NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT

The new GeForce 7950 GT, on the other hand, is designed to plug the performance and price gap between the mid-range GeForce 7900 GT and the high-end GeForce 7900 GTX. So, you can think of it as a faster version of the GeForce 7900 GT.

Physically, the GeForce 7950 GT is identical to the GeForce 7900 GT. It uses the same G71 GPU, but unlike the GeForce 7900 GS we covered earlier, the GeForce 7950 GT comes with all 24 pixel shaders and 8 vertex shaders.

To push GeForce 7950 GT into the correct performance curve, NVIDIA clocked its core up by 100MHz to 550MHz. That gives it a 22% boost in fillrate over the GeForce 7900 GT.

NVIDIA also increased its memory clock from 660MHz to 700MHz. That gives it a 6% boost in memory bandwidth. Not much but NVIDIA evidently thinks it's enough to differentiate it from the GeForce 7900 GT.

In short , the GeForce 7950 GT has a fillrate of 13,200 Megatexels/s and a memory bandwidth of 44.8 GB/s. The GeForce 7900 GT, by comparison, has a fillrate of 10800 Megatexels/s and does up to 940 million vertices per sec.

That places the GeForce 7950 GT right between the GeForce 7900 GT and the GeForce 7900 GTX in our comparison chart. That makes it great for those who balk at the price (and size!) of a GeForce 7900 GTX, but feel that the GeForce 7900 GT is not fast enough for their needs.

With a price tag of $299 to $349, the new GeForce 7950 GT is great value for those who want great performance but want to avoid paying through their teeth for it. Hopefully, street prices will stay around or lower than $299!