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The highest end graphics cards never sell well but seem to be essential in establishing bragging rights for the cheaper, more-popular cards in a company’s line. So while we raised eyebrows at the 7900 GTX, we were most interested to see what the new 7900 GT (which replaces our A-Listed chipset, the 7800 GT) could offer.
With an RRP $300 less than its higher-clocked brother the 7900 GT immediately looks tempting. Even with the core clock 200MHz less at 450MHz and memory reduced by 256MB and clocked 140MHz less at 660MHz, the new 90nm fabrication process promises powerful performance.
It didn’t disappoint. At 1280 x 1024 it scored 94fps at Half-Life 2, 78fps at Far Cry and 35.7fps at Call of Duty 2. If you’ve got an LCD monitor that’s less than 20 inches, you need look no further, this will play any game at full detail settings at 1280 x 1024. Remember also that these high frame rates are achieved with 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering turned on too.
But it will cope at 1600 x 1200 as well. In these tests, Half-Life 2 dropped to 76fps and Far Cry was 59fps. Only Call Of Duty 2 wavered on the playability front with 27fps – meaning it might chug occasionally when the going gets tough. Reducing detail settings will stop this though.
Also of note is the cooling solution. The heatsink/fan is half the size of what was on the 7800 GT. The small fan does make an audible whirr but it should be well muffled by most cases. We wouldn’t be surprised to see silent coolers appearing in future versions.
It’s interesting to note that Ati still doesn’t have a card that competes with Nvidia’s top GT card at the $500 price point but Ati cards do offer video in options – the 7900s are video out only. Inno3D bundles two VGA adapters plus cables for S-Video and component out. Also included is InterVideo WinDVD and Delta Force Xtreme.
In short, if you want a new graphics card to play the latest games with, then this is the chipset to buy. With Ati and Nvidia’s high end cards costing around $900, anything else is just expensive overkill.