X-bit labs

Two for One: Nvidia's Dual-Chip GeForce 7950 GX2 Reviewed

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Anton Shilov

[ 06/09/2006 | 06:01 PM ]

The new graphics card from Nvidia, GeForce 7950 GX2, is to be the subject of this review. It is the first officially announced dual-GPU card from Nvidia which, unlike GeForce 7900 GX2, is meant for the retail market. Let’s see if it is now the best single graphics card in the world!

Table of contents:

• GeForce 7950 GX2: Two in One
  
• Specification and Alternatives
  
• PCB Design
  
• Cooling System
  
• Noise
  
• Overclocking and 2D Quality
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• GeForce 7950 GX2: Problems Revealed
  
• Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks
  
• Performance in Gaming Benchmarks: First-Person 3D Shooters
  
• Battlefield 2
  
• The Chronicles of Riddick
  
• Call of Duty
  
• Doom 3
  
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  
• Far Cry
  
• F.E.A.R.
  
• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
  
• Half-Life 2
  
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
  
• Project: Snowblind
  
• Quake 4
  
• Serious Sam 2
  
• Performance in Gaming Benchmarks: Third-Person 3D Shooters
  
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
  
• Performance in Gaming Benchmarks: Simulators
  
• Pacific Fighters
  
• X3: Reunion
  
• Performance in Gaming Benchmarks: Strategies
  
• Age of Empires 3
  
• Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War
  
• Performance in Gaming Benchmarks: Synthetic Tests
  
• Futuremark 3DMark05 build 1.2.0
  
• Futuremark 3DMark06 build 1.0.2
  
• Conclusion
  
• GeForce 7950 GX2: Winners Come in Pairs
  
• Nobody Is Perfect: Achilles’ Heels
  
• Summary
  

Graphics cards with more than one graphics-processing chip on board are nothing new, actually. They have been long used by professionals while in the consumer market products like Voodoo Graphics, Voodoo2 and Voodoo5 got some renown, too. In recent years some companies, mostly majors like ASUS Computer, Gigabyte Technology and Microstar International, have also submitted their exclusive solutions on two Nvidia GeForce chips to the public.

Developed by a single company, dual-chip cards from the mentioned manufacturers couldn’t get much popularity, although often were a very good buy. But there was no real urgency for dual-chip graphics cards in 2005 because Nvidia managed to turn out ever faster products on the same chip whereas ATI Technologies was trying to begin mass production of its Radeon X1000.

Early this year, however, ATI overtook Nvidia in terms of performance by releasing its new flagship Radeon X1900 XTX in mass quantities. Having 48 pixel processors on board, the new card left all the then-available solutions from Nvidia behind and remained unbeatable even by Nvidia’s new flagship GeForce 7900 GTX.

Many users are watching the struggle between ATI and Nvidia as if it were sports like racing or boxing and take close notice only of those graphics cards that get to be champions. Therefore both the companies are trying hard to get the yellow jersey of the leader. Realizing that its GeForce 7900 GTX wouldn’t come out of its fight with the Radeon X1900 XTX as an absolute winner, Nvidia deliberately put a low price of $499 on it. This could only mean that the company had a better solution to be placed at the price peak of $649 the company had climbed before.

At the beginning of June 2006, three months after the release of GeForce 7900, Nvidia introduced its highly anticipated GeForce 7950 GX2 that is supposed to become an all-around leader among single graphics cards. It’s either the frequency potential of GeForce 7900 is exhausted at 650-700MHz or in order to make four-processor (quad-SLI) systems more reliable but Nvidia didn’t increase the frequencies of the new flagship product, only put two GPUs on it which are sure to beat all the rivals and to give system integrators the opportunity to produce simpler quad-SLI computers.