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Home » NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT Review

NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

GeForce 7900 GT is the simplest video card in the high-end GeForce 7900 chip family from NVIDIA, being an option for those users willing to have a high-end video card but not wanting to buy the most expensive one. Competing with Radeon X1900 GT from ATI, in this review we compared it to several other video cards from both NVIDIA and ATI. Check it out.

GeForce 7900 GTFigure 1: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT.

Our review is based on a reference model from NVIDIA. Video card manufacturers usually have two options for their products: follow the reference board from the chip manufacturer or design a board by themselves. Since the life cycle of video cards are very short these days, almost all manufacturers choose to simply follow the reference design, sometimes changing the cooler or overclocking the card. So by reviewing a reference model or a model based on it we will have an idea of the performance of almost all cards based on the same chip available on the market.

GeForce 7900 GT runs at 450 MHz and accesses its video memory at 1.32 GHz. Like all high-end GPUs it accesses its video memory using a 256-bit interface. The only difference between GeForce 7900 GT and GeForce 7900 GTX is the clock used (GTX uses 650 MHz for the GPU and 1.6 GHz for the memory), as they both share all other specs, including 24 pixel shader engines. In fact, they also share the same basic specs as GeForce 7950, but as GeForce 7950 GX2 uses two GeForce 7950 chips it has everything doubled.

You can see in our tutorial “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” the difference between GeForce 7900 GT and other chips from NVIDIA, while on our tutorial “ATI Chips Comparison Table” you can compare it to its competitors from ATI.

On Figures 2 and 3 you can see the GeForce 7900 GT reference model from NVIDIA.

GeForce 7900 GTFigure 2: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT.

GeForce 7900 GTFigure 3: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT, back view.

[nextpage title=”GeForce 7900 GT Reference Model from NVIDIA”]

We removed the video card heatsink to take a look. It is all copper-made, as you can see in Figure 4.

GeForce 7900 GTFigure 4: The video card with its heatsink detached.

As you may have notice in Figure 2, the heatsink doesn’t touch the memory chips, so no cooling solution is provided for them.

This video card has eight GDDR3 256-Mbit 1.4 ns chips from Samsung (K4J55232QG-BC14), making its 256 MB video memory (256 Mbits x 8 = 256 MB). These chips can run up to 1.4 GHz. Since this video card accesses its memory at 1.32 GHz, there is only 6% headroom if you wish to overclock it inside its specs. As a curiosity, the Radeon X1900 GT we reviewed used the same memory chips but with a different speed grade (1.2 ns, BC12).

GeForce 7900 GTFigure 5: Memory chips from Samsung used on this card.

In Figure 6, you can see GeForce 7900 GT chip. As you can see, it is internally called G71-GT by NVIDIA.

GeForce 7900 GTFigure 6: GeForce 7900 GT chip.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

  • Graphics chip: GeForce 7900 GT.
  • Memory: 1.4 ns 256-bit 256 MB GDDR3 memory from Samsung (K4J55232QG-BC14), running at 1.32 GHz (660 MHz DDR).
  • Bus type: PCI Express x16.
  • Connectors: Two DVI and one mini-DIN for S-Video and Component Video output.
  • Number of CDs/DVDs that come with this board: N/A.
  • Games that come with this board: N/A.
  • Programs that come with this board: N/A.
  • More information: https://www.nvidia.com
  • Average price in the US*: USD 300.00

* Researched at Shopping.com on the day we published this review.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

  • Motherboard: DFI LAN Party 925X-T2 (Intel 925X, Sep. 20th, 2004 BIOS)
  • CPU: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz LGA 775
  • Memory: Two 512 MB DDR2-533 CM2X512-4200 CL4 from Corsair memory modules
  • Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus (40 GB, ATA-133)
  • Screen resolution: [email protected] Hz

Software Configuration

  • Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
  • Service Pack 2
  • Direct X 9.0c
  • Intel inf driver version: 6.0.1.1002
  • ATI video driver version: 4.10 (6.14.10.6483)
  • ATI video driver version: 4.12 (Radeon X850 Platinum Edition)
  • ATI video driver version: 5.3 (Radeon X800 GT)
  • ATI video driver version: 5.9 (Radeon X800 GTO)
  • ATI video driver version: 6.1 (Radeon X1600 XT from HIS)
  • ATI video driver version: 8.173 beta (Radeon X1000 series)
  • ATI video driver version: 8.203.3.0 (Radeon X1900 XTX)
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 66.93
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 77.72 (GeForce 7800 GTX)
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 78.02 (GeForce 7800 GT)
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 81.98 (GeForce 6800 GS)
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 84.21 (GeForce 7600 and 7900 series)
  • NVIDIA video driver version: 91.29 (GeForce 7950 GX2)

Used Software

  • 3DMark2001 SE
  • 3DMark03 Business 3.50
  • 3DMark05 Business 1.10
  • Doom III
  • Far Cry 1.3

We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.

