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The Verdict
You guys have already learned that I'm very fond of the GeForce 7900 GS. It offers tremendous bang for your bucks, even if the card would be 100% reference. That's not the case with the Galaxy GeForce 7900 GS though, it's much better then that. For the same amount of money you get to have an additional 10-20% performance due to the default higher core frequency and memory clock frequency. Next to that this model is equipped with the Zalman cooler. Granted they are not the most sexy to look at but they most certainly do their job well and silent.
Also make note of the complete bundle. You'll get everything to get you started (no free games included though).
The card itself behaved beautifully. We had no weird computer issues, lockups or anything whatsoever. Admittedly the software bundle is sober, but the card design makes up for that tremendously. Overclocking was even more amazing. This by far has been the most tweakable GeForce 7900 GS card to date. Where all other cards halted at ~600 MHZ on the core and ~1600 on the memory we where able to push the graphics core towards 630 MHz and the memory towards 1700 MHz, lovely !
Quite honestly there's absolutely nothing negative to report on the Galaxy card. Other then that NVIDIA will release it's mid-range DirectX 10 compatible cards soon. Vista is coming quickly. I do however feel it'll be a long time before we actually see a good number of DX10 games to choose from so whether this is going to be an issue or not is for you to decide.
Great performance, good quality components and an okay bundle. For the roughly 200 EUR you need to pay for this card you'll get awesome performance and thus a great gaming experience.
Galaxy (again) will receive an award, yet I'm giving it our best hardware stamp for that very complete card and the balls to clock it so fast. The Galaxy GeForce 7900 GS Zalman Edition graphics card is something you can't go wrong with given the budget range it can be found in.
Highly recommended.
GeForce 7900 GS 256MB DDR3 with pre-clock and Zalman cooler
Company: Galaxy
Price: 199 USD/EUR
Info: galaxytech.com
