Overclocker Cafe - Inno3D GeForce 7900 GS Review

Earlier this month, NVidia launched their GeForce 7900 GS card packed with a high end punch at an affordable price. Now I do realize that the notion of an “affordable price” is a relative concept but in this case, a card that is rumored to pack all the punch of a GeForce 7800 GTX for $199 is something we all understand. Today, the fine people at Inno3D have set us up with their 7900 GS card based closely to the NVidia reference design. Sporting 20 pixel pipelines, seven vertex shaders and a GPU/Memory clock of 450MHz and 1320MHz respectively, the 7900 GS offers a lot of pop for the dollar. Kicking things off are the card’s specs.

Specifications

Graphics Engine: GeForce 7900 GS
Interface: PCI-Express
Engine Clock: 450MHz
Memory Clock: 1320MHz
Memory Type/Size: GDDR3/256MB
Memory Interface: 256-bit
Pixel Pipelines: 20
Vertex Shaders: 7
Max Resolution: 2560x1600
VGA Output: Yes with adapter
DVI: two ports
SLI Ready: Yes

The GeForce 7900 GS is set up to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Like its larger brothers the 7900 GT, 7900 GTX, 7950 GT and 7950 GX2, the 7900 GS is based on the same NVidia G71 GPU but with four few pixel pipelines and one less vertex engine. There are several points where the 7900 GS and GT/GTX are identical to one another. The PCB remains the same as with the 7900 GTX, so you can expect to mount some aftermarket GPU/Memory coolers with ease if you so choose. The 7900 GS also shares the same GPU and memory clocks with the 7900 GT of 450MHz and 1320MHz respectively. Keep in mind that the 7900 GS is SLI ready, meaning that for $400 and a trip to your favorite PC hardware shop, you can double your pleasure with two 7900 GS cards in SLI. The 7900 GS is becoming more of a temping product by the minute. But the proof will be in the pudding.

What you get

Inno3D is aiming to keep their card as close to the reference design as possible. Part of this includes keeping the price down. To this end, Inno3D has not put a lot of frills in the bundle but there are enough to keep the value up without making the end user pay for games/software they may or may not use. Included with the Inno3D 7900 GS card are a S-Video cable, S-Video to composite cable, PCI-E Power adapter, a DVI to VGA adapter, manual and a CD with WinDVD 5, WinDVD Creator and drivers.

Pg 1 - Introduction
Pg 2 - The Card
Pg 3 - Performance Benchmarks
Pg 4 - Performance Benchmarks
Pg 5 - Image Quality / Overclocking / Conclusion