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EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Saturday, 29 July 2006 |
Bit-Tech reports about their review on the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock graphics card. EVGA has been one of NVIDIA's top partners in the USA over the last few years, offering some unique extras that other board partners do not offer. In the first quarter of this year, the company opened an European office in Germany and started making some noise in the UK. The company has entered the UK market with the intention of taking market share from the likes of BFG and XFX with its attractive products carrying an impressive warranty, giving the consumer the option to upgrade to something faster in the first 90 days of ownership at a very attractive price.
 EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock Review
Today, we have EVGA's e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock video card to be checked and it comes clocked at an obscene 580/1580MHz with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. The box advertises the clock speeds and memory configuration, immediately telling the consumer exactly what they're getting inside. The card comes with EVGA's own cooling solution, unlike previous GeForce 7900 GT's we've looked at. This is a full copper construction, and comes with a variable speed 50mm fan. Unlike the reference cooler, EVGA's heatsink design cools the memory chips as well as the GPU core.
We overclocked the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock using NVIDIA's registry hack. This should give an indication of how well the e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock overclocks, but please bear in mind that your own mileage may vary. We cannot guarantee that manufacturers aren't sending us samples that overclock particularly well. The stock clocks for the EVGA's e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock are 580/1580MHz and we were able to overclock it to 603/1600MHz without any stability problems. Above these frequencies, we experienced artifacting in some games.
EVGA's e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock is a good implementation of NVIDIA's GeForce 7900 GT SKU, boasting some incredibly high clock speeds out of the box. From our testing of this card, it doesn't appear to suffer from the third day syndrome problems under heavy load, but we recommend checking EVGA's support forum for customer reports on the product. With that said though, EVGA has a solid support program, a great warranty term and some nice perks on top. The performance differences between the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock and the ATI Radeon X1900 XT are reasonably small.
The Radeon X1900 XT might have a slight advantage though. However, the purchasing decision ultimately comes down to what's on offer. Despite the Radeon X1900 XT's performance advantage and incredibly attractive price, the EVGA Step-Up program is a fantastic feature to have when NVIDIA is getting ready to release a new generation of products. You will be able to upgrade from a card like this to something from the G80 family as soon as the new cards are released. Of course, this is dependant on waiting list times, availability, pricing and how long it takes for NVIDIA to roll out its new product line.
If the conditions are right and you are waiting for DirectX 10 hardware to arrive, the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO SuperClock is a pretty good place to start if you're after something to keep you happy while you wait for G80. However, if you're more concerned about performance right now, the Radeon X1900 XT may be the better choice right now.
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