The NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS: A Closer Look
by Josh Venning on September 19, 2006 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode One is another standard game benchmark we use to test our GPUs. The engine has been around for a while, but Valve has been adding things like bloom and HDR effects to give the graphics new life. One thing we like about HL2:E1 is that it gets very good framerates across a wide range of cards, which isn't very common among games of this caliber. For testing we set the detail settings to "high" in the graphics settings for this game. Water detail is set to "Reflect All," and High Dynamic Range is set to "Full (if available)."
Here we again see a significant increase in performance between the Albatron 7900 GS and the BFG and Leadtek cards. We can also compare the performance of the X1900 GT and the different 7900 GS cards and see again how the two fastest 7900 GS cards perform slightly better than the X1900 GT. We can also see that there isn't much difference in performance at all between the 7900 GT and the reference clocked Albatron 7900 GS, which is further evidence that the 7900 GS could be considered the better value card of the two, depending on price.
Half-Life 2: Episode One is another standard game benchmark we use to test our GPUs. The engine has been around for a while, but Valve has been adding things like bloom and HDR effects to give the graphics new life. One thing we like about HL2:E1 is that it gets very good framerates across a wide range of cards, which isn't very common among games of this caliber. For testing we set the detail settings to "high" in the graphics settings for this game. Water detail is set to "Reflect All," and High Dynamic Range is set to "Full (if available)."
Here we again see a significant increase in performance between the Albatron 7900 GS and the BFG and Leadtek cards. We can also compare the performance of the X1900 GT and the different 7900 GS cards and see again how the two fastest 7900 GS cards perform slightly better than the X1900 GT. We can also see that there isn't much difference in performance at all between the 7900 GT and the reference clocked Albatron 7900 GS, which is further evidence that the 7900 GS could be considered the better value card of the two, depending on price.
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Bonesdad - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I'd have to go with the Leadtek card. Near to the BFG in almost every level of performance, nearly equal in watt consumption, lower heat output under load, a couple of (suspect, I admit) games included. the (maybe) $20 more is worth it for the heat output alone to me.Also, why no noise output comparisons?
Nimbo - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
Why ATI cards are not overclock in the reviews? Are they bad overclokers? Why are not factory overclock versions?DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
ATI's current generation of GPUs have not been good overclockers. It is also not as easy to find ATI factory overclocked cards.We will look at ATI overclocking in similar roundups of ATI cards.
formulav8 - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
I was hoping to see a 7600GT including in the mix to see what I would have to gain from a 7900gs. :(Jason
Josh Venning - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
The 7900 GS launch article compared the 7900 GT to the stock 7900 GS, which you can take a look at here: http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827">http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827. We tested these overclocked 7900 GSs on the same system, so you can compare the numbers directly (with the exception of Oblivion which we tested with different quality settings for this article).yyrkoon - Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - link
Hmm, only roughly 5FPS more on the 7900GS vs the 7600GT acrossed the board. Thats pretty sad, but I think I know what I'll be doing when I get a conroe system going, I'll be adding another 7600GT for SLI . . .DerekWilson - Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - link
across the board is a little off I think ... in bw2 and oblivion, yes the fps difference is low. But when 4.2 fps is the increase over 17 (a 24% difference), you can't ignore it -- it does make a big difference. I would tend to argue that at these very low framerates, a 5 fps difference is much more noticable than the difference between 60 and 120 fps. In most other tests (especially with AA) frame rate differences were much higher in addition to being higher precent differences.DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827">http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2827sum1 - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
"The BFG 7900 GS OC's core clock is set at 520MHz, a 70MHz increase over the standard NVIDIA 7900 GS"It’s listed at 540MHz everywhere else.
"EVGA"
Is usually written eVGA.
"Something slightly unique about this 7900 GS..."
Uniqueness does not come in shades of grey.
rushfan2006 - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - link
You are WRONG on all 3 of your points....Stop being so damn anal for the sake of just busting stones because you are bored.