There is a small mistake on the last page:
"positioned for the 4299 price segment"

Your article is worth nothing because you compare the wrong products.
Let me explain.
7900GT 256MB can be found for $299.
X1800XT 256MB can be found for $279.
X1800XT 512MB can be found for $299.

So you should compare 7900GT and X1800XT 512MB directly.

- X1800XT is faster 90% of the time
- X1800XT can run HDR and AA - that's really a disadvantage of the 7900GT, did you forget about that?
- X1800XT has 512MB

But those 3 points alone make the buy of an 7900GT worthless.
The only advantage is SLI but by the time you want a second card, nVidia won't sell the card anymore.
BTW the whole SLI/Crossfire thing is for idiots anyway.

I really don't understand people wanting the 7900GT so badly.

But your article is a standard Xbit article.
From start till end it's all about making nVidia look good. You probably do this without even noticing it.
You just don't want to admit it's a worse product.
Xbit = nVidia Fanboy and don't you say no.

The G71 GPU is not speed binned. The reason you could only hit 560MHz core clock is due to the chip being undervolted on the GT.

Most of the 7900GTs being sold are clocked much higher than the ones you tested, so the scores you have posted here should certainly be considered worst-case for the card. The cards are also easily modified to MUCH higher performance levels.

My 3DMark scores on a single modified 7900GT (@700/1780, Zalman CF-700 fan) in High Quality mode and x2 3800 CPU (@2400Mhz, stock HSF) are 10829 for 3DM05 and 6191 for 3DM06.

I don't think you're going to find any X1800 cards doing that, unless you have a pair in Crossfire :-)

As always, very comprehensive review with many competing products. Great job!

However, the X1800XT is the peer competitor with the 7900GT at the $299 price point not the X1800XL. Newegg has the X1800XT 512 for 299 and a 256 version for 259 (after MIR). Not a fanboy for either side, I'll leave the performance assessments to the experts, but the price is easy to verify. This would change the conclusion significantly because you always assume the X1800XT is at the next higher price bracket and so not a fair comparison.

Well, when it comes I have only 5 when it comes to favoring 7900GT over X1800XT. Where I live X180XTs are hard to find and cost some 70 to 110 bucks more, I like more the NV's drivers - more compatibility, stability, I currently run an X850XT Pe and have some serious driver issues, Act of War's Expansion locks very frequently, and lots of older games look strange - then, the 7900GT is quite a good overclocker, and the last, I might be wrong, the reviewer said that in some cases the ATI cards only simulate supersampling, and that's a hole lot of workload off the chip. Don't want to cry "Wolf" because I'm not sure of this, if someone could give some more info I would apreciate.
Not least, but fifth, it is highly probable that NV will do a software mod to their cards thru drivers to make them do FSAA+HDR, even it might bring down performance.
ATI drivers are a big detterant for me, but their good part is that they come out every month, and any issues might be adressed quickly.

Just as an ending line, with my previous card, an 6800GS, I was playing everythin from Unreal1 to FEAR and AOW Exp with no glitches. The X850XT issues are driver ones, since I've put my PC thru a 24H 3Dmark test with Prime95 torturing in background, and it is not an hardware issue. That makes me go back to NV, am I wrong?