The Coliseum Fight
Punit Lodaya, Oct 13, 2006 1700 hrs IST
Nvidia 7950 GX2 Quad SLI vs. ATI X1950XTX Crossfire. The grand battle between the two on fair grounds.
The Cards
Nvidia Geforce 7950 GX2
The 7950 GX2 is Nvidia's second attempt to combine two extremely high performance GPUs running in total harmony on two conjoined, multi-layered PCB cards with plenty of speed and memory. It fits on one PCI-E slot, and the bandwidth is shared between the two PCBs linked together. It is built on the SLI technology, the only difference being, instead of using two PCI-E slots; a single PCI-E is used with the total bandwidth of half the interface.
Theoretically, two separate cards, in two PCI-E slots, working in tandem in SLI mode, having the same specs of 7900GTX should give more performance than joining two GPUs and fitting it on to a single PCI-E slot. The reason I see for the existence of such cards is the capability to become the most powerful single PCI-E slot solution and being able to set up a Quad SLI system using two 7950 GX2s.
When you pair two of these in SLI mode, you have four GPU's working parallelly. Hence, the name 'Quad SLI'. Each GPU has its own memory and cannot access other GPU's memory due to technological constraint. The Geforce 7950 GX2 has 1 GB of memory, each GPU having 512 MB. So theoretically, a Quad SLI has 2 GB of Video RAM, but practically it behaves like a 512 MB card.
USER COMMENTS
by manneru, Hyderabad, on Dec 07, 2006 11:47 AM, Report abuse
Hey..... can you give me some good advices on videio cards...?
by Rockfella, Delhi, on Dec 17, 2006 05:20 PM, Report abuse
can i have an internet in my cellphone unit k310i
by april, cagayan de oro, on Dec 06, 2006 12:17 PM, Report abuse Reply
Nvidia's PureVideo HD is the best decoder out there. Better than ATi's. Better than most DVD players.
by goobimama, goa, on Nov 05, 2006 09:43 PM, Report abuse Reply
nvidia is trying to sacrifice image quality to attain high frame rates.so as you keep on increasing settings the performance difference between ati & nvidia becomes negligible
by Riyaz, thrissur, on Nov 05, 2006 05:00 PM, Report abuse Reply
by JEETU, INDIA, on Nov 04, 2006 03:58 PM, Report abuse Reply
analysis, conclusions and quality of content is really peerless.
by Atul, Pune, on Oct 19, 2006 10:03 AM, Report abuse Reply
By the way, There is one more thing which I feel should have been covered. Along with Performance, there should be over all Image Quality Check... gamers not only invest in card for just maximum FPS but Great Image Quality at Maximum FPS. By what I've been reading over net regarding 7950GX2 vs. 1950XTX, that not only 1950XTX provides features like HDR and FSAA.. they are better than the competetion and 1950XTX beats GX2 in overall image quality. I may sound like ATi fanboy... but the fact is I've been loyal to nVidia since long time. Given the situation of current High-End cards I'm seriously thinking of giving ATi crossfire a shot.
by alien, z-13c, on Oct 13, 2006 07:04 PM, Report abuse Reply
dumbo, read the whole article, there has been image quality checks.
by KingKong, HongKong, on Oct 13, 2006 07:50 PM, Report abuse
i bet this king kong person is the author posting under an alias. busted? ;)
by sumit, mumbai, on Oct 14, 2006 08:39 AM, Report abuse
Oh No!!!! I have been busted. Actually, I post under the name 'Sumit' from mumbai. Yup, dats my real identity.
by Punit, Techtree Test Labs, on Oct 14, 2006 08:51 AM, Report abuse
by sumit, mumbai, on Oct 15, 2006 07:35 PM, Report abuse
KingKong from HongKong seem to have brain size of flea bee. Anyway, what I said was : here should be over all Image Quality Check....... what does that Mean... that doesn't mean using just ONE GAME at ONE LEVEL (game level, just so you don't get confused). Try comparing both the card using myriad games using verious situation.. outdoor scenes, indoor scenes, ambient lighting and so on. Besides that there is also HD capabilities of these card.
by alien, z-13c, on Oct 16, 2006 07:28 PM, Report abuse
As a non-gamer, when I play, I look mainly for FPS. A game does not look good if it seems as if someone is clicking photographs very fast! I'm willing to tone down the quality setting to get my XFX 6600GT GDDR3 256MB to give a consistent 60 FPS, because if gives a flow to the game. I think that only die-hard gamers are going to invest all that money for GFX cards.
