nVIDIA 7950GX2/7950GX2 SLI (QuadSLI) - benchmarks.

[StyM]

---

source here

Testbeds used for this review consisted of:

AMD Athlon64 FX-60
ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe for 7950GX2 and 7900GTX cards
DFI Lanparty UT CFX3200-DR for ATI X1900 Crossfire and X1900XTX cards
OCZ Platinum Revision 2, 2x512 MB
OCZ GameXtreme 700W PSU
Western Digital Raptor 36 GB
Dell 3007FPW display

We benchmarked five games: Far Cry, Quake 4, F.E.A.R., The Chronicles of Riddick and Battlefield 2. The resolutions used:

2560x1600
2048x1536
1920x1200
1600x1200

Modes used:

4xAA, 16xAF
16xAA, 16xAF
32xAA, 16xAF (only QuadSLI in 1600x1200)

Since we had two 7950GX2 cards at our disposal, we decided to try the "unsupported" QuadSLI. We must point out that this setup is not yet finalized, and that the performance of the final product (final version of the drivers) may be different. The "patch" for this testing setup is available on the Internet, and although some performance results seem a bit strange, we're very sure that the final driver revisions (to be released in the mid-June) will offer very different numbers in benchmarks where performance might not be "up to speed".

We benchmarked a total of 6 setups:

7900GTX
7900GTX SLI
X1900XTX
X1900 Crossfire
7950GX2
7950GX2 QuadSLI

We must point out the fact that we're really, REALLY pleasantly surprised with some things we noticed by purely using our hands and eyes. Although the latest addition to our testing system (OCZ's GameXtreme) is a very powerful PSU (yet again, hats off to OCZ for this one), we couldn't help but notice that this PSU doesn't really put very much effort when "feeding" two 7950's with power, and that it was a noticeable bit warmer when we benchmarked CrossFire setup.

[img width=500 height=376]http://it-review.net/images/stories/N/nVIDIA/7950/slike/01.JPG[/img]

After an extended period of using these cards, the only thing that we can say that single card prices will give X1900XTX a BIG run for its money, although you might think that this product wasn't ment to compete with it. The ATI X1900XTX is priced just a little bit lower, and the 7950GX2 proved to be a lot faster. It was not unexpected, as the card uses two GPUs, but we have to admit that NVIDIA surprised us all with the retail price of 7950GX2. Because GX2 uses SLI technology, the driver is very mature and there were no problems on this end if you use one card. If you are looking to spend around €500 to €600, look no further, because currently this is the fastest product on the market, and with a very competitive price. Since we were able to benchmark QuadSLI as well, we have to comment on that technology as well. Frankly, with all of the warnings from NVIDIA we were skeptical, but it turned out to work quite nicely. The drivers probably still need a little work in terms of correctly assigning the frames to the GPU for rendering, but the SLI AA modes work rather well as is.

[akari]

wow, just wait until I won the lottery. This quad SLI set would be the first on my list.

[EarlZ]

lols not even more than 25% gain compared to a CF 1900xt