For every new GPU, ATI and NVIDIA always introduce a number of video cards targeted towards different segments of the market. Currently, the GeForce 7 series is split up into 17 different classes of video cards. However, despite the confusion caused by the many different classes, consumers still benefit in the end. Thanks to the many variants of graphics cards, the pricing of video cards is usually roughly proportional to the performance they offer.

NVIDIA has recently introduced a new video card that is meant to directly compete with the X1900 GT. The card is based on the G71 GPU and is called the GeForce 7900 GS. Video cards based on the G71 usually feature 8 vertex shaders and 24 pixel pipelines. However, the main element of distinction for the GeForce 7900GS is the disabling of 4 pixel pipes and one vertex shader unit.

The 7900GS is fully compatible with Shader Model 3.0, DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.0. In addition, the video card also has support for HDR, transparency antialiasing, SLI, and PureVideo/PureVideo HD with support for XHD resolutions (2560x1600).

The product comes with a core clock of 450 MH and a memory clock of 1,320 MHz. The card also has a memory bandwidth of 42.2 GB/s thanks to the cards’ 256 bit wide bus.

The 7900 GS is based on the same layout of the GeForce 7900 GT reference board.

Although the G71 is a powerful and complex graphical processor, the final cooling system surprising has relatively small dimensions due to the GPU’s lesser thermal and energy needs. For this reason, NVIDIA has adopted the same compact cooling system for this card that is seen on the GeForce 7900 GT and GeForce 7600 GT video cards. The heatsink and fan are relatively small. The memory modules, as can be seen in the photo, lack a cooling system. Thanks to the smaller cooling solution, the video card turns out to occupy a single PCI Express 16x slot.

Similar to all other video cards in the G71 lineup, the GeForce 7900 GS requires a six-pin PCI-E connector for additional power. The card also features a SLI connector through which two 7900 GS video cards can be joined together.

The card also comes with a Dual DVI-I solution and an S-Video out.

Benchmarks

3DMark 05
Far Cry
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
The Chronicles Of Riddick
Doom 3
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Coast
Serious Sam 2
Call of Duty 2
F.E.A.R.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Tomb Raider Legend

The strong performance shown by the 7900 GS in single and multitexturing is evidence of the advantage the card holds over other video cards in its market segment. This advantage is given to the 7900 GS by its extra pixel pipelines and higher memory clock, both of which succeed in giving it the best performance in single and multitexturing.

Here, the competitive 7900 GS performs similar to the Radeon X1800 GTO2 and Radeon X850 XT in terms of simple vertex calculations. However, the card ends up being bested by all three competing ATI video cards in advanced vertex calculations.

Again, we see another example of a test in which the GeForce 7900 GS undoubtedly rules supreme. The GeForce 7900 GS’ high performance in the above test is a direct result of the greater number of present calculation units on the G71 compared to its R520 contender.

Far Cry is a video game in our benchmark lineup whose results show the Direct3D performance of video cards. From the above benchmarks we can declare that the GeForce 7900 GS is considerably faster compared to the Radeon X1800 GTO2 in standard rendering, while with some antialiasing and anisotropic filtering added to the mix we see a substantial parity between the 7900 GS and its ATI contenders.

Doom 3 and The Chronicles of Riddick traditionally have always favored GeForce GPUs because of the use of OpenGL and the method with which shadows are dynamically generated. The GeForce 7900 GS is no exception to this rule and it outperformed all competitors in every type of rendering and resolution.

The performance shown by the 7900 GS reaffirms that the video card is faster than the Radeon X1800 GTO2 in standard rendering. The performance of the two video cards, however, levels out again when testing at higher resolutions. Enabling High Dynamic Range places the 7900 GS ahead of the competition, however, the performance difference between it and the Radeon X1800 GTO2 is a slight one.

Half Life places the 7900 GS in a position of where it is neck to neck with the X1800 GTO2 in terms of performance. It has secondary performance in all but one benchmark. The reason for the 7900 GS’ lower performance is analogous to why ATI cards tend to perform worse on the Doom 3 engine. It is commonly known that the Half Life engine tends to traditionally favor Radeon GPUs.

The two tests show two completely different pictures. Call of Duty 2 rewards the architecture of the R520, while F.E.A.R. manages to get better performance from the G71.

