Date: June 18, 2007 - Author: Rob Williams
If you are not looking for the highest-end GPU on the market but still want one with great performance at an even better price, the 7900 GS might be right up your alley. It fell slightly behind a 7900 GT, but has the overclocking headroom to make up for it.
Gamers. They want to do what they do best, without having to take out a small loan to do it. Of course, I am exaggerating, but when top-end GPU's cost upwards of $500 - $800, it does make you consider some ridiculous things. Luckily, for gamers on a budget there are many other options available, one of which we will be taking a look at today.
NVIDIA launched their 7900 GS series late last year alongside their slightly beefier 7950 GT cards. At that time, 7900 GS cards retailed for an average of ~$200. Given the normal progression of things, it has since gone down in price to settle closer to $150. Some e-tailers offer even lower prices if you take advantage of mail-in-rebates.
The immediate question is, should you opt for the 7950GT which retails for only $50 more? Considering that many who are looking for a lower-end card are on a strict budget, then probably not. While I no longer have a 7950GT card to test with, I do have the next best thing, a 7900GT. Though it's easier to find 7950GTs for sale, we are simply using that card as a basis for comparison.
The stock speeds of the 7900 GS are 450MHz on the core and 1320MHz on the memory, but eVGA's KO version utilizes speeds of 500MHz and 1380MHz respectively. It utilizes a 256-Bit memory bus and also 256MB of GDDR3. By comparison, eVGA's own 7950 GT offers clocks of 560MHz on the core and 1450MHz on the memory. That card also uses a 256-Bit memory bus width but includes 512MB of GDDR3 for those very intensive games. In addition, the 7900 GS uses 20 pixel pipelines while the 7950 GT has 24.
eVGA also offers another version of the same card that includes HDCP support, but that is the only difference. It clearly states support on the box, and in the product name.
For those looking for a bundled game, you will have to look elsewhere, as there is really nothing here in way of cool extras. Included is the software, manual, HDTV cable, molex to PCI-e power converter, S-Video cable and two VGA to DVI adapters.
The card utilizes a common heatsink design that covers both the GPU core and the memory chips. Air is pushed out the back of the card with help of the small non-LED fan.
On the back you will find dual DVI-I ports and also a video out. If your monitor doesn't have a DVI port, you can use one of the included DVI to VGA adapters.
The copper cooler consists of numerous fins, and this is where all of the warm air will be escaping. It's a modest cooler, but this card doesn't push as much heat as the big boys.
There is nothing incredibly distinctive about the back of the card, but should you want to install a different GPU cooler, you can see the layout of the holes.
If you, like me, enjoy performance numbers more than looking at the card itself, then you are in luck. Head on over to the next page.
Throughout all of our benchmarks regardless of what we are reviewing, testing is done in a clean and stand-alone version of Windows XP Professional with SP2. No Windows Updates are applied for the sake of efficiency, unless one is required for a piece of hardware on the computer. Prior to testing, these conditions are met:
Below is the setup we used during testing.
To gather results, each game is manually played through the same level each time, which takes between 3 - 5 minutes normally. All results are gathered with the help of FRAPS 2.82.
For Half-Life 2: Episode 1, I chose my favorite level, ep1_c17_02a. The level starts you off in a dimly lit hallway and you need to make it through to the roof where an airship is trying to gun you down. It's a fun level, and really shows off HDR.
The GS card was slower than the GT, but still performed quite well. 66 FPS at 1600x1200 is a comfortable result.
The level chosen for SupCom was the Finn's Revenge skirmish mission. The entire playthrough lasted five minutes and consisted of building up a small base and also deploying a few ships.
SupCom is a game that really, really likes extra GPU power. Even when the action was low, we were lucky to score more than 20FPS at 1600x1200. The GT card had an obvious advantage here.
In S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I chose a run-through with the thumb drive mission, which occurs near the beginning of the game. Through it, there are many people who die and you get to leave with a thumb drive. Does it get much better?
Stalker is another game that loves faster GPUs, but our $150 GS performed quite well, delivering 24FPS at 1600x1200. During that play-through, the game didn't stutter or seem slow in general, so lower FPS in this game won't necessarily hurt gameplay.
The Demolition level takes place immediately after the training mission and gives a good dose of action.
While both cards performed pretty equally at 1280, they varied a lot more at 1600x1200. Regardless, 34FPS at 1600x1200 was still completely playable with no stutter or lag.
In our NFS: Carbon test, we played through the first normal race when choosing one through the Quick Race mode. Two choices of car are given, an upcoming Chevrolet Camaro and a Koenigsegg CCX. I think it's obvious which one I chose.
Playing through Carbon, there was really no discernible difference between either card.
While the credibility of 3D Mark scores is constantly disputed, they still give results that scale well. The better the GPU, or even CPU, the higher the scores.
Seeing what we have in our other results, the 3D Mark scores seem to fall into place nicely.
Throughout all of our tests, the 7900 GS never fell far behind the 7900 GT which makes it a great mid-range card for anyone who wants to run their games up to 1600x1200 resolution. The pricing for the GS card hovers around $150, while the GT goes for $200. Around the same pricepoint you can get the 8600GT, which is weaker all around, but offers DX 10 support. At this point in time, DX 10 is not a huge concern, so that decision is up to you.
After a few hours of stress testing, I found the card to be completely stable with an overclock of 590/1480. The stock clocks for the KO edition is 500/1380, so that's an impressive overclock any way you look at it, and is a lot of free performance if you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty.
For $150 (and less at select e-tailers with MIR), I feel the 7900 GS is a great card. There is no real sense of moving up to a 7900GT/7950GT unless you do not want to overclock at all. If you manage an overclock of 590/1480 like I did, you will likely outperform a stock 7950GT anyway.
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