[nextpage title=”3DMark2001 SE”]

3DMark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we run six tests. We run the software in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and with no frame buffer, then we put the antialising at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation video card. To us, it is as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games as it is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.

The results you check below. Keep in mind that models marked as “OC” are factory-overclocked. GeForce 7900 GT OC from XFX was running at 550 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.63 GHz (815 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7900 GT is 450 MHz/1.32 GHz (660 MHz DDR). GeForce 7950 GX2 OC from XFX was running at 570 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.55 GHz (775 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7950 GX2 is 500 MHz/1.2 GHz (600 MHz DDR).

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark2001 SE – 1024×768 Score Difference
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 23,004 6.95%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 22,967 6.77%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 22,731 5.68%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 22,720 5.63%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 22,347 3.89%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 22,228 3.34%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 21,858 1.62%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 21,510  
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 21,487 0.11%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 21,433 0.36%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 21,043 2.22%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 20,299 5.97%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 20,084 7.10%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 20,072 7.16%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 19,865 8.28%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 19,864 8.29%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 19,797 8.65%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 18,630 15.46%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 17,881 20.30%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 17,412 23.54%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 16,840 27.73%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 14,453 48.83%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 14,132 52.21%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 12,545 71.46%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark2001 SE – 1280×1024 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 21,466 7.74%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 21,449 7.65%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 21,038 5.59%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 20,882 4.81%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 20,868 4.74%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 20,647 3.63%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 20,096 0.86%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 19,924  
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 19,768 0.79%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 19,755 0.86%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 19,465 2.36%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 18,436 8.07%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 18,307 8.83%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 18,228 9.30%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 18,084 10.17%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 17,658 12.83%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 17,005 17.17%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 16,750 18.95%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 15,721 26.73%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 15,464 28.84%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 14,854 34.13%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 11,403 74.73%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 11,274 76.73%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 9,472 110.35%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark2001 SE – 1600×1200 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 20,590 9.56%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 20,369 8.39%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 19,986 6.35%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 19,868 5.72%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 19,570 4.13%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 19,382 3.13%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 18,988 1.04%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 18,793  
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 18,749 0.23%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 18,390 2.19%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 18,140 3.60%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 16,784 11.97%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 16,649 12.88%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 16,590 13.28%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 16,483 14.01%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 15,524 21.06%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 15,498 21.26%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 14,481 29.78%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 13,694 37.24%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 12,938 45.25%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 12,741 47.50%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 9,059 107.45%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 8,129 131.18%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 6,729 179.28%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark2001 SE – 1024×768 AAx4, FBx3 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 21,165 10.79%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 21,028 10.08%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 20,783 8.79%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 20,451 7.06%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 20,403 6.81%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 20,145 5.45%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 19,671 2.97%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 19,321 1.14%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 19,208 0.55%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 19,103  
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 18,336 4.18%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 17,187 11.15%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 16,979 12.51%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 16,856 13.33%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 16,834 13.48%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 16,775 13.88%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 16,529 15.57%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 16,408 16.42%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 15,745 21.33%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 15,021 27.18%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 13,635 40.10%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 9,718 96.57%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 8,928 113.97%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 8,210 132.68%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark2001 SE – 1280×1024 AAx4, FBx3 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 19,774 15.35%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 19,440 13.41%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 19,354 12.90%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 18,778 9.54%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 18,447 7.61%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 18,366 7.14%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 18,029 5.17%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 17,682 3.15%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 17,142  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 17,120 0.13%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 16,302 5.15%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 16,056 6.76%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 15,117 13.40%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 15,080 13.67%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 14,294 19.92%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 13,833 23.92%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 13,655 25.54%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 13,652 25.56%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 12,892 32.97%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 12,364 38.64%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 10,487 63.46%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 6,915 147.90%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 6,049 183.39%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 5,755 197.86%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark2001 SE – 1600×1200 AAx4, FBx3 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 18,772 21.09%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 18,424 18.84%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 18,090 16.69%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 17,322 11.73%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 16,919 9.13%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 16,299 5.13%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 16,213 4.58%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 15,920 2.69%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 15,734 1.49%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 15,503  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 15,362 0.92%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 14,418 7.53%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 11,829 31.06%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 11,663 32.92%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 11,127 39.33%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 10,659 45.45%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 9,891 56.74%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 9,455 63.97%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 8,429 83.92%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 6,620 134.18%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 5,625 175.61%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 3,558 335.72%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 3,205 383.71%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 2,606 494.90%

