X-bit labs

Two for One: Nvidia's Dual-Chip GeForce 7950 GX2 Reviewed (page 12)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Anton Shilov

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

Performance in Gaming Benchmarks: First-Person 3D Shooters

Battlefield 2

The game doesn’t support extreme full-screen antialiasing modes, so we don’t have them here.

The GeForce 7950 GX2 doesn’t show its strength until 1600x1200, delivering an average performance like that of the single GeForce 7900 GTX. It’s only in the highest resolution that the new Nvidia graphics card nearly overtakes the Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire. It cannot reach the level of the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI because this SLI configuration has considerably higher GPU and memory frequencies.

We are discussing now the best consumer graphics solutions available today, so there’s no lack of performance with any of them. Even the single GeForce 7900 GTX yields over 90fps in 1600x1200 with enabled FSAA and anisotropic filtering which means high playing comfort for the gamer.

The Chronicles of Riddick

The GeForce 7950 GX2 is a little ahead of the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI in the lowest resolution, probably due to our using a new driver for it. The relatively low GPU and memory frequencies don’t allow the GeForce 7950 GX2 to remain in the lead in higher resolutions, yet it is faster than the GeForce 7900 GT SLI or Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire (the latter is handicapped by the game’s using OpenGL and dynamic stencil shadows).

So while the Radeon X1900 XTX cannot provide a comfortable speed in 1600x1200 at the max graphics quality settings, the GeForce 7950 GX2 gives you a satisfactory 100fps there.

The GeForce 7900 GTX SLI configuration stands out among the multiple-GPU solutions, delivering over 60fps in 1600x1200. The GeForce 7950 GX2 and the Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire have the same speed and allow using 8x FSAA in resolutions up to 1280x1024.

At the next level of FSAA the Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire takes the lead as it uses 14x Super AA which is less resource-consuming than 16x SLI AA. The GeForce 7950 GX2 has a good average frame rate in 1024x768 only – it is as fast as the GeForce 7900 GT SLI. So, 16x SLI AA mode still looks a luxury unavailable in high resolutions even to owners of two GeForce 7900 GTX.