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XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB XXX Edition Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Thursday, 06 July 2006 |
Hardware Zone reports about their review on the XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB XXX Edition graphics card. One glance at any modern 3D game will convince anyone of the technological progress made since those early days. The goal towards ever greater photo realism has continued unabated and while the latest games may look amazing, the cost of getting a top end graphics card is probably as high as ever. NVIDIA's latest SLI advancement, the $599 GeForce 7950 GX2, which combines two GPU's onto a single card ostensibly but both GPU's have their own PCB. Its main achievement however, has to be how NVIDIA has finally managed to do away with the requirement of a SLI compatible motherboard.
 XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB XXX Edition Review
This will definitely lower the barriers to entry for extreme graphics performance, though most enthusiasts who would consider getting the GeForce 7950 GX2 would most likely have a SLI motherboard. In a sense, there has been unbelievable progress in the industry but the bar has also been raised correspondingly. And so the race will continue, as software developers will almost always find a use for more silicon while the hardware geeks will stretch the engineering limits of their products. As for the enthusiasts, if you make it, they will buy it. That's why expensive high-end products have always found a market.
And one vendor, XFX, recognizes this niche and its overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2 caters particularly to this breed of power users. The appearance of the XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB XXX Edition is as undistinguished as its name is long. We have encountered XFX's rather confusing product names before and the company seems to have a rather simplistic notion of appending more suffixes to the original product when they introduce a special or different edition. This time, the name may be long and unmemorable but at least the strings of numbers give a hint of what the card is all about.
In our case, we concluded that the XXX Edition in the name represented the extreme high core clock speed of the card. But we only knew that for sure after we powered up the card. Given this information, XFX's website listed a total three variants of the GeForce 7950 GX2. There was a standard version and a product with an Extreme suffix, so we can assume that the one you're seeing here today is the fastest overclocked version from XFX at the moment. With a core at 570MHz instead of the 500MHz default and memory frequency of 1550MHz compared to 1200MHz.
For now, the GeForce 7950 GX2 is the top dog in performance from NVIDIA in the single card category. It triumphs that of the single GeForce 7900 GTX and ATI's Radeon X1900 XTX in most benchmarks, thanks to its dual GPU's. Price wise, it is also the most expensive card around. Not all consumers will require or demand the graphical power of these high-end cards but with upcoming games like Crysis featuring photo realistic graphics that wow even the most jaded gamer, there's a tangible goal still to be achieved by both hardware and software developers.
From a technological stand point, XFX has not done anything significant different for its overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2. The vendor is well known for its overclocking models and the GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB XXX Edition is presently the top model for its class from the company. The card itself is pretty much similar to those found from almost any of NVIDIA's partners. It's just that XFX has as usual overclocked it, so you'll get the assurance of a performance boost along with warranty protection against the common problems faced by overclocking, like artifacts and heat issues.
So far, we have noticed none of that happening with the XFX, as the magnitude of the overclock is comfortably within the limits of the G71 core. All the GeForce 7950 GX2 cards we tested reached a maximum core clock overclock of around 600MHz and this applied too for the XFX. However, it did perform slightly better than the rest for its memory overclock. Unfortunately, the final benchmark score was quite marginal and most gamers would probably not notice the difference. Noise and heat levels were also within the usual tolerance for the GeForce 7950 GX2 so there should be no worries about that.
There are not too many extras from XFX as they went for quality rather than quantity. The focus on gaming was also predictable, coming from a vendor that targets gaming enthusiasts and we applaud the decision to include a very fresh game like Tomb Raider: Legends in the bundle. The GeForce 7950 GX2 is already one of the most expensive consumer graphics around and while the typical, normal clocked one can be found for an average of about $550 locally, the overclocked XFX costs substantially more. The XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 XXX will set you back by $650.
We feel that most enthusiasts who are considering a GeForce 7950 GX2 would prefer to overclock the card themselves. At the very least, the significant price differential should force even the most inexperienced user to find out more about overclocking. However, if you are one of those who can afford it and rather leave the risk and work to the experts, then the XFX is a good choice thanks to its experience in churning out such products. It definitely beats going the SLI route with two GeForce 7900 GTX cards in terms of overall cost.
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XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB XXX Edition Review
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