Final Words

Even though we didn't test as many games as we usually do, there is quite a bit of data to digest. On the high end, the 7900 GTX generally performs around the X1900 XT and X1900 XTX. This isn't a blow out victory for either NVIDIA or ATI as far as performance goes, and it looks like we have some very good competition here.

In general, SLI edges out CrossFire in most cases. Under F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and BF2 at high resolutions, SLI shows a larger performance increase than CrossFire. Splinter Cell does do a good job of showing the potential of Crossfire, but as of now we don't see as many games scaling as well with CrossFire as they do with SLI.

While the 7900 GT generally spent its time at the bottom of our high end tests, remember that it performs slightly better than a stock 7800 GTX. This puts it squarely at or better than the X1800 XL and X1800 XT. We didn't include these cards as ATI seems to be backing away from the X1800 lineup with the exception of the X1800 GTO that we were unable to obtain for this launch. As the X1800 GTO looks like a cut down X1800 XL, we can certainly expect the 7900 GT to outperform it as well.

The 7600 GT does quite a good job of splitting the performance difference between the 6800 GS and the 7800 GT. NVIDIA is hoping that we will concentrate on how well the 7600 GT does in comparison to the X1600 XT, but unless the price of the 7600 GT falls to about $150 really fast the comparison isn't really fair. The 6800 GS already performs better than the X1600 and can be found for about $170. It's clear the 7600 GT needs to be positioned against a faster offering from ATI such as their upcoming X1800 GTO. With the X1800 GTO poised to come in at between $250 and $300, we would expect it to compete more with the 7900 GT which will come in somewhere between $300 and $350. The next step up in ATI's lineup after the X1600 XT will be the X1800 GTO, so we need to take that into consideration when looking at the 7600 GT (even though it should be less expensive than the ATI part).

The bottom line here is that it all comes down to price. With the close competition at the high end, we still really don't recommend the X1900 XTX which generally comes in between $580 and $650. In order for the 7900 GTX to really look good compared to the X1900 XT, we will have to push below the $500 mark. NVIDIA has positioned the 7900 GTX as a $500 part, but we can already find X1900 XT cards for about $475; with the tight competition, we would really like to see NVIDIA take advantage of their cost saving die sizes and bring prices down.

The NVIDIA solutions use less power, generate less heat, and are cheaper to produce, but what matters in the end is the performance the end user gets for the price he or she pays. Yes, the 7900 GTX performs on par with the X1900 XT and XTX. With ATI's additional features, will NVIDIA's street prices be low enough to entice gamers? We'll have to wait and see.

Quad SLI and Purevideo
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  • Regs - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    Or am I going to have to look for myself? Im too lazy Derek.
  • DerekWilson - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    well... since the 7900 GT performs the same as the 7800 GTX ... and the 7800 GT performance relative to the 7800 GTX is well documented :-)

    You're right though, it might have been good to make this more clear.
  • Regs - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    So I suspect a 5-10% difference going from a 7800GT to a 7900GT.
  • Phantronius - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    Derek, why are only the first graphs hightling the 7900' series in orange while the rest are totally blue? It makes it hard to compare them to the 7800 series.
  • DerekWilson - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    sorry, we've had some problems with our graphign engine today -- I will make sure to update the colors on the rest of the graphs so they are more readable.

    my plan is to make the new single cards orange and their sli counterparts green.

    I understand that it is a lot of data in one place, but I hope this helps.

    Thanks,
    Derek Wilson
  • coldpower27 - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link


    I though sites reported that the die size of the R580 is supposed to be 313mm2 not 353mm2 as stated in the article???
  • APKasten - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    Man, I've been reading this sight for like two years now and they always find a way to make me feel like a noob. Can anyone tell me what 'the IC' is? Didn't see the long form in the article.
  • DerekWilson - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    Sorry ...

    Integrated Circuit.

    It is the term for what is commonly refered to as a "chip"
  • APKasten - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    Oh man that's embarassing...for some reason I just couldn't figure that. Sometimes the brain just doesn't work right.
  • 4AcesIII - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link

    Not an ATI fan anyways but it does seem that these boys favor ATI in almost every review. Now having had experience with ATI it makes me wonder how they can sleep at night knowing what sort of reputation, and consistant reputation ATI has for absolute crap software/drivers. Some of the TV cards they've put out aren't supported by themselves, left to 3rd party software and powervcr at that. Both ATI and Nvidia have good hardware the huge difference between them is implimentation via drivers and software. Nvidia can do it, ATI can't and they've proven it over time. Nvidia drivers are compatible with more of their older cards until you go back to 2mb TNT cards. ATI wasn't able to do this. I don't find Anandtech impartial anymore, they don't put out anywhere near the amount or quality of articles they used to and there's some plagerism claims about them floating around the web. Because of all this I only keep this link for amusement it's not considered a serious source of info anymore.

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