[nextpage title=”3DMark03″]

3DMark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

The results you check below. Keep in mind that models marked as “OC” are factory-overclocked. GeForce 7900 GT OC from XFX was running at 550 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.63 GHz (815 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7900 GT is 450 MHz/1.32 GHz (660 MHz DDR). GeForce 7950 GX2 OC from XFX was running at 570 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.55 GHz (775 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7950 GX2 is 500 MHz/1.2 GHz (600 MHz DDR).

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark03 – 1024×768 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 26,189 70.33%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 24,670 60.46%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 18,465 20.10%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 17,261 12.27%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 16,544 7.60%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 15,631 1.67%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 15,375  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 15,004 2.47%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 13,760 11.74%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 13,630 12.80%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 13,144 16.97%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 12,782 20.29%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 12,111 26.95%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 11,285 36.24%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 11,223 37.00%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 9,563 60.78%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 9,352 64.40%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 9,134 68.33%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 8,213 87.20%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 8,056 90.85%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 7,295 110.76%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 4,847 217.21%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 4,128 272.46%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 3,468 343.34%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark03 – 1280×1024 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 22,880 81.90%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 21,038 67.26%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 15,394 22.39%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 14,324 13.88%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 13,888 10.42%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 13,045 3.71%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 12,578  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 12,239 2.77%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 11,119 13.12%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 10,997 14.38%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 10,671 17.87%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 10,314 21.95%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 9,529 32.00%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 8,836 42.35%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 8,784 43.19%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 7,472 68.34%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 7,039 78.69%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 6,943 81.16%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 6,277 100.38%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 6,041 108.21%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 5,351 135.06%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 3,538 255.51%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 2,990 320.67%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 2,507 401.72%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark03 – 1600×1200 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 21,176 102.74%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 18,152 73.79%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 14,090 34.90%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 12,060 15.46%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 11,680 11.82%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 10,751 2.93%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 10,445  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 10,127 3.14%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 9,822 6.34%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 9,100 14.78%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 8,743 19.47%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 8,411 24.18%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 7,701 35.63%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 7,144 46.21%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 7,035 48.47%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 5,940 75.84%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 5,295 97.26%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 5,220 100.10%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 4,930 111.87%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 4,640 125.11%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 3,938 165.24%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 2,678 290.03%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 2,131 390.15%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 1,797 481.25%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark03 – 1024×768 AAx4, Anisox4 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 19,582 90.58%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 17,431 69.64%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 12,560 22.24%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 11,819 15.03%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 11,576 12.66%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 10,989 6.95%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 10,275  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 9,929 3.48%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 9,325 10.19%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 8,999 14.18%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 8,834 16.31%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 8,108 26.73%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 7,330 40.18%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 6,919 48.50%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 6,841 50.20%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 5,437 88.98%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 4,978 106.41%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 4,693 118.94%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 4,405 133.26%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 4,177 145.99%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 3,411 201.23%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 2,378 332.09%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 1,966 422.63%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 1,674 513.80%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark03 – 1280×1024 AAx4, Anisox4 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 16,062 101.28%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 14,067 76.28%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 9,997 25.28%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 9,467 18.63%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 9,368 17.39%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 9,050 13.41%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 7,980  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 7,733 3.19%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 7,249 10.08%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 6,979 14.34%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 6,841 16.65%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 6,278 27.11%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 5,324 49.89%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 5,172 54.29%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 5,025 58.81%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 3,962 101.41%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 3,747 112.97%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 3,475 129.64%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 3,116 156.10%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 2,547 213.31%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 2,454 225.18%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 1,497 433.07%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 1,351 490.67%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 1,212 558.42%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark03 – 1600×1200 AAx4, Anisox4 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 13,355 111.41%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 11,629 84.09%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 8,168 29.30%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 7,852 24.30%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 7,563 19.72%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 7,364 16.57%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 6,317  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 6,148 2.75%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 5,873 7.56%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 5,807 8.78%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 5,614 12.52%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 5,024 25.74%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 4,530 39.45%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 4,018 57.22%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 3,861 63.61%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 3,091 104.37%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 2,656 137.84%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 2,563 146.47%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 2,377 165.76%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 1,805 249.97%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 1,717 267.91%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 1,027 515.09%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 732 762.98%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 684 823.54%

[nextpage title=”3DMark05″]

3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.

