so there were only three typos that I saw, but I was feeling anal retentive.
Sharky974 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Not too beat this to death, but at FS the X1900GT vs 7900GT benchmarksX1900GT:
Wins-BF2, Call of Duty 2 (barely)
Loses-Quake 4, Lock On Modern Air Combat, FEAR (barely),
Toss ups- Oblivion (FS runs two benches, foliage/mountains, the cards split them) Far Cry w/HDR (X1900 takes two lower res benches, 7900 GT takes two higher res benches)
At Xbit's X1900 gt vs 7900 gt conclusion
"The Radeon X1900 GT generally provides a high enough performance in today’s games. However, it is only in 4 tests out of 19 that it enjoyed a confident victory over its market opponent and in 4 tests more equals the performance of the GeForce 7900 GT. These 8 tests are Battlefield 2, Far Cry (except in the HDR mode), Half-Life 2, TES IV: Oblivion, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, X3: Reunion and both 3DMarks. As you see, Half-Life 2 is the only game in the list that doesn’t use mathematics-heavy shaders. In other cases the new solution from ATI was hamstringed by its having too few texture-mapping units as we’ve repeatedly said throughout this review."
Xbit review: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/pow...">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/pow...
Geraldo8022 - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
I wish you would do a similar article concerning the video cards for HDTV and HDCP. It is very confusing. Even though certain crds might state they are HDCP, it is not enabled.tjpark1111 - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
the X1800XT is only $200 shipped, why not include that card? if the X1900GT outperforms it, then ignore my comment(been out of the game for a while)LumbergTech - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
so you want to test the cheaper gpu's for those who dont want to spend quite as much..ok..well why are you using the cpu you chose then? that isnt exactly in the affordable segement for the average pc user at this pointPrinceGaz - Thursday, August 10, 2006 - link
Did you even bother reading the article, or did you just skim through it and look at the graphs and conclusion? May I suggest you read page 3 of the review, or in case that is too much trouble, read the relevant excerpt-