Nvidia has officially ‘ended’ the 7900 GT chipset (you should be able to pick it up for bargain) and replaced it with an incremental improvement: the 7950 GT. This card, like the 7900 GT, sports 24 pixel pipelines and eight vertex shaders but its core clock runs at 550MHz (7900 GT: 450MHz) and its memory runs at 700MHz (7900 GT: 660MHz). It’s also available in 512MB and 256MB versions. Both access GDDR3 RAM using 256-bit bandwidth.

Albatron’s model sports 512MB so it should fly in games with large textures like in our high-end Call of Duty 2 (CoD2) test. It averaged 38fps – 4fps higher than a 7900 GT and 1fps below our A-Listed X1900 XT. In our high-end Far Cry test it averaged 40.3fps compared to the 7900 GT’s 36fps and the X1900 XT’s 50fps.

So it’s some way behind the X1900 XT, but just ahead of a 7900 GT. In terms of value it’s a reasonable choice: it costs some $80 less than an X1900 XT but some $80 more than a 7900 GT with performance falling slap in the middle. This is slightly awkward because a 7900 GS costs $290 and will play all games at 1280 x 1024 and we wonder whether a 7950 GT will be able to comfortably play imminent game releases at 1600 x 1200. As such we recommend sticking with the X1900 XT if you’re playing at higher resolutions: you need all the power you can get.

If you do want very-high powered, future-proof 1280 x 1024 gaming, in our medium-settings tests it averaged 61.6fps in Far Cry and 45.7fps in CoD2: 16fps and 7fps (respectively) faster than a 7900 GS.

We also tested Leadtek’s 256MB 7950 GT using high-settings. This averaged 38.7fps in Far Cry and 34.6fps in CoD2: playable framerates but again, we wonder about imminent game releases. However, it can be had for $396 – a significant saving.

We’re happy to see that all 7950 GT cards are HDCP compliant: they can play encrypted HD content. Albatron’s card comes with Toca Race Driver 3 as well. Ultimately though, it’s a card that sits across the 1600 x 1200 and 1280 x 1024 barrier. It’s not ideal for the former and too good for the latter. But at a traditionally popular pricepoint of $479, it could sell well.