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MSI GeForce 7900 GT 256MB Video Card

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | View Comments

There has been quite a shortage of 7900GT cards since they were released a little while ago. Hitting the right spot between ultimate performance and ultimate pricing, the GT has proven be a favorite amongst enthusiasts and others.

In a review at hardwarezone.com the card comes out well against its competition. It is an Nvidia reference card, which means that it is really a standard Nvidia 7900GT card with MSI’s decals on the front.

The cards main claim to fame it simply that it is good value for money, perhaps the best value for money from a high-end graphics card. It performs better than its 7800 predecessor and produces less heat due to 90nm technology and memory that is far from being pushed hard.

It was pitted against an MSI of the same range, two 7800GTX cards and an X1800 from ATI. They did not quite make it to the same level as the X1800 in 3DMark05 comparissons, but did manage to keep close when using it overclocking tool at 10% overclock.

It’s overclocking utility called D.O.T. lets you overclock the card in increments up to 10%, and you are covered under warranty even if you do use this overclocking feature, but not your own customised overclock.

An interesting point to note is that the biggest difference between cards came into play when playing games at high resolutions with all features turned on. In these tests the X1800 from ATI clearly pushed ahead of the pack, showing how much they have caught up to Nvidia.

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XFX 7600GS XT SLI Video Card

Monday, March 27th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | View Comments

XFX have released almost every single Nvidia based video card under their branding. Their focus is exclusively on Nvidia, and for this reason you will find a great deal of the new Nvidia releases from them. XFX is based in Korea and is a big manufacturer in the Asian market.

Motherboards.org takes a look at this card from XFX and puts it through its paces. It doesn’t incorporate active cooling and relies on only a heat sink to meet its cooling needs. Alright for cooling but most beneficial for a quiet computer without the fan blowing.

The size of the card is smaller than the other high class offerings from XFX like the 7800 and 7900 series cards which take up a massive amount of space inside any computer case.

The massive array of improvements that have been made to cards have been applied to this model, meaning that it can handle new games, although not with as much ease as its bigger brothers.

Although it performs alright in games it will not suit your needs if you need to run them at high resolutions and especially with all the extra setting turned on.

At a price much cheaper than a 7900GT it would make sense for those who don’t want to break the bank to get a good card, but don’t want to sacrifice too much for gaming on a computer that is probably designed to do more than just play games.

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eVGA GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB Superclocked

Monday, March 13th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | View Comments

EVGA have released their GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB graphics card and it is fantastic. Guru3d takes a look at this new card and pits it against all of the competition.

Now this newer card performs better than the 7800 models, but is actually cheaper due to factors like less transistors and other stuff that keep the price down.

In performance it does the expected and performs better than the previous model. It takes on any game with maximum settings and handles them fine. The video card manufacturers seem to be getting ahead of themselves and these cards can handle far more than the games can throw at them.

Anyways, it performed on a smudgen better than the X1900 from ATI which really sets the game afoot with the battle between these two manufacturers. It manages to outdo it in most of the tests, but not all.

With fierce competition the best thing is that prices start to fall. With ATI dropping its pricing below 500 bucks there is motivation for nvidia to keep prices down.

Head on over to Guru3d and check out the whole article and see just how well these new cards are going to handle.

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Two GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB in SLI

Monday, March 13th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | View Comments

Guru3d have done a fullout, huge review of two GeForce 7800 GTX cards. Taking the two cards and comparing them in different games and then taking the two of them, hooking them up in SLI mode and putting them against those same games again.

The GeForce 7800 GTX by itself is currently the most powerful video card you can get. It beats out all competition from ATI and takes the crown for performance. But taking two of them together does more than just produce great graphics, it allows you to punish the cards as much as you want and push them as far as they can go, and they won’t even flinch.

Two GeForce 7800 GTX cards together literally take on anything. They handle over 70fps in ANY game out there, at 1600×1200 and with all the extras features turned on. You get the most realistic images with the best shading, without sacrificing anything in gameplay by losing frames.

Also compared is how the processor still plays a fairly big part in how things come together. They are tested both with an Athlon 4000+ and an FX-57, and the performance does come out differently. There is a noticeable difference with the FX-57, but not enough to get truly excited about, its just the icing on a perfect combo.

The only downside to the whole affair is that the cards cost in the region of $650 which is pretty steep and make it almost unatainable for mere mortals if you are even considering an SLI setup.

This truly excellent article is really worth a read, even just for the impressiveness of it.

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Evga 6800GS C/O Superclocked Edition

Monday, March 13th, 2006 | News, Video Card Reviews | View Comments

Evga video cards have a reputation for being quality products. Although there is often not much to set video cards apart as they are nearly the same thing, Evga excels in customer support and warranties.

At Gamepyre the Evga 6800GS C/P superclocked edition was tested in SLI mode with two cards. It provided enough oomph to power all of the games the tester went through during the test. The combination of the two in SLI mode boosts the gameplay to decent levels.

The 2 cards in an SLI configuration came in somewhere between the 7800 and 2×7800 setups. So if you are still not willing to throw away your older 6800 then getting another for an SLI setup might be an alternative to getting a 7800 right away.

Check out Gemepyre for the full review.

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