NVIDIA launched its Geforce 7 range this month -- the month after ATI finally stole a lead on the green company by launching its X1900 series. The X1900 launch was big for ATI as it gave it the kudos of the fastest card on the market and re-established ATI as a graphics force.

NVIDIA’s new 7900 GTX is little more than an updated 7800 GTX 512MB. The principal difference is that the fabrication process has seen architecture shrunk from a 110nm process to 90nm. This makes the card more power efficient and means that clock speeds can be raised: the core clock us is up 100MHz to 650MHz though memory speed has dropped from 850MHz to 800MHz. There are still eight vertex shaders and 24 pixel pipelines. The price makes it comparable with both of ATI’s X1900 XT and X1900 XTX cards (a quick search on the web shows 7900 GTX, X9100 XT and X1900 XTX cards all cost between $835 and $1000 depending on manufacturer and reseller).

So how does it compare? In Half-Life 2 the 7900 GTX is faster than ATI’s card (an odd result considering it’s an ATI-sponsored game) scoring 104fps at 1600 x 1200 and 124fps at 1280 x 1024 - 16fps and 21fps faster than the X1900 XT respectively and 10fps and 16fps faster an X1900 XTX. But in Far Cry it was different story, with the 7900 GTX’s 82fps (1600 x 1200) and 88fps (1280 x 1024) being 6fps and 1fps behind an X1900 XT respectively and 9fps and 2fps behind an X1900 XTX. In Call of Duty 2 the 7900 GTX’s 37fps (1600 x 1200) and 46fps (1280 x 1024) are 2fps and 4fps slower than an X1900 XT respectively and 5fps and 8fps slower than an X1900 XTX. It appears that ATI’s 48 pixel pipes make it better at complex shader-rich games.

But it’s all academic -- these cards are worth considering if you play the latest games at 1600 x 1200 only. There are other features to consider, too. NVIDIA offers its PureVideo software as a US$10 extra to allow hardware decoding of High Definition video. ATI offers this free as part of its AVIVO technology. Both cards take up two graphics cards slots, due to the coolers but NVIDIA’s is a bit quieter.

There’s ultimately little to separate the two companies otherwise and it comes down to whether you want to buy into SLI or CrossFire. MSI bundles CyberLink’s PowerCinema and Power2Go applications and the King Kong game. There are also connectors for S-Video, Composite and Component out.