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BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB PCI-E

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
BFG
Jun. 6, 2006

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Conclusion

NVIDIA and ATI's current generation of cards are neck-and-neck, as is rarely the case. Usually you will see one card beat the other by a noticeable amount and then pricing and availability have been determining factors in the past. What we see this generation are great offerings from both sides which essentially tie in the majority of our benchmarks. In a couple of our games that use OpenGL, we see NVIDIA come out ahead, and then in the X3 Reunion demo we see ATI doing a little better, but those games are the minority where you'll notice a difference in performance. So what am I to do as the reviewer of these video cards? Clearly, I need to focus on some of the non-performance pros/cons of each offering.

First, we have pricing. The 7900 GTX is going to be about $500 across the board. At some places, you will see BFG's offering bundled with a game (ZipZoomFly is bundling it with Sin Episodes, $20 value, while supplies last), whereas some places don't bundle a game. The X1900 XTX can be found for as low as $470 at Newegg, minus a $30 rebate, and bundled with King Kong, the game. So, assuming you are comparing the best values on each side, you're looking at a 7900 GTX for $500 bundled with Sin Episodes (a $20 game) vs. an X1900 XTX for $440 bundled with King Kong (also a $20 game). So based on price alone, it looks like the X1900 XTX is the smarter buy.

Then there is the issue of brand name. BFG has probably the best reputation amongst gamers for their tech support, warranty, and the quality/stability of their products. The X1900 XTX I mentioned above is a product of MSI, whom I haven't heard any horror stories about when it comes to user satisfaction, but I also haven't heard anybody rave about them. So if the brand name is very important to you (or if you are just particularly fond of the Green team), then I suppose it might be worth the extra money to go with BFG. That's a personal decision you'll have to make on your own, based on your own experience. I personally don't care that much what brand name video card I buy (for the most part), because what's important to me is the underlying GPU, and the bundle might come into play a little bit.

Features come into play as well, as I have mentioned in all of my recent video card reviews. One advantage ATI has over NVIDIA right now is the ability to apply Anti-Aliasing and HDR lighting simultaneously. This was discussed in more detail in part of a recent review in a section entitled "The HDR+AA Fiasco" so check that out if you don't know what I'm talking about. With that said, the majority of games still don't utilize HDR, and some games such as Ubisoft's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter can't run AA on ATI or NVIDIA hardware. That just plain sucks, but it's not ATI's fault, the people that are coding these games just need to stop forgetting about AA while they're coding! So, back on topic, the whole HDR+AA thing is going to make or break some people's decisions, whereas others don't have a clue what I'm talking about or just don't care about it. That's another personal decision. I personally lean towards ATI on the feature-front, because I'd rather have a fully featured card for the games that support it.

I would be irresponsible as a journalist if I didn't take a step back and also look at the bigger picture aside from just comparing the 7900 GTX vs ATI's X1900 XTX. When you look at the benchmarks you'll see that for the most part, the 7900 GT and the X1800 XT both do a great job of keeping up with the 7900 GTX and X1900 XTX. You can pretty well play at the same settings with these cards and get a very comparable gameplay experience. In fact, I bet that if you played on a system with a 7900 GTX and then a system with a 7900 GT, you probably couldn't say which one was the 7900 GTX from your gameplay alone. And the same goes for the ATI hardware. Now, when you look at the price of a 7900 GT vs. an X1800 XT, you'll find the 7900 GT for much less (about $70), and it usually performs just a little bit better. In fact, Newegg has an XFX 7900 GT for $265 ($235 after a $30 mail-in rebate) as of writing this, which makes it less than half the price of a 7900 GTX. With that simple fact laid out there, any sensible buyer's choice should be obvious - buy the 7900 GT for half the price and get nearly the same performance as a 7900 GTX.

At the end of the day, I find it very hard to recommend BFG's 7900 GTX OC 512MB PCI-Express video card. It isn't a bad card, and ATI's X1900 XTX isn't any better, but given the price to performance ratio, buying one of these ultra high-end cards just isn't logical. Even those of you who don't care about money and just want the fastest thing around shouldn't buy one now that NVIDIA has launched their 7950 GX2. Not that I'm recommending you get one of those either, but if you want the latest and most powerful card available, that's what you'd be looking at. After going back and forth, trying to figure out what to say in my conclusion, I finally decided that the best decision you could possibly make if you want a high-end video card is to save yourself a lot of money and get a 7900 GT. I personally recommend the XFX 7900 GT which I mentioned above, because you can get it at Newegg for $235 after a $30 mail-in rebate. That's the best deal I was able to find on a new 7900 GT, and you will be very happy with your purchase.

Pros

High-end performance
BFG support and warranty
Overclocked out of the box

Cons

Questionable value
Dual slot design
HDR+AA won't work in most games

We'd like to thank Directron.com for donating the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 Motherboard which we used for testing.

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Page 14 of 14

Home >>

Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card & Bundle
Page 3: Test Setup
Page 4: Benchmarks: Half-Life 2
Page 5: Benchmarks: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Page 6: Benchmarks: Quake 4
Page 7: Benchmarks: X3 Reunion Demo
Page 8: Benchmarks: Chronicles of Riddick
Page 9: Benchmarks: F.E.A.R.
Page 10: Benchmarks: Need for Speed Most Wanted
Page 11: Benchmarks: 3DMark '06
Page 12: Overclocking & Stability
Page 13: Performance Summary
Page 14: Conclusion

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