Review: Sparkle Calibre P790+ 512 MB SLI

Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 08/27/2006 01:00 PM [ 0 comment(s) ]

Page 2

Sparkle P790+ 512 MB a.k.a G71

Back in March when the GeForce 7900 GT was released I called this series the winner of the three new product that were released that day. It's a top-segment mid-range product yet offering performance close to the high-end graphics cards for an amazing price. The GeForce 7900 GT is pretty much a slowed down version of big daddy GeForce 7900 GTX. This product has the very same pixel pipelines and vertex processors as the GTX, in fact it's 100% the same (G71) chip yet it's clocked significantly slower at 450 MHz (reference).

The standard 7900GT is armed with gDDR3 memory running at 1320 MHz (2x 660 MHz as reference) and also was brought down from 512MB towards 256 MB. Now if you look at the chart on this page and start comparing a little then you'll notice that it should perform better than the GeForce 7800 GT and perhaps even the 7800 GTX 256MB versions ... for roughly 300 bucks !

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.

Sparkle offers the Calibre series of cards. It features a new and very silent cooler, nice blue colored PCB, faster clocks for core and memory and to top it off, that 512 MB of memory. It has all the functions and specifications as mentioned, yet since this is the SPP790+ model again we have slightly higher than usual core and memory speeds. The graphics core is clocked at an impressive 560 MHz (vs. 450MHz standard) and that gDDR3 memory is running at 1400MHz (vs. 1320MHz).

So that's a really aggressive default overclock, very impressive. The videocard also comes with a new cooler. Lately I have been complaining about the reference coolers from NVIDIA as I think they produce too much sound. This cooler is virtually silent and very effective. We'll show it on the photo-shoot.

Also good to know, Calibre products come with a 48 hours response technical support and 3 years warranty.

Review: Sparkle Geforce 7900 GT - P790+ 512MB memory

Included in the box you'll find next to the Calibre GeForce 7900 GT 512MB graphics card the following items:

Quick install guide
Manual
DVI-I to VGA dongle
HDTV dongle
Dual 4-pin to single 6-pin power cable
Driver CD, which includes NVIDIA® ForceWare unified graphics drivers, Full installation manual .pdf
Painkiller: Full version
CyberLink PowerDVD: Excellent DVD playback utility
CyberLink PowerProducer: Easy-to-use video editing utility

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
Sparkle P790+	24	8	256-bit	GDDR3/512MB	560MHz	1400 MHz
GeForce 7900 GT	24	8	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)

14 pages 1 2 3 4 next »

review: Vantec NexStar LX NAS
It's not often we publish reviews on storage devices but a while ago Vantec contacted us with the question if we wanted to review their latest NAS device. I had a peek, it looked sexy, ease of use and good connectivity. Suffice to say that today we'll be having a look at the NexStarLS where you can insert a Parallel HD into a little white or black box and then majestically transform it into a Network Storage Device, so that no matter where you are, you can always access your data as it's quite a portable device and so easy to use.

Review: BFG GeForce 7600 GT & 7900 GT OC
BFG manufactures the GeForce 7600 GT and 7900 GT but as trendy as it is ... they brand it as a special "OC" version. These are the pre-clocked (at default higher clocked then the reference cards from NVIDIA) on both the memory and graphics processor. So today we are looking at the BFG GeForce 7600 GT OC and also their GeForce 7900 GT OC. Both cards come with 256 MB memory and both cards produce a stack load of performance for your well spent bucks.

Review: Sparkle Calibre P790+ 512 MB SLI
Sparkle has their usual line of cards and then their Calibre line of cards as well. Much like other companies the Calibre series is slightly more expensive yet you'll receive some pretty nifty extra candy. In the case of the GeForce 7900 GT they are offering a 790 and 790+ model of this videocard and we'll be looking at that P790+ model.

Review: Core 2 Duo E6600, E6700 & X6800
Today we'll be taking some new Intel processors for a test-drive. Intel is smiling .. really really smiling ! They have achieved something really good for the processor market. The Pentium 4 brand is being ditched and Core 2 Duo has recently been introduced. Specifically the Core 2 Duo processors with the "Conroe" processor core really hit the market aggressively. They are energy friendly and offer a stack load of performance and if that isn't enough .. you can buy them relatively cheaply.