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XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB XXX Edition Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Thursday, 29 June 2006 |
Hardware Secrets brings us a review on the XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB XXX Edition video card. The GeForce 7950 GX2 is the latest high-end video card presented by NVIDIA and XFX has this model, the GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB XXX Edition, which comes factory overclocked. The GeForce 7950 GX2 uses a very different design, it is actually two GeForce 7950 video cards stacked together. So it has two GPU's and a total of 1GB of video memory, meaning 512MB for each GPU. The good news is that it can be installed on any PCI Express motherboard, your motherboard doesn't need to be SLI for you to install this beast. Two of these GeForce 7950 GX2 can be bundled to get a Quad SLI config.
 XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB XXX Edition Review
Each GPU found on the GeForce 7950 GX2 normally runs at 500MHz accessing its memory at 1.2GHz. This model from XFX runs at 570MHz and accesses its memory at 1.55GHz. The two GPU's are connected to the 16-lane PCI Express slot through a switch chip. Accordingly to NVIDIA, at this time each GPU is connected to this switch using eight PCI Express lanes. Another thing to keep in mind is that each GPU is connected to its own 512MB video memory using a 256-bit interface. Because of this GeForce 7950 GX2 is said to have 1GB video memory accessed using a 512-bit interface.
Accordingly to NVIDIA, the GeForce 7950 GX2 came to the market between $599 and $649. This model from XFX is costing, on average about $683. In your research you will find huge price differences. For example, this model is quoted at $700, however the other overclocked XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 model, the Extreme edition can be found for about $600. Honestly, we don't think it is worth paying one hundred bucks just to have a factory overclocked model as you can achieve the same overclocking level just by configuring two sliders on the video driver that will cost you nothing.
Of course this video card is targeted for the ultra enthusiasts that want to have the latest, the fastest and the more expensive pieces of hardware in their dream machine. Other very high-end video cards especially GeForce 7900 GTX which is quoted around $530, continues to be an excellent choice if you want a great performance with all image quality settings enabled at very high resolutions but don't think it is worthwhile spending $600 or more on a video card.
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