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Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic 512MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Zombie
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Tuesday, 13 June 2006 |
Hardware Zone presents a review on the Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic 512MB PCIe video card. Now that everyone has seen the performance of NVIDIA's latest GeForce 7950 GX2, those who have been eyeing a potential SLI setup have another excellent alternative. Of course, there are probably more consumers looking for a single, high-end card rather than the pseudo single GeForce 7950 GX2. Pricing, power consumption, noise and heat are some of the reasons why SLI, even reduced to a consumer friendly product like the GeForce 7950 GX2, may not be the best choice for everyone. In any case, the single GeForce 7900 GT is still very much in demand with enthusiasts looking for an affordable and decent high-end card.
 Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic 512MB PCI-E Review
First, the latest custom designed GeForce 7900 GT from Palit takes up two slots on your motherboard. That's one more than the vanilla GeForce 7900 GT. The cooler however does not have the dimensions of the dual slot GeForce 7900 GTX. It bears a slight resemblance if anything, to the ones found on ATI's Radeon X1600 XT. The noise output is also somewhat comparable to the default GeForce 7900 GT, but this one has a very slight whine pitch to it. Most users should find the noise acceptable, especially in exchange for the boosted performance that you should find on the Palit.
Of course we are not implying that Palit set out trying to make a GeForce 7900 GTX but based on its specifications, one could be forgiven for making that assumption. The 256MB frame buffer on the typical GeForce 7900 GT has been doubled to GTX proportions, totalling upto 512MB. Similarly, the core clock speed has been increased by a whopping 100MHz from the default 450MHz to 550MHz. While this was still far short of the 650MHz on a GeForce 7900 GTX, the Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic certainly gets marks for effort. The 1.4ns rated memory chips run at a normal clock of 1320MHz.
It's always exciting to find products that do not conform exactly to the numerous, faceless and ultimately forgettable clones that are out in the market. We often wonder just how many products worldwide are being sold merely on the strength of its marketing? Perhaps more than we realize. Hence, anything that is genuinely different perks us up. Obviously, the innovation must have its own merits and not just for the sake of it. It is one of the virtues of a market economy that makes innovation rewarding for both the manufacturer and consumers. And Palit is one company that has seemingly embraced this concept wholeheartedly.
Palit or XpertVision has in our opinion, tried its hand at making interesting and value added graphics products. Generally, they have succeeded in jolting us back from our jadedness and going by some of the discussions raging online, we are not the only enthusiasts who feel that way. The Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic 512MB is another of these different, mutated products. Some will no doubt speculate about the limited appeal of an overclocked GeForce 7900 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. The high-end graphics segment is already quite the niche if compared to the low and mid-range.
The hardcore enthusiast that goes for the special, overclocked versions are even fewer in numbers. Therefore, there probably won't be that many buyers for the Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic but that's good news to you, right? Since there should be more for those who are really interested. You get the card, put it in, start the benchmarks and get ready for the big numbers. True, it may not match the reigning GeForce 7900 GTX for pure performance but any ordinary GeForce 7900 GT will be left in the dirt. Even some of the faster GeForce 7900 GT cards may find themselves pushed to the limit, then overtaken.
The only disappointment is that Palit did seem to lose its nerves when it came to the memory frequencies, keeping it with the default ones rather than overclocking. However, that's probably the correct decision since they couldn't have used faster and more expensive memory without pricing it out of range. After trying it out, you may start to stretch its limits by doing some overclocking yourself. That's when it gets hot and fun, especially as you approach the clocks of a GeForce 7900 GTX. Of course, it's probably impossible, since the 1.4ns memory chips will never match the 1.1ns ones found on the GTX.
In short, the Palit GeForce 7900 GT Sonic 512MB is a dream for tweakers and overclockers. The hardware is waiting to be pushed and tortured, though we'll feel for you if you really manage to trash it. At $375, it's around $45 more than a bland reference card but only slightly more expensive than the premium overclocked ones in the market. It's not as powerful as the GeForce 7900 GTX but it does a decent impression of one when overclocked and it costs much less too. Besides, if you fancy overclocking, the excitement one can get from this very overclockable card should be priceless.
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