*7900GT Roundup* - Trusted Reviews - Overclocking included

[RussianSensation]

I stumbled upon this article:

1. XFX and Leadtek actually have cherry-picked cores that they pay extra to Nvidia. This, naturally, has allowed both of these cards to overclock the best out of the whole roundup.

2. Except possibly Gainward with their Goes like hell series, all 7900GT series have same 1.4ns memory, overclocking depends on luck of the draw

3. Overclocking the gpu on 7900GT is far more important than overclocking the memory whereas for most cards memory bandwidth boosts performance a lot more.

Part 1 - Results (Overclocking):
Asus 7900 GT = 565/1770
BFG 7900 GT OC = 570/1780
eVGA 7900 GT CO SC (Superoverclocked) = 560/1830
Leadtek 7900 GT TDH Extreme = 585/1800
XFX 7900 GT XXX Edition = 590/1800

4. Are we finally seeing advantages of 512mb for Nvidia cards?

Part 2 - 512mb vs. 256
Counter-Strike - 2048x1536 4AA/16AF
7900GT 256mb = 26.81
7900GT SLI = 35.18
7900GTX 512mb = 50.2 (+43% over 7900GT SLI!)

Call of Duty 2 - 1920x1440 4AA/16AF
7900GT 256mb = 19.57
7900GT SLI = 25.49
7900GTX 512mb = 28.03 (again beats 7900GT SLI) COD2 is playable at 25fps many reviewers have noted.

Sounds like with G80 and R600, 512mb will be the standard to go with.

 

[nib95]

Very interesting findings, ones that in many cases go against most other reports.
3 other sites have shown 7900 GT SLI to perform in all cases and games much better then a single 7900 GTX even at the highest resolutions. (my own tests would agree with this as my SLI set up performs better fps wise then my old X1900 XTX OC'd)
I wonder how these guys came up with such different results.

EDIT: Just looked at the results again, and something is seriously wrong there.
I play Counter Strike Source more then any other game. And at 1920 x 1200 16xAF and 4xAA all settings maxed I get an average fps of 100. It ranges from 60-160fps.
But they have their SLI average set at 47.41.

That is most definately not right. I wonder if they had their SLI render option set at single GPU rendering (which is often the default) instead of choosing AFR or Split screen rendering.

 

[BassBomb]

1920x1200 != 2048x1536

theres a 50% increase in pixels there...

so the review's speed may be correct, it does look really odd though its getting owned by one card

 

[firewolfsm]

You stumbled? Are you ok?

What I don't get is that all the cards perform the same when OCed, even if one is at 560 and another at 590. These cards must have something similar to the G70 core where the pixel pipe frequencies only change every 30 or so Mhz. If one was taken to 595, it might get a pig performacne advantage over 590.

I'll probably just OC to 560 since that has the same performance as 590

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
You stumbled? Are you ok?

What I don't get is that all the cards perform the same when OCed, even if one is at 560 and another at 590. These cards must have something similar to the G70 core where the pixel pipe frequencies only change every 30 or so Mhz. If one was taken to 595, it might get a pig performacne advantage over 590.

I'll probably just OC to 560 since that has the same performance as 590

You are right. There have to start to face other limitations. I am not tech savy enough to know what. But even 6800 series if you overclocked 6800GT to 425mhz, after that it wotn really get much performance boost. It comes down to overall gpu design I suppose. I am sure engineering account for various aspects of the gpu design and consider how gpu speed relates. If they knew they could clock 6800GT at 1000mhz they'd make the core different. So once you clock 6800GT at hypothetical 1000mhz it probably wont be 3x faster since something else will be the bottleneck that was designed with 350mhz speed in mind.

 

[CVSiN]

heh and here I thought I was getting just an "OK" card when i bought my XFX7900GT XXX
Glad i got it now...

 

[nib95]

Originally posted by: CVSiN
heh and here I thought I was getting just an "OK" card when i bought my XFX7900GT XXX
Glad i got it now...

Voltmod that baby, and you'll have far more then you ever bargained for

 

[gobucks]

Originally posted by: nib95

Originally posted by: CVSiN
heh and here I thought I was getting just an "OK" card when i bought my XFX7900GT XXX
Glad i got it now...

Voltmod that baby, and you'll have far more then you ever bargained for

agreed - i bought the XFX Extreme version (520/1500) and after the 1.4V voltmod, i got 675/1800! The cooler is garbage though, popped on my trusty VF700, and temps max out around 70C.

Also, I don't quite think its fair to say that it's the 512MB of memory that's helping the GTX, SLI performance is kind of irrelevant in determining the difference between 512MB and 256MB. To determin this, its really only fair to compair single 7900GT v. single GTX, or SLI GT v. SLI GTX. In the 1920x1440 test, the advantage of the 7900GTX v. the GT is roughly equivalent to the rather large clockspeed differential - almost 50% higher core and 25% higher memory. Now, if the GTX can beat MY GT (675/1800) then I'll chalk it up to the extra memory size, but I kind of doubt it. The only place where the GTX performs inordinately well is at 2048x1536 4XAA/8XAF, and I will concede that it is probably due to its larger buffer. But honestly, who the hell games at that resolution? My LCD only goes to 1280x1024, and even good ones generally dont go higher than 1600x1200. I guess if you happen to own a 37" dell monitor, and you have $500+ to burn, then maybe a 7900GTX rig is better for you, but that probably isnt too many people.

 

[crazylegs]

Have my conductive pen in hand ready any waiting along with a nice new vf900 for the nice postman to deliver my XFX 7900GT (bog standard edition!)... cant wait to turn it into a 7900GTX for £230

 

[Doctorweir]

Aaahhh...can't wait for my XFX 7900GT XXX to arrive...unfortunately it is absolutely impossible to get it anywhere in Germany at present
But I am pre-ordered for a nice 324 Euros...

Hey gobucks...is it no problem to fit the VF700 on it? That'd be great...no need to spent another 30 bucks for the VF900...

Can't wait...first 6600GT is already sold, for the second it'll be Ebay time as sson as the 7900 ships...but without the VF700 this time I guess...

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Doctorweir
Aaahhh...can't wait for my XFX 7900GT XXX to arrive...unfortunately it is absolutely impossible to get it anywhere in Germany at present
But I am pre-ordered for a nice 324 Euros...

Hey gobucks...is it no problem to fit the VF700 on it? That'd be great...no need to spent another 30 bucks for the VF900...

Can't wait...first 6600GT is already sold, for the second it'll be Ebay time as sson as the 7900 ships...but without the VF700 this time I guess...

I put a VF700 on my XFX 7900GT Extreme Edition card. The fan connector doesn't fit on the video card's power connector, so I just put it on one of the free chassis fan connectors on my mobo. No other problems (not that that was a real problem) to report.

 

[CraigRT]

I love the XFX cards.. I'll probably just hold off now and keep my 7800GT til 512MB cards come down some more.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

and i remember when XFX made poor cards

(6800GT's with 900Mhz memory? and generally crap customer service, and shoddy quality)


now look at them. one of the best in teh business id say

 

[compgeek89]

my eVGA is rock stable @ 585mhz core and 900mhz mem, benched it @ 600/925 with maybe 1 or 2 artifacts. Id say its random... becase, i mean, I have 2 cards in SLI and BOTH are capable of these speeds, one of them is probably even more capable.

edit: just realized this thread is getting old, i was linked here.