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

So what to buy if you got 600$ one GTX or 2 GT?
2 GT sems to outperform the GTX most of the time
(+1000p in 3Dmark 2005 etc.)
Guess you have to change fans on the GT cards.
But apart from that you really seem to be better of with the 2xGT.
Or have I missed something here?

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.

i like school.

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.

Compared to ATI X1800 Series. Give me a break. Let's atleast stay on the same playing field.

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?

Did the 1.4V conductive pen Voltmod on a Asus 7900GT Top. Instead of getting 544/799 I got 641/850 (without changing cooler. waiting for the VF900).

Awesome card!!!

Just wanted to add that the real competitor of the 7900gt is the x1800xt. The x1800xt 256mb can be had for as low as $260, while the 512mb for $299.

In all tests, both perform neck to neck, but the x1800xt takes the win when it comes to high res and FSAA

Fantastic review! By far the best 7900GT review on the net. You guys leave NO stone unturned!

Folks need to understand how reviewing MUST work. You MUST review the stock card at MSRP because there are simply too many variables to take into account if you let in all the actual prices here and there and adding a cooler here and there and doing volt mods and overclocking and in this case and that case and with this temp and that temp. You have to draw the line somewhere and stock/MSRP is where it is drawn.

Ya'll are smart enough to make your own decision based on the review.

On the Oblivion page you're putting the graphs with X1800 XT but in the article you're speaking about X1800 XL being "a little faster than the GeForce 7900 GT in low resolutions".
Which one is right?

I have the feeling that you tested the XL and the graphs are just wrong, you don't have an XT tested here.

"This game was not tested in FSAA modes since HDR support is disabled even on ATI’s graphics cards then and the visuals quality degenerates greatly."

How much is Nvidia paying you people? You can be bothered to download Catalyst 6.3 but you can't be bothered to download the Chuck patch?

Please stop saying that HDR doesn't work with AA "even on ATi's X1000 cards" because it's misinformation to the extreme, or are you going to tell people that using the latest and most useful drivers is a bad idea?

The core actualy isn't one that didnt pass a frequency check. They are literaly the same core and same quality as teh GTX cores. The only difference is the voltage given to the core. I voltmoded mine to 1.4 volts and got 680 on the core. This card is hands down better then the GTX and 1800XT when a simple voltmod with conductive pen is done.

i have an XFX 7900 GT oc edition. it owns my 3dmark 05 was 8669.....PRO

Oblivion benchmarks -> http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/oblivion_high-end_perfor mance/page6.asp

If you buy these, BFG's version is suspect.
I bought one and it was basically DOA causing artifacts and frequent random crashes of the graphics.

The card runs way too hot once you play any games,

Anyway, I returned it for a swapover, and the second was only slightly better.

With the newest drivers released last week it seems to be somewhat stable now. I had to replace the standard cooling but to get any great benefit the cooling system was so big it took up a PCI slot by itself, so if you were to run SLI and only had the standard 6 PCI slots and a bigger than average case you wouldn't be able to plug anything else in.

But that's after a month of hell with 2 BFG 7900GT cards.....

Who made that card you tested?