7900 GTX is eight to ten per cent faster than 7800 GTX 512

[Gamer X]

Inquirer article
ASIAN partners are disappointed with the upcoming Geforce 7900 GTX cards. Most of the companies already have the samples and tested them but they are not happy with the performance. First tests indicate that in the best case scenario, Geforce 7900 GTX cards are eight to ten per cent faster than the last and rarely available Geforce 7800 GTX 512 card.
This means that 7900 GTX might get close to ATI's X1900 XTX card but it will lose in many of the benchmarks. We suspect that at 4X FSAA and eight or sixteen times Anisotropic filtering ATI X1900 XTX can still keep its crown, but we still have to see this. Asian partners placed limited quantities order for G71, 7900 GTX chips and they ordered less chips then they usually do, according to sources.

When Nvidia launched its flagship 7800 GTX 512 a true performance leader, the partners ordered thousands of chips and got a handful of them, while now even you can get thousands of chips, no one wants to risk buying a few thousands of them. However, we still think that Geforce 7900 GTX if priced aggressively have a chance to be a good seller as people like the Clan of McNvidia.

Sample 7900 GTX at 650MHz core should be distributed now as the launch day the 9th of March is getting closer. We know that Nvidia won't have any shortages of those chips as, for goodness sake, this chip will find its place in Sony Playstation 3 but at modest clocks. Sony literally wants millions of chips.

 

[mwmorph]

not good... maybe a evga 7900gxt co or superclocked is in the works?

 

[yacoub]

Why do you think they're also dropping prices at the same time?

Also, this is a refresh part, not a whole new generation. To expect more than 10-15% performance increase is unrealistic. I think we'll see the OC models BFG and eVGA among others will get it closer to the 15%.

 

[Acanthus]

Well the article is flat out wrong on at least one point.

Nvidia is not making 7900GTX cores for sony.

Sony has licensed the design and is making them in house.

 

[5150Joker]

This comes as no surprise. It is just a die shrunk 7800 after all.

 

[StrangerGuy]

So it seems to me that ATI just needs to tweak the X1900XT(X) and Crossfire drivers to beat the 7900GTX.

 

[Sable]

So once again the cards are gonna end up pretty evenly matched. With single cards NV has the ogl set and ATI the shader heavy stuff. "wait for 7900, it's gonna blow the X1900 out of the water." lol

 

[Skott]

10% seems about right. Like mentioned above its not really a next generation card. Also newer driver updates might make it better in performance but probably not by a whole lot. I think its safe to say eVGA, and others, will make overclocked models. If nVidia can get prices really low, unlikely IMO because these companies like to exhort lotsa dollars for cards nowadays, then it could possibly attack ATI from a cost vs performance angle. I suspect the nVidia 8000 series (or whatever it'll be called) will be the true 'next generation' card.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

i was wondering how likely is it that by next year (mid 2007) cards of near 7800 gt would e sold for 150 bucks.
i really want to bnuy a new gpubut i figure waiting a while would be a good option.

 

[5150Joker]

edit: nvm

 

[nitromullet]

I think it all depends on price for these cards. At $600+ 7800GTX 512 equivalent performance is a bit steep at this point, but bring that down to $450-500 to compete against the X1900XT and those cards would sell. Hopefully, this is what we will be looking at. If not, I don't think NV will compete with ATI on the high end until G80.

 

[TheNewGuy8]

Keep in mind that the 7900GTX does NOT need to compete with the X1900XTX - just the X1900XT, b/c as we all know there is a tiny increase in performance (5-7fps) and that can be attained by manual OCing.

So if the 7900GTX retails for $600, and the X1900XT by that point is $450 I think the 7900 will be in trouble, except for those who just prefer NVidia cards.

The 7900GT will be nice for the lower price brackets - but is my memory correct that it will only be 256mb? I'm not sure I'd want to buy a 256mb card when so many tests have shown how much performance gain one gets from a 512mb card (i can't recall where they are now, I'll try to find links). The higher memory will especially help in making a card Vista proof, since Microsoft says the recommended lowest card is 128mb, and you know they always under-estimate.

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Well the article is flat out wrong on at least one point.

