EVGA 7900 GT versus 7900 GT CO

[Navid]

Has anybody got the 7900 GT from EVGA?

I am wondering the difference between that and the 7900 GT CO.

The price difference is only $20.00.
Is it only the coolers that are different that allow higher clock speeds on CO? Or, is the GPU (or the memory) faster on CO?
I mean if you place the same cooler on both, would CO still be faster?

 

[Hauk]

No difference in memory or GPU's on the cards, even the Superclock. EVGA says they hand select chips for the Superclock. Gainward used to say the same thing about Golden Sample. Marketing? You decide. OC's seem to be about the same for all 7900GT's.

Upgrade cooling regardless of which one you get, esp if you plan to oc memory. I'd spend the extra $20.00 for the CO version. It will likely fetch an extra $20.00 when you sell it.

 

[996GT2]

I'd say save the $20 for a nice cooler to replace the stock one and OC your standard 7900GT to CO or higher levels. If you've read the article about the guy who OC'd his stock 7900GT to 800mhz core on an Athlon XP CPU Heatsink, then you can get an idea of how high these will OC on a better cooler.

 

[dman918]

Yeah, I would seriously consider saving the $20 and buying an aftermarket cooler for it. You'll get cooler temps and be A LOT quieter.

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: dman918
Yeah, I would seriously consider saving the $20 and buying an aftermarket cooler for it. You'll get cooler temps and be A LOT quieter.

No doubt!
But, will it be slower? That's the question.

 

[VoteQuimby]

Initially it will be slower, but you'll make up for it w/ an after market cooler that will enable you to push a higher OC and keep it quiet.

 

[giantpinkbunnyhead]

qft.

 

[Hauk]

CoolBits or Riva. OC to what you see others doing. The $299.00 card will do it!

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Originally posted by: Navid

Originally posted by: dman918
Yeah, I would seriously consider saving the $20 and buying an aftermarket cooler for it. You'll get cooler temps and be A LOT quieter.

No doubt!
But, will it be slower? That's the question.

Your numbers will be lower.. but the slower performance is negligable.

Going from 450/1300 to 540/1600 OC, I can't tell you I've noticed a performance boost.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

I remember when the CO was only $299 on Newegg . . .

 

[Tom]

What exactly is the difference between a 7900GT CO and a 7900GT ?

I gather it's the HSF, right ? So what is different about the HSF, just the base is copper, or what ? What about the fan ?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: SPARTAN VI

Originally posted by: Navid

Originally posted by: dman918
Yeah, I would seriously consider saving the $20 and buying an aftermarket cooler for it. You'll get cooler temps and be A LOT quieter.

No doubt!
But, will it be slower? That's the question.

Your numbers will be lower.. but the slower performance is negligable.

Going from 450/1300 to 540/1600 OC, I can't tell you I've noticed a performance boost.

Maybe this will help you get an idea

 

[GTaudiophile]

I would save your money, get the non-CO version, and put the difference towards the Zalman VF900. Then overclock the card to SuperClock levels or higher.

 

[morgash]

ACTUALLY, in my experience(only with eVGA 7900gt's, other companies may differ) the factory OC'ed cards use slightly better cores than their non OC'ed compatriots allowing for slightly higher overclocks. For instance my 7900gt goes up to 625/1950 with gpu vmod and vmem mod. the core will go no higher without artifacting. My firend's 7900gt CO however will do 685/1950 with the same volts and same cooling system (vf900). This seems to be corroborated by two things. One i have noticed much better core OC's on the CO and KO series than on vanilla ones. Two, i was talking to the head engineer at eVGA the other day (long story on how that happened) and he was telling me that the way they find the KO and CO series is by simply setting them at that speed with the stock sink and run ATItool art scanning on em until they fail. I think he said if they can run for 8-12 hrs or more then they go into the good GPU bin (aka the factory OC bin) and if they run less than that with no arts they go into the vanilla bin (aka 7900gt vanilla, no factory OC). THis would expalin the higher OC's commonly seen on the factory OC cards. they simply use better cores. soooo, in conclusion i would say spend a little extra on the higher OC one and u are very likely to get a better core. just my $0.02

Morgash

 

[Sunrise089]

I don't believe they test them all in the kind of volume they use. If it were me, and I were buying a new card and not stepping up, I would buy the cheaper one if I were going to add a cooler anyways.

 

[The Dome]

I would think that testing all those cores would be way to costly and slow for it to be practicle. I think they take in account the core shrink and realize that atleast 95% of the cards are more than capable to run at thier super clock speeds. When the rare card comes along that can't, that's what RMA's are for : )

 

[morgash]

just saying what the eVGA engineer was telling me. he said they have a "test farm" with anywhere from 150-200 computers all testing the videocards. u gotta realize they dont hav a HUGE stock of the special cards, just the vanilla ones. he was also telling me that they are working on coming out with a pre volt modded version that they have engineered themselves. upgraded all the board componeents all the voltage regulators etc. so it will basically be a 7900gtx with 256mb o RAM

 

[Arkane13131]

My 7900gt co superclock goes to 700mhz on the core @ 1.4v and is very stable.
That seems to be a good overclock for that voltage.

But im not sure the price/performance ratio considering any old 7900gt will hit 650 on the core @ 1.4v
.

 

[Sunrise089]

Originally posted by: morgash
just saying what the eVGA engineer was telling me. he said they have a "test farm" with anywhere from 150-200 computers all testing the videocards. u gotta realize they dont hav a HUGE stock of the special cards, just the vanilla ones. he was also telling me that they are working on coming out with a pre volt modded version that they have engineered themselves. upgraded all the board componeents all the voltage regulators etc. so it will basically be a 7900gtx with 256mb o RAM

Only problem I see with this idea is that it suggests that eVGA sells far more vanilla cards than superclock or OC models. I think that's wrong, considering how close they exist in price. I think they probably sell fewest of the cheapest model, really only using that to compete purely on price.