We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them.

The results you check below. Keep in mind that models marked as “OC” are factory-overclocked. GeForce 7900 GT OC from XFX was running at 550 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.63 GHz (815 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7900 GT is 450 MHz/1.32 GHz (660 MHz DDR). GeForce 7950 GX2 OC from XFX was running at 570 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.55 GHz (775 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7950 GX2 is 500 MHz/1.2 GHz (600 MHz DDR).

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark05 – 1024×768 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 8,172 19.07%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 8,096 17.97%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 7,370 7.39%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 7,342 6.98%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 7,222 5.23%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 7,220 5.20%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 6,982 1.73%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 6,863  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 6,789 1.09%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 6,471 6.06%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 6,343 8.20%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 5,732 19.73%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 5,594 22.69%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 4,991 37.51%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 4,941 38.90%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 4,537 51.27%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 4,301 59.57%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 3,993 71.88%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 3,675 86.75%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 2,886 137.80%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 2,872 138.96%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 1,701 303.47%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 1,433 378.93%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 1,365 402.78%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark05 – 1280×1024 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 7,918 27.55%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 7,804 25.71%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 6,962 12.15%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 6,761 8.91%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 6,726 8.34%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 6,699 7.91%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 6,534 5.25%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 6,208  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 6,067 2.32%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 5,554 11.78%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 5,504 12.79%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 4,780 29.87%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 4,740 30.97%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 4,130 50.31%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 4,085 51.97%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 3,745 65.77%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 3,479 78.44%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 3,192 94.49%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 3,093 100.71%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 2,253 175.54%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 1,957 217.22%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 1,259 393.09%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 1,040 496.92%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 992 525.81%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark05 – 1600×1200 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 7,749 40.28%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 7,598 37.55%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 6,559 18.74%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 6,513 17.90%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 6,220 12.60%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 6,191 12.07%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 5,862 6.12%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 5,524  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 5,371 2.85%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 4,786 15.42%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 4,785 15.44%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 4,096 34.86%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 3,931 40.52%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 3,455 59.88%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 3,376 63.63%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 3,091 78.71%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 2,856 93.42%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 2,608 111.81%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 2,430 127.33%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 1,789 208.78%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 1,264 337.03%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 944 485.17%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 814 578.62%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 708 680.23%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark05 – 1024×768 AAx4, Anisox4 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 7,845 28.12%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 7,735 26.33%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 6,893 12.58%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 6,788 10.86%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 6,717 9.70%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 6,656 8.70%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 6,655 8.69%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 6,123  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 6,052 1.17%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 5,874 4.24%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 5,559 10.15%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 4,971 23.17%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 4,634 32.13%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 4,108 49.05%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 4,072 50.37%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 3,700 65.49%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 3,655 67.52%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 3,523 73.80%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 2,881 112.53%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 2,232 174.33%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 1,287 375.76%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 1,038 489.88%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 935 554.87%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 903 578.07%

GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark05 – 1280×1024 AAx4, Anisox4 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 7,647 44.91%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 7,485 41.84%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 6,571 24.52%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 6,325 19.86%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 6,040 14.46%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 5,968 13.09%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 5,955 12.85%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 5,277  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 5,186 1.75%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 4,915 7.37%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 4,664 13.14%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 4,028 31.01%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 3,738 41.17%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 3,295 60.15%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 3,286 60.59%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 2,969 77.74%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 2,891 82.53%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 2,510 110.24%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 2,232 136.42%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 1,722 206.45%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 803 557.16%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 581 808.26%

 GeForce 7950 GX2

3DMark05 – 1600×1200 AAx4, Anisox4 Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 7,447 97.22%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 7,209 90.92%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 6,253 65.60%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 5,668 50.11%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 5,288 40.04%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 5,285 39.96%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 4,266 12.98%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 4,205 11.36%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 4,168 10.38%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 3,776  
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 3,746 0.80%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 3,325 13.56%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 2,644 42.81%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 2,553 47.90%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 2,365 59.66%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 2,235 68.95%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 2,233 69.10%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 1,948 93.84%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 1,552 143.30%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 1,374 174.82%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 589 541.09%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 341 1,007.33%

[nextpage title=”Doom 3″]Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions: 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and high. We ran demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.

