Introduction

You got that right; Gainward comes up with an exciting product. Gainward is a world leading producer of high-quality, high-end 3D accelerators for the personal computer market. Gainward offers a full product line of value adding products targeting gaming enthusiasts as well as entry-level consumers. Founded in 1984, Gainward has grown exponentially in the channel, serving the system builder, distribution and retail markets with products that offer the highest in quality and customer satisfaction, thereby making the computing experience transparent to the hardware in the box. Along with Gainward we take a look at a one of a kind graphics card.

You might know already, but NVIDIA is back with another refresh of their very successful GeForce 7 series and more particularly blow some new fire into the GeForce 7900 series. Actually the GeForce 7900 cards came initially in two different versions, a high-end GeForce 7900 GTX and a slightly slower GT. Both are almost identical, as both based upon the same optimized G71 core featuring 24 pipes. The only different between both are the clock speeds, amount of memory and the cooling solution. So the GeForce 7900 GT came in slower clocked and with half the frame buffer then it's big brother the GTX.

NVIDIA's venerable G71 chip has been going strong for a while now. It's seen action as the GeForce 7900 GTX and coupled with a twin for some GeForce 7950 GX2 internal SLI loving, which was marketed as the fastest graphics card in town. More of this goodness comes in the form of the GeForce 7950 GT, raising the bar once again as all partners are required to ship boards with HDCP support. Actually the GeForce 7950 GT should replace the GeForce 7900 GT, which has gotten a bit too much competition lately to stand its own. So, NVIDIA did a little refresh exercise and came up with a faster alternative in form of the GeForce 7950 GT accelerator.

Main Features

• GeForce 7950 GT (G71 at 580MHz)
• 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 Memory (1500MHz)
• Memory Bandwidth of 48.0GB/s
• PCI Express x16 Compatibility
• High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection Compliant
• H.264 Playback with PureVideo Engine
• Multi-GPU SLI Bridge Interconnect Support
• DVI-I Connector for Analog/Digital Display
• High Performance Cooling Solution

For the most part, the specifications of the GeForce 7950 GT directly resemble those of the high-end GeForce 7900 GTX, but narrowed down slightly. So you can see the GeForce 7950 GT as a card to leverage the performance a bit higher then the previous GT version, but still a bit behind the GTX. The Gainward version with the Golden Sample suffix goes even further, as it is being released as a pre-overclocked version.

Gainward released more then one version of the GeForce 7950 GT graphics card, which differs a bit from the reference design. Gainward first came with a BLISS 7950 GT 512MB design, actually a reference design but with a different cooling solution. It is clocked as the reference design set out by NVIDIA, so 450MHz core and 1400MHz memory speed. Quickly following that was the first Golden Sample edition, with has only 256MB memory but was clock at 580/1500MHz to outperform the competition. And yes to make it complete, Gainward finally released a 512MB version of the Golden Sample.

The Gainward box comes with some plastic shrink wrap around it. So we had to remove the plastic covering first. This is an extra protection to the package as a hole. The box itself details very clearly the product that you are buying as well as the main features, that it is a PCI Express card with high performance GDDR3 memory. A meanly green colored box, green/black which are the main colors of Gainward. What you will notice as well is the Golden Sample indication, which generally means that it is an overclocked version. One other thing we can't skip to mention is that you can choose a free game on the Gainward website.

Turning the Golden Sample box around we find out even more details on the product enclosed. The back of the paperboard package lists all the features of the BLISS 7950 GT graphics card and what is included in the package. Further checking the box reveals also some more information on the sides that might come in handy upon purchase of the BLISS 7950 GT Golden Sample, like the system requirements. All these add up in the first impression of the Gainward package, a very detailed and professional box. As far as the box goes, it certainly is very attractive.