Today we can show off for the first time a dual GeForce 7900 GT GPU solution based on a single board. That's right, this is not a GX2 with two separate boards mounted together, but one card with two graphics cores. We have seen ASUS and Gigabyte manufacture similar products with limited success already, but Galaxy is the first to push the envelope slightly with the GeForce 7900 series of products in their new Masterpiece range of products. The new Masterpiece line is a totally new concept for Galaxy as they will be offering dual GeForce 7600 GT's, GeForce 7900 GS's and GT's on one PCB in a somewhat exclusive package. On top the Masterpiece series come with a lifetime warranty. - Guru3D

Galaxy GeForce 7900GT Dual Core Masterpiece Review

Armed with higher than reference clocks, a large blue PCB and one massive cooler we will be taking a good look at the Galaxy GeForce 7900 GT Dual Core. A huge card that has two GeForce 7900 GT GPU's clocked at 607MHz on it's core and the card comes with two times 512MB GDDR3 memory set at 1520MHz. This card comes with a lifetime warranty. To be able to compare, the reference GeForce 7900 GT build around the G71 core is clocked at 450MHz and is equipped with 256MB GDDR3 memory running at 1320MHz. So, the Masterpiece product is clocked significantly faster.

What you need to be comparing to the most is the GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB product, times two. The cores each have 24 pixel shader processors and 8 vertex units; in short, this is the 0.09 micron G71 graphics core times two. Now, before you consider buying this product there are some concerns you need to be aware of. What about Quad SLI? Well, it's simply not possible to hook up another Galaxy GeForce 7900 GT Dual Core unit in your SLI system as there's no extra SLI connection. Secondly the Galaxy Masterpiece products will only work properly on nForce4 SLI series mainboards.

Let me handle less pleasant stuff first as Galaxy is facing a couple of issues with the Masterpiece series. First off they are competing with the NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 which I agree is not a single PCB based card like the Galaxy card. But the development of a single card solution led to a few compromises. The first being the cooler, it's really out there when you play games. Fact is it's really hard to place two very warm GPU's close to each other on one PCB. So you simply need good cooling. I'm a silence freak myself so I weigh in this factor more than the normal user. Something that could be improved.

The second compromise is the loss of a SLI connector which disallows you to do Quad SLI in the future, and while that really is not a a big concern, it is an absent feature. Then the last restriction is that you need to seat the Masterpiece range of products on a nForce4 SLI mainboard. And that is restricting enthusiast users who want to migrate to a newer platform. With that out of the way we just have to look at the Masterpiece series from another side. I just have to say this, I find it so damn daring what Galaxy is showing us today. It is a self-developed multi-GPU based graphics card that in fact works incredibly well.

In closing I would like to say that despite the few quirks I mentioned in this conclusion this is a really good product. Your games will run like a junky on XTC, performance is fantastic. We did not encounter any compatibility issues throughout our benchmarks. With a card like this in your system you'll receive a very special product. And covered by a lifetime warranty, it's a really impressive card to own. The price is slightly higher than a GeForce 7950 GX2 and way lower than two GeForce 7900 GTX cards. You can buy this product for about $599. Congratulations to Galaxy for pioneering their first dual-GPU graphics card series.