A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your board is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.

The results you check below. Keep in mind that models marked as “OC” are factory-overclocked. GeForce 7900 GT OC from XFX was running at 550 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.63 GHz (815 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7900 GT is 450 MHz/1.32 GHz (660 MHz DDR). GeForce 7950 GX2 OC from XFX was running at 570 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.55 GHz (775 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7950 GX2 is 500 MHz/1.2 GHz (600 MHz DDR).

GeForce 7950 GX2

Doom 3 -1024×768 Low Score Difference
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 96.7 2.11%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 95.9 1.27%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 95.2 0.53%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 95.1 0.42%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 94.7  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 94.5 0.21%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 94.1 0.64%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 94.1 0.64%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 93.4 1.39%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 92.2 2.71%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 92.1 2.82%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 91.4 3.61%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 91.3 3.72%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 84.5 12.07%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 82.7 14.51%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 79.5 19.12%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 77.1 22.83%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 75.9 24.77%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 69.7 35.87%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 66.6 42.19%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 55.6 70.32%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 54.1 75.05%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 30.9 206.47%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 25.2 275.79%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Doom 3 -1280×1024 Low Score Difference
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 94.9 3.60%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 94.1 2.73%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 93.9 2.51%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 92.0 0.44%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 91.6  
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 91.4 0.22%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 91.4 0.22%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 90.4 1.33%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 87.5 4.69%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 85.3 7.39%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 82.2 11.44%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 80.8 13.37%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 77.5 18.19%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 76.6 19.58%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 75.8 20.84%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 61.5 48.94%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 59.9 52.92%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 55.1 66.24%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 46.8 95.73%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 44.7 104.92%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 37.3 145.58%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 36.6 150.27%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 19.6 367.35%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 16.0 472.50%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Doom 3 -1600×1200 Low Score Difference
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 92.0 10.31%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 91.8 10.07%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 91.6 9.83%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 89.0 6.71%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 86.6 3.84%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 83.4  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 80.8 3.22%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 77.5 7.61%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 76.2 9.45%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 70.9 17.63%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 69.1 20.69%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 64.4 29.50%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 63.4 31.55%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 63.1 32.17%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 62.4 33.65%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 46.2 80.52%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 45.9 81.70%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 38.9 114.40%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 31.7 163.09%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 31.5 164.76%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 26.5 214.72%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 25.5 227.06%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 13.1 536.64%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 10.6 686.79%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Doom 3 -1024×768 High Score Difference
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 95.3 0.74%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 94.8 0.21%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 94.8 0.21%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 94.6  
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 94.4 0.21%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 93.6 1.07%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 92.3 2.49%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 92.2 2.60%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 92.1 2.71%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 91.8 3.05%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 91.7 3.16%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 90.9 4.07%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 88.8 6.53%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 83.6 13.16%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 81.7 15.79%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 76.5 23.66%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 73.8 28.18%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 70.8 33.62%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 65.5 44.43%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 61.0 55.08%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 50.4 87.70%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 48.7 94.25%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 27.8 240.29%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 22.9 313.10%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Doom 3 -1280×1024 High Score Difference
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 94.9 4.06%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 94.8 3.95%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 93.8 2.85%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 91.6 0.44%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 91.3 0.11%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 91.2  
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 90.2 1.11%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 88.7 2.82%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 86.7 5.19%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 82.4 10.68%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 80.9 12.73%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 78.2 16.62%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 74.4 22.58%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 73.9 23.41%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 72.4 25.97%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 58.5 55.90%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 55.5 64.32%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 52.6 73.38%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 44.4 105.41%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 41.7 118.71%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 34.4 165.12%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 33.4 173.05%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 18.4 395.65%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 15.0 508.00%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Doom 3 -1600×1200 High Score Difference
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 91.5 11.31%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 91.4 11.19%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 91.4 11.19%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 88.4 7.54%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 88.3 7.42%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 82.2  
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 79.9 2.88%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 75.8 8.44%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 75.2 9.31%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 68.5 20.00%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 67.8 21.24%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 61.4 33.88%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 61.1 34.53%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 60.6 35.64%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 60.3 36.32%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 44.2 85.97%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 43.4 89.40%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 37.7 118.04%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 30.5 169.51%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 30.4 170.39%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 25.0 228.80%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 24.1 241.08%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 11.6 608.62%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 10.3 698.06%

[nextpage title=”Far Cry”]

Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model available on series 6 and 7 from NVIDIA and series X1000 from ATI graphics chips. We’ve updated the game to version 1.3.
 
