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BFG GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Monday, 05 June 2006 |
The Tech Report brings us a review on the BFG GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB PCIe graphics card. NVIDIA has been talking publicly about Quad SLI for half a year now, and Quad SLI configs have been shipping for a few months in a select number of ultra-high-end PC's. Today, at long last, NVIDIA is unveiling a consumer version of its Quad SLI component card, the GeForce 7950 GX2. A single GX2 plugs into one PCI Express slot, but it actually has a pair of printed circuit boards, two GPU's, and two sets of memory chips onboard. By itself, the GeForce 7950 GX2 is an SLI setup on a stick, a dual-GPU powerhouse that fits into the same space as any other high-end graphics card with a dual-slot cooler.
 BFG GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB PCI-E Review
Each of this SLI sandwich's two printed circuit boards carries a G71 graphics processor, 512MB of memory, and a low-profile cooler. That G71 GPU is the same chip that powers the rest of the GeForce 7900 series, and in this application, it's clocked at 500MHz. The memory chips run at 600MHz (1200MHz effective). That makes the GX2 roughly the equivalent of a pair of GeForce 7900 GT cards, but with slightly faster GPU clocks, slightly slower memory clocks, and double the RAM per GPU. This puppy is also revised quite a bit compared to the cards that shipped in early Quad SLI systems.
The concept of dual-GPU teaming in a single card seems simple enough, but doing it well requires some extra hardware, especially since the ultimate goal is scaling up gracefully to Quad SLI. In order to make things work right, the GeForce 7950 GX2 has a new helper chip onboard; a custom 48-lane PCI Express switch created by NVIDIA. The switch divides up its PCI Express lanes into three groups of sixteen. One to each GPU and one to the rest of the system. This arrangement allows for high bandwidth communication between either GPU and the rest of the system, as well as fast data transfers between the GPU's.
Somehow, I didn't really expect a single GeForce 7950 GX2 card to be a compelling product outside of a Quad SLI configuration. This puppy does have its warts, including the need for mainboard BIOS updates and the SLI like limitations for multi-monitor use that may turn some power users away. Still, the GX2 is remarkably tame overall. This card takes up no more space, draws no more power, and generates no more heat or noise than a Radeon X1900 XTX, but its performance is in another class altogether. The multi-GPU mojo generally happens transparently, too, thanks to a healthy collection of SLI profiles.
Putting two GPU's on a card has allowed NVIDIA to overcome the limitations of its present GPU designs and of current fab process technology to achieve new performance heights in a single PCI Express slot. Of course, such things have been possible for quite some time in the form of a two-slot SLI or CrossFire solution, but the GX2 still has much to recommend it. Doubling up on GeForce 7900 GT's would get you an SLI setup in the same price range, but with lower GPU clock speeds and only 256MB of memory per GPU. And the GX2 works in any chipset.
This may prove to be a real boon if you fancy one of Intel's Conroe processors, an Intel chipset, and uber-fast graphics. I could see that combination becoming very popular this summer, if things shake out as expected. All that's left now is for NVIDIA to enable and support Quad SLI in consumer-built systems. Let's hope NVIDIA comes to its senses on that one sooner rather than later.
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