GeForce 7950 GT 512MB Shootout (review)

Welcome to page two! Here we'll briefly look at the technology behind the GeForce 7950 microarchitecture, the cards versus bundles, some features, power consumption, heat management and the very obvious... noise :)

So then the GeForce 7950 GT. As stated previously, the same graphics processor as the GeForce 7900 GT yet clocked slightly faster. This is what the industry calls a refresh product. More of the same, yet a different configuration to adapt and address the market in a better way or to adapt towards competitor products.

Why is it called 7950? Well it beats me but I do have an idea. The 512MB memory might be a reference to that. Take for example the GeForce 7950 GX2, it's a dual PCB, dual graphics core based product. If you rip the two boards from each other, what to you have? A single PCB 7950 GX1; a card that is 100% similar to the 7900 GT and 7950 GT except for the somewhat slower graphics core and memory.

Why do I explain all this so much in detail? Because it's getting a jungle in the computer stores, consumers do not have a clue what the differences are anymore as there are too many products saturating and cluttering the market for the end-user to comprehend what exactly they are buying.

Hey luckily for you you're on Guru3D.com, we just love to explain. Let's have a look at the some product specifications and compare them to understand where the differences are to be found.

	NVIDIA GeForce 6 & 7 Product Lineup Specifications Product Name # pixel processors # vertex processors Bus width Memory Type/Amount GPU Speed RAM Speed GeForce 7950 GX2 24(x2) 8x2 256-bit GDDR3/512MB (x2) 500MHz 1200 MHz GeForce 7900 GTX 24 8 256-bit GDDR3/512MB 650MHz 1600 MHz GeForce 7950 GT 24 8 256-bit GDDR3/512MB 550MHz 1400 MHz GeForce 7900 GT 24 8 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 450MHz 1320 MHz GeForce 7900 GS 20 7 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 450MHz 1320 MHz GeForce 7800 GTX 24 8 256-bit GDDR3/512MB 560MHz 1600 MHz GeForce 7800 GTX 24 8 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 430MHz 1200MHz GeForce 7800 GT 20 7 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 400MHz 1000MHz GeForce 7800 GS 16 6 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 375MHz 1200MHz GeForce 7600 GT 12 5 128-bit GDDR3/256MB 560MHz 1400MHz GeForce 7600 GS 12 5 128-bit GDDR2/256MB 500MHz 1400MHz GeForce 7600 GS 12 5 128-bit GDDR2/256MB 400MHz 800MHz GeForce 6800 Ultra 16 6 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 400MHz 1100MHz GeForce 6800 GT 16 6 256-bit GDDR3/256MB 350MHz 1000MHz GeForce 6800 GS PCX 12 5 256-bit GDDR3/128/256MB 425MHz 1000MHz GeForce 6800 GS AGP 12 5 256-bit GDDR3/128/256MB 350MHz 1000MHz GeForce 6800 12 5 256-bit GDDR/128MB 325MHz 700MHz GeForce 6800 LE 8 4 256-bit GDDR/128MB 320MHz 700MHz GeForce 6600 GT 8 3 128-bit GDDR3/128/256MB 500MHz 1000MHz GeForce 6600 8 3 128-bit GDDR/128MB 300MHz 275(550) GeForce 6200 4 3 64/128-bit GDDR/128MB/256MB 300MHz 275(550)

So what you need to be comparing to the most is the GeForce 7900 GT 256MB. The big differences are, a 100 MHZ faster core clock, an 80MHz faster memory clock and obviously an extra 256MB of framebuffer/memory. That's it! Other then that there are virtually no differences between both cards in terms of features or anything. It has 24 pixel shader processors, eight vertex units, 16 ROPS; in short, this is the 0.09 micron G71 graphics core.

Again, this is a refresh product. The entertaining part is, for roughly 300 bucks you can get a top-segment mid-range product slash lower segment high-end graphics card in your system and that's fascinating for sure.

Compared to the big daddy 7900 GTX the card is producing much less heat due to the lower clocks and a nice side-effect of that is that it's a single slot solution whereas the GTX has the bigger dual slot heat pipe cooler. That cooler btw has changed compared to the 7900 GT cooler. It seems to be slightly quieter, which is good!

Okay, some other specifications.

Today we'll be testing several 7950 GT cards. What we'll do right now is a to have a brief peek at them and their bundle. The reference card we'll show in the photo shoot and obviously the benchmarks, but first let's have a look at the two retail products we'll test today.