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at https://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We run this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.

This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialising, instead of being configured by numbers (1x, 2x, 4x or 6x) is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on NVIDIA chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and NVIDIA chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.

The results you check below. Keep in mind that models marked as “OC” are factory-overclocked. GeForce 7900 GT OC from XFX was running at 550 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.63 GHz (815 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7900 GT is 450 MHz/1.32 GHz (660 MHz DDR). GeForce 7950 GX2 OC from XFX was running at 570 MHz with its memory being accessed at 1.55 GHz (775 MHz DDR) while the standard clock configuration for a GeForce 7950 GX2 is 500 MHz/1.2 GHz (600 MHz DDR).

GeForce 7950 GX2

Far Cry – 1024×768 Low Score Difference
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 148.26 9.47%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 145.56 7.47%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 145.51 7.44%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 145.42 7.37%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 145.16 7.18%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 144.93 7.01%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 144.54 6.72%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 144.44 6.65%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 144.02 6.33%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 136.68 0.92%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 136.43 0.73%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 135.74 0.22%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 135.72 0.21%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 135.67 0.17%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 135.44  
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 134.94 0.37%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 134.93 0.38%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 132.76 2.02%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 131.69 2.85%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 131.48 3.01%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 130.43 3.84%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 123.60 9.58%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 120.56 12.34%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 112.52 20.37%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Far Cry – 1280×1024 Low Score Difference
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 145.00 9.58%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 143.19 8.21%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 142.98 8.06%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 142.41 7.63%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 141.73 7.11%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 140.71 6.34%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 140.49 6.17%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 138.43 4.62%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 133.27 0.72%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 133.24 0.70%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 133.09 0.58%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 132.52 0.15%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 132.32  
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 132.16 0.12%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 131.86 0.35%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 131.78 0.41%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 131.03 0.98%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 127.99 3.38%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 127.89 3.46%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 127.71 3.61%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 127.24 3.99%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 89.16 48.41%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 87.83 50.65%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 72.96 81.36%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Far Cry – 1600×1200 Low Score Difference
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 145.81 9.15%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 143.59 7.49%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 142.30 6.52%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 141.82 6.16%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 139.29 4.27%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 134.03 0.33%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 133.96 0.28%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 133.93 0.25%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 133.71 0.09%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 133.59  
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 133.18 0.31%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 132.30 0.98%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 130.85 2.09%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 128.99 3.57%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 128.38 4.06%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 128.32 4.11%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 127.64 4.66%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 121.01 10.40%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 109.30 22.22%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 108.98 22.58%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 105.22 26.96%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 63.37 110.81%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 59.82 123.32%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 48.85 173.47%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Far Cry – 1024×768 Very High Score Difference
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 78.79 5.55%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 76.61 2.63%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 76.55 2.55%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 76.18 2.05%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 75.82 1.57%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 75.38 0.98%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 75.35 0.94%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 74.65  
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 73.93 0.97%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 73.31 1.83%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 73.03 2.22%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 72.70 2.68%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 70.72 5.56%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 69.40 7.56%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 67.93 9.89%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 63.05 18.40%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 54.82 36.17%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 48.28 54.62%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 47.91 55.81%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 40.72 83.33%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 38.28 95.01%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 23.67 215.38%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 20.41 265.75%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 18.74 298.35%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Far Cry – 1280×1024 Very High Score Difference
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 75.28 4.89%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 73.31 2.15%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 72.96 1.66%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 71.77  
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 71.17 0.84%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 71.13 0.90%
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 71.13 0.90%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 71.03 1.04%
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 70.00 2.53%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 68.59 4.64%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 67.93 5.65%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 67.09 6.98%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 53.88 33.20%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 53.81 33.38%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 51.53 39.28%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 45.80 56.70%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 38.43 86.76%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 35.59 101.66%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 31.41 128.49%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 28.20 154.50%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 25.82 177.96%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 15.07 376.24%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 14.15 407.21%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 13.62 426.95%