by Vivek Nair, New Delhi, on Oct 14, 2006 11:25 PM, Report abuse Reply
Why dont you opt for a Core2Duo processor, may be a Core2Extreme E6800. That would give far better performances.
by Soham Dutta, Jorhat, on Oct 14, 2006 05:14 PM, Report abuse Reply
whoa excellent review the first Good review by TT
by Udit Agarwal, Kolkata, on Oct 13, 2006 08:53 PM, Report abuse Reply
Every second article by TT is termed as "The First good review by TT for a change". Your sarcasm's gone stale. Think fresh kiddos.
by Max, Mumbai, on Oct 14, 2006 12:14 PM, Report abuse
yea ur right max. . .they act like TT reviewers r little kids luking for praise. . .write an article urself and show udit. . THEN say first good review. . show me a better indian tech site. ..
by Aatif, Mumbai, on Oct 14, 2006 03:22 PM, Report abuse
Hey TT in all seriousness how much does nVidia folks pay you to hype up their products?! Problems installing ATi drivers?! nVidia & ATi having same image quality?! Oh Puleassse!!! The whole world knows ATi cards have far far better image performance it has 8-bit color depth compared to nvidias 6. The only reason ATi is was lagging was coz of no shadermodel 3.0 support in X900 cards but things have changed now & you can see for yourself what difference does HDR make. Besides nvidia can't do both HDR+FSAA at once which you already pointed out. By all means ATi is rocking. Not most of us can shell out $800 for a quad-sli or crossfire setups...props to those who can. So in all fairness ATi rules you biased n00bs!
by Douglas Quaid, Houston, TX, on Oct 14, 2006 05:27 AM, Report abuse Reply
"When you are looking for a dual card solution, ATI X1950XTX Crossfire setup wins hands down. Quad SLI still hasn't matured enough, offering very little performance leap. The price to pay for dual card solution directly doubles, i.e. 2 x 7950 GX2 for roughly 70,000 and ATI X1950XTX for 60,000. This makes the X1950XTX Crossfire setup not only a cheaper solution, but also most powerful graphic setup. Not only is it a victory for the ATI cards but also for the implementation of Crossfire technology over SLI; at least for now." - Conclusion by TT. Are you blind or u were just dropped on ur head when u were born? Read the whole thing b4 u rant. At least have a reason to crib.
by Max, Mumbai, on Oct 14, 2006 12:18 PM, Report abuse
Dear Punit, excellent article dude, but i'd like to point out a fault in the specs. The Radeon 1950XTX has 16 Pixel Pipelines & 48 Pixel Shaders NOT 48 Pixel Pipelines . Hope you correct the discrepancy ASAP. Keep the great articles comin'!
by Swaroop, Bangalore, on Oct 14, 2006 09:53 AM, Report abuse Reply
How the hell are you supposed to infer differences in image quality in these small images? Let sense prevail. Please include links for larger pics. These small things count a lot, thereby defining the quality of your material.
by Manu Vajpai, Kanpur, on Oct 14, 2006 02:26 AM, Report abuse Reply
by Ghosh, Cal, on Oct 14, 2006 03:00 AM, Report abuse
I am really srry for not able to post the high res image of 1920 x 1440 as each image is consuming 8MB. Currently, our CMS is not capable to cupport such high res image. In these small images, check the wall on the right side. One will notice difference immediatly
by Punit, Techtree Test Labs, on Oct 14, 2006 08:19 AM, Report abuse
they're out of focus too. you guys need a better cameraman.
by sumit, mumbai, on Oct 14, 2006 08:36 AM, Report abuse
Systemmatic and very painstakingly thorough - kudos, Punit! Comments: Surprised to see the 2xATI CrossFire attaining EXACTLY the same score for BOTH 1600x1200 and 1900x1440 in Half-Life 2, Lost Coast, for BOTH 'No AA/AF' and '4xAA/16xAF' settings (Page-12). Typo: "HDR does imapacts..." (Page-5).
by Ghosh, Cal, on Oct 14, 2006 01:46 AM, Report abuse Reply
Thats proably due to CPU limitation. I guess, we will have to wait for Kentsfield or sumthing. : )
by Punit, Techtree Test Labs, on Oct 14, 2006 08:21 AM, Report abuse
Excellent article Punit... Keep 'em coming
by Ch453, Bangalore, on Oct 13, 2006 06:30 PM, Report abuse Reply
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by Gourav_S, Delhi, on Oct 13, 2006 05:33 PM, Report abuse Reply