The Reference Card
Here's what the NVIDIA reference card looks like. Surprisingly, it has a rather small aluminium cooler but that may well have a good reason for it.
To ensure that the GeForce 7950 GX2 does not displace the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI as the ultimate graphics solution for hardware enthusiasts, NVIDIA kept the GeForce 7950 GX2's GPU clock speeds low. But smart users may ruin their plans by overclocking the GPUs. To prevent that, it makes sense for NVIDIA to equip the GeForce 7950 GX2 with puny little coolers.
There's no sign of any memory chips at the back, so evidently all memory chips were placed in the front. If you take a look at the picture on the right, you can see the GeForce 7950 GX2's external bracket.
Although it uses only a single PCIe slot, it still takes the space of two slots. The upper part of the bracket houses a single HDTV-out connector and two DVI ports while the lower part has exhaust vents for the cooler.
Here, we have pictures of the new NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2 installed in a PCIe motherboard. The first picture shows the single GeForce 7950 GX2 card while the second picture shows two GeForce 7950 GX2 cards in SLI.
Because each GeForce 7950 GX2 has two GPUs, running two of these cards essentially gives you a Quad SLI solution. However, because of the lower clock speeds, you still won't be able to achieve the same performance as a real GeForce 7900 GTX Quad SLI solution.
GeForce 7900 Series Feature Comparison
Here's a comparison of key features between the GeForce 7950 GX2 with its recently-released brothers - the GeForce 7900 GTX and the GeForce 7900 GT cards.
GeForce 7950 GX2 |
GeForce 7900 GTX |
GeForce 7900 GT |
|
Architecture | G71 |
G71 |
G71 |
Process Technology | 90 nm |
90 nm |
90 nm |
Number of Transistors | 278 Million x 2 |
278 Million |
278 Million |
Die Size | 196 mm2 |
196 mm2 |
196 mm2 |
Pixel Pipelines | 48 Pixel
Pipelines |
24 Pixel
Pipelines |
24 Pixel
Pipelines |
ROPs | 32 ROPs - 32 colour, 32 blend |
16 ROPs - 16 colour, 16 blend |
16 ROPs - 16 colour, 16 blend |
Core Clock | 500
MHz |
650
MHz |
450
MHz |
Fillrate | 24.0
Gigapixels / sec. |
15.6
Gigapixels / sec. |
10.8
Gigapixels / sec. |
Memory Interface | Two 4-way 64-bits
memory interface (512-bits total) |
4-way 64-bits
memory interface (256-bits total) |
4-way 64-bits
memory interface (256-bits total) |
Memory Buffer | 1024
MB GDDR3 |
512
MB GDDR3 |
256
MB GDDR3 |
Memory Clock | 600
MHz 1.2 GHz DDR |
800
MHz 1.6 GHz DDR |
660
MHz 1.32 GHz DDR |
Memory Bandwidth | 76.8
GB/s |
51.2
GB/s |
42.2
GB/s |
Vertex Units | 16 Vertex
Units |
8 Vertex
Units |
8 Vertex
Units |
Vertex Clock | 500
MHz |
700
MHz |
470
MHz |
Vertex Output | 2000
million vertices / sec. |
1400
million vertices / sec. |
940
million vertices / sec. |
Power Consumption | 143
W |
120
W |
82
W |
Shader Model Version | SM 3.0 |
SM 3.0
|
SM 3.0
|
NVIDIA IntelliSample Technology | 4.0 |
4.0 |
4.0 |
NVIDIA SLI Technology | Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
NVIDIA Quad SLI Technology | Yes |
Yes |
No |
DVI Support | Two dual-linked
DVI, both integrated into the GPU |
Two dual-linked
DVI, both integrated into the GPU |
Two dual-linked
DVI, both integrated into the GPU |
As you can see, all three cards are VERY similar. That's because they are based on the same GPU. The only differences between the new GeForce 7950 GX2 and its brethren are its clock speeds and the fact that it comes with two GPUs. Otherwise, they are essentially the same.
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