GeForce 7950 GX2

Far Cry – 1600×1200 Very High Score Difference
GeForce 7950 GX2 OC (XFX) 72.35 21.60%
Radeon X1800 XT (ATI) 71.88 20.81%
GeForce 7950 GX2 (NVIDIA) 71.70 20.50%
GeForce 7900 GTX (NVIDIA) 71.57 20.29%
GeForce 7900 GT OC (XFX) 69.37 16.59%
Radeon X1900 XTX (ATI) 68.62 15.33%
Radeon X1900 GT (Connect3D) 60.12 1.04%
GeForce 7900 GT (NVIDIA) 59.50  
Radeon X1800 XL (ATI) 59.36 0.24%
GeForce 7800 GTX (MSI) 58.10 2.41%
Radeon X850 XT P.E. (ATI) 54.23 9.72%
GeForce 7800 GT (NVIDIA) 52.35 13.66%
GeForce 6800 GS (NVIDIA) 39.93 49.01%
GeForce 7600 GT (NVIDIA) 39.62 50.18%
GeForce 6800 GT (NVIDIA) 34.29 73.52%
Radeon X800 GTO (HIS) 34.06 74.69%
Radeon X800 GT (HIS) 27.74 114.49%
Radeon X1600 XT (ATI) 24.51 142.76%
GeForce 7600 GS (NVIDIA) 22.78 161.19%
Radeon X700 Pro (Sapphire) 20.01 197.35%
GeForce 6600 GT (XFX) 19.53 204.66%
GeForce 6600 (Albatron) 11.28 427.48%
Radeon X600 Pro (Sapphire) 8.04 640.05%
Radeon X600 XT (ATI) 7.01 748.79%

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

If we just think about the numeric results, it is hard to come to a strong conclusion on which video card is the best, GeForce 7900 GT or Radeon X1900 GT. Let’s summarized what we’ve seen.

On 3DMark03 benchmarking, standard GeForce 7900 GT was between 12% and 16% faster than Radeon X1900 GT, depending on the configuration we used.

On 3DMark05 things got reversed, as Radeon X1900 GT was faster than standard GeForce 7900 GT. However, at resolutions below 1600×1200 this difference was always below 10%. Only at 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements that Radeon X1900 GT was really faster than GeForce 7900 GT: 40%.

Doom 3 continues to be NVIDIA arena. While at 1024×768 GeForce 7900 GT and Radeon X1900 GT achieved a similar performance, above that GeForce 7900 GT was between 10% and 20% faster.

On Far Cry GeForce 7900 GT and Radeon X1900 GT achieved the same performance level on almost all tests, with a good 10% advantage to Radeon X1900 GT at 1600×1200 without enabling image quality enhancements. At this same resolution enabling image quality enhancements both cards achieved the same performance level, though.

When analyzing products, we always try to see which product brings the best cost/benefit ratio for the average user. In our opinion, the user that wants a high-end video card but doesn’t want to sell a kidney on the black market to be able to buy the most high end one – like GeForce 7900 GTX, GeForce 7950 GX2, Radeon X1900 XT or Radeon X1900 XTX – we honestly think that GeForce 7900 GT is the right choice if you don’t need video capture function.

First, while Radeon X1900 GT was faster than GeForce 7900 GT on some tests, GeForce 7900 GT was not only faster in more tests than Radeon X1900 GT was, but also the performance advantage of Radeon X1900 GT on these situations doesn’t justify its higher price – our second reason.

Radeon X1900 GT’s higher price can be explained by its VIVO (video capture) function, which is optional on GeForce 7900 GT. Radeon X1900 GT is quoted at USD 349 at ATI’s website, with the majority of on-line stores in the US selling around this price as well. However, looking carefully you can find some stores selling ATI’s part between USD 300 and USD 320 (Newegg carries a model from Connect3D at USD 280).

GeForce 7900 GT, on the other hand, can be easily found below the USD 300 mark from several NVIDIA partners at Shopping.com, and it seems that USD 270 is the price of choice for several on-line stores for this video card. Searching Newegg, however, we’ve found a real bargain, an OEM model from XFX being sold by only USD 230. Keep in mind that OEM models don’t come in a fancy box and also doesn’t come with any “extras”.

But if you need video capture, then the choice can be though, as GeForce 7900 GT with VIVO is quoted at USD 290 on several on-line stores. In this case we kick the ball back to you, as the best video card in this case will depend on the resolution, image quality settings and on the game that you will run.

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