Serious Sam 2 is another game in which we see very close test results. Using antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, the GeForce 7900 GS and Radeon X1800 GTO2 have essentially the same performance. However, with High Dynamic Range activated, we see the needle of the balance moving towards the ATI solution.

Oblivion gives us a situation similar to that of Serious Sam 2 in which we cannot declare a true winner due to the very close benchmark results.

Tomb Raider Legend, on the other hand, places the GeForce 7900 GS in first place in all standard rendering tests. However, with “Next Generation” turned on, the performance evens out again leaving the decision of which card performs better to you.

As this card is based on a graphical processor that in its natural state has 20 calculation units, four of which have been disabled in the 7900 GS, the first thought that naturally came to our minds was to try to enable the disabled units. Using Rivaturner, the famous video card tweaking software that was able to enable all 16 pipelines on the GeForce 6800, we tried to enable the four disabled pipelines. Unfortunately, this modification did not work for us in our testing.

After trying to enable the pipelines, and failing, we decided to move on to the classic practice of gradually overclocking the video card. We began by steadily increasing the operating frequency of the core and memory until we hit the video cards’ limit. We were able to reach the satisfactory overclock of 560 MHz for the Core and 1730 MHz for the memory. Using the overclocked GeForce 7900 GS, we ran some more tests using Far Cry.

The overclock had a very positive impact on performance. We had gains in performance of up to 20%.

We conducted the following power consumption tests using a Lafayette PA-33 ammeter clamped on to the alternating current used from the local power source of the test system.

The diagram is evidence to the optimal power use qualities of the GeForce Series 7. The 7900 GS consumed less power than all ATI competitors and was second only to the 7600 GT.

We measured the noise emitted from the video card by performing the testing in an environment free of all household noises. We placed a noise meter a distance of approximately 10 cm from the cooling system of the video card. We suggest not interpreting these values as absolute measures of what you would hear from the card on a daily basis, but simply as a comparison of the amount of noise emitted from video cards competing with the GeForce 7900 GS, and to find out which card is the loudest of the pack.

As the system of cooling is the same one used on the GeForce 7900 GT, we got exactly the same results between the 7900 GS and the 7900 GT. At idle, as can be seen, the NVIDIA GeForce 6800 was loudest at 57 decibels. However, under stress, all three NVIDIA video cards were louder than their ATI competitors.

Foremost, we believe it most important to discuss the pricing of the GeForce 7900 GS. The 7900 GS has been launched at a price point of $220. This move places the 7900 GS in an interesting position of the market, one in which it is not only competing with ATI’s offerings, but also potentially with a select number of 7900 GT video cards that at times can be found for around $230 (using rebates).  

NVIDIA has also made sure that the GeForce 7900 GS is available for retail immediately at launch, reaffirming their seriousness in launching new products that have immediate availability and don’t just end up being paper launches. Immediate availability at launch is usually greatly appreciated by system builders who don’t want to face waiting for availability of a new video card that they want to buy.

The benchmarks we have run today show the 7900 GS to be completely competitive in terms of performance and price when compared to the Radeon X1800 GTO2. The 7900 GS often turned out to be the leading performer in standard rendering tests and still remained competitive with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled at higher resolutions.  

As we have stated before, the GeForce 7900 GS offers impressive performance for its price. However, although the 7900 GS usually ended up as the winner in standard rendering tests, we could not declare a true winner between the X1800 GTO2 and the 7900 GS when the video cards were tested at higher resolutions with AA and AF enabled. This was simply because the performance both video cards offered turned out to be very similar.

As our tests show, the 7900 GS has great potential for overclocking. On our reference board, we were able to reach a fully stable clock of 560 MHz Core and 1730 MHz memory, up from 450 MHz/1,320 MHz, respectively. Testing the overclocked 7900 GS in Far Cry, we had an overall 20% gain in performance, pretty impressive to say the least.  

With the GeForce 7900 GS, NVIDIA has shown that they are increasing their competitiveness by having their products deliver more performance for the price. As NVIDIA’s new mid-range product, the GeForce 7900 GS does not disappoint and is a welcome addition to the $200-250 price range. For those of you who are buying a video card on a budget and are also looking for a solution that has headroom for overclocking,  the GeForce 7900 GS is a video card we suggest you check out.