Nvidia is not making 7900GTX cores for sony.

Sony has licensed the design and is making them in house.

They didnt say Nvidia is making the cores for Sony but rather that the design Sony wanted RSX (G70 at 90nm) which is the G71 at 550mhz which is modest compared to G71's rated speed of 650mhz.

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
So it seems to me that ATI just needs to tweak the X1900XT(X) and Crossfire drivers to beat the 7900GTX.

They wont even need that, 8-10% means Nvidia will still lag behind. I hope Nvidia can make up their performance by features and price.

 

[MBrown]

Price to performance is all I'm worried about.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: MBrown
Price to performance is all I'm worried about.

Ditto.

 

[Genx87]

Not worried at all, I am sitting this round out.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
So it seems to me that ATI just needs to tweak the X1900XT(X) and Crossfire drivers to beat the 7900GTX.

They wont even need that, 8-10% means Nvidia will still lag behind. I hope Nvidia can make up their performance by features and price.

Actually, yes they do... I'm not sure what kind of card you have, but from my perspective Crossfire sucks ass.

1) Every motherboard, except for the DFI, uses the ULI southbridge. Sorry, but there is no way in hell I'm going to buy a Crossfire board that will rely in NVIDIA to provide future support for the southbridge. This wouldn't be an issue if ATI could make a Southbridge that mobo makers were confdent with.

2) The fact that you need a Crossfire Ed card makes it a crappy upgrade path. The prices on the regualr X1800XT have dropped considerably, but the Crossfire Ed cards have not. It is very hard to justify the purchase of an X1800 Crossfire Ed card when it costs more than an X1900XT. Especially due to the fact that by going X1800 in Crossfire I would essentially have TWO expensive cards that will probably be practically worthless when R600 comes out because they will effectively be two generations behind.

This is not an anti-ATI post, I know this because I am considering swapping motherboards and picking up an X1800 Crossfire Ed if the price is right on an X1800 Crossfire ed and an RDX200 CF-DR. So far though, I haven't been very impressed with my options.

...anyway, sorry to get off topic here, but I think that SLI and Crossfire is one of the differentiating factors between ATI and NV at this point, and right now NV definitely has the multi-card game down IMO.

 

[Cookie Monster]

An X1900XT is generally 10% faster across the board against an 7800GTX 512mb according to nordic hardware. But this is not counting other openGL games, RTS, etc that favor NV cards. So i think X1900XT will be neck to neck.

 

[crazydingo]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
...anyway, sorry to get off topic here, but I think that SLI and Crossfire is one of the differentiating factors between ATI and NV at this point, and right now NV definitely has the multi-card game down IMO.

I meant the first half of his sentence (X1900) and not the Crossfire part. I guess I should've quoted the specific part of his quote. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

That was wasnt offtopic nitro, those are valid points.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
An X1900XT is generally 10% faster across the board against an 7800GTX 512mb according to nordic hardware. But this is not counting other openGL games, RTS, etc that favor NV cards. So i think X1900XT will be neck to neck.

A far cry from the "omg the G71 will be a 32 pipe monster and pwn R580!" from a month ago eh?

 

[A5]

All I care about is a $299 7900GT - my step-up on my 6800GS runs out on March 10 If I can get 7800GTX level performance for the $100 difference, I'll be more than happy

 

[Pens1566]

Isn't the 7900 just a small refresh on the 7800? Where the 1900XT is a complete new design?

 

[Lonyo]

I want to see what numbers Oblivion gives. The first of the next gen I think.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Pens1566
Isn't the 7900 just a small refresh on the 7800? Where the 1900XT is a complete new design?

current speculation is yes, the 7900 is simply a refresh with higher clocks.

as for the 1900, it's essentially the same as the 1800, however there were a couple of differences.

the most significant is that ati increased the number of pixel shader processors to 48 (which is three times the amount found in the X1800 line)

secondly, they updated the texture sampling method (useful for shadow map acceleration)

last, they increased the hierarchicalZ on-chip memory by approx. 50%

everything else about the 1900 is carried over from the 1800

 

[RobertR1]

The 7900GTX is a bit disappointing but I think the 7900GT, if 24pipes should be a great card, esp. if they OC well.