Leadtek 7950GT proves twenty percent faster than a 7900 GT

WE GOT a Leadtek 7950 GT card in our lab and that was the first 7950 GT to knock at our doors. The 7950 GT is a new card from Nvidia, yet another one derived from the G71 chip but this time clocked at 550/1400 MHz. This is the clock speed that Leadtek uses on its product.

It is 100MHz faster than a 7900 GT and 80MHZ faster in memory speed and, overall in games and marks, it ends up faster. Just like the 7900GT, the 7950 GT features 24 pipelines, eight vertex Shaders, and 16 ROPs (render output units).

The biggest difference is that 7950 GT has 512MB of memory as well as the different clocks.

We've told you enough about G71 chip already, it is fast but it is DirectX 9.0c only and this starts to bother us. Vista and the final DirectX 10 are just a month away but don't worry, there won't be an Nvidia card in this price range that supports DirectX 10. You will need to wait for at least one more quarter to get a DirectX 10 card for sub €/$300.

The card supports H.264 hardware decoding and dual link DVI and comes with two retail games, Serious Sam 2 and Spellforce 2. The package also includes a manual a driver CD some editing software, six pin power cable, HDTV cable and a DVI dongle.

The card uses single-slot cooler, not a noisy one, and has Winfast PX7950GT 512MB carved on it. It looks really cool. The card naturally has one PCIe six-pin power connector and an SLI connector.

We were shocked to learn that the card costs $269.99 at Newegg and the cheapest one in stock at press time in German market was €275.49. In UK it sells for £199.74 including VAT.

Benchmarketing
We used :
Foxconn C51XE M2aa Nforce 590 SLI motherboard
Geforce 7900 GT 450/1320 MHz
Athlon FX 62 2800 MHz 90 nanometre Windsor core
2x1024 MB DDR2 Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Thermaltake Mini Typhoon Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's
Silverstone Strider ST60F, 600W ATX 2.0 SATA

We compared this card with its younger brother, an Nvidia 7900GT clocked 100MHz slower at 450/1320MHz.

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	20435	161.9	135.1	117.7
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	17743	135.4	115.3	101.2
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	4810.7	12694.9	55.4	259.2
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	4295.3	10445.7	46.9	366.9
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	9669	42.1	29.5	46.5
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	8117	35.7	24.7	38.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS/VS complex
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	5571.2	12833.2	368.7	74.6/55.8
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	5174.8	10644.9	303.1	61.2/47.1
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	5386	?	?	?
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	4604	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	2181	17.517	18.836	?
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	1807	14.518	15.605
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	2150	19.174	23.822	?
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	1798	16.086	19.880
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	2094	0.669	1.048	?
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	2098	0.673	1.047
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	129.0	124.2	110.0	80.8
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	128.4	116.5	97.7	68.1
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	115.4	88.1	65.7	42.4
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	106.5	76.7	56.4	34.7
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	OK 1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	171.5	163.6	152.0	117.7
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	168.9	157.3	137.6	98.8
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	145.5	138.8	111.4	76.8
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	152.3	126.0	97.5	65.2
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	OK 1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	123	95	68	46
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	107	79	56	38
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	81	59	40	27
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	71	49	34	22
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	97.62	96.64	97.42	87.95
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	96.16	97.22	95.17	74.08
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	97.42	94.46	73.39	47.45
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	97.48	86.28	62.19	38.93
?	?	?	?	?
Half Life 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	85.61	85.38	80.94	67.56
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	70.93	70.37	67.44	52.48
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	160.0	152.2	117.8	83.1
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	158.3	133.0	97.9	68.9
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	142.9	109.4	79.0	56.6
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	123.0	91.4	65.8	44.4

One hundred megahurts means a lot in this chip. You can clearly see that Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH clocked at 550MHz core and 1400MHz memory scores almost 2700 marks faster than the previous Geforce 7900GT clocked at 450MHz core and 1320MHz memory. It is 1500 marks faster in 3Dmark05 and 780 marks in 3Dmark06. Both Shader model 2.0 and 3.0 + HDR tests are 400 marks faster on a new card.

Doom 3 at 10x7 doesn't show much difference but the higher you go the bigger the difference is. It can end up with twelve frames difference. We are talking about a 12.5 percent improvement. The performance difference increases a little in Doom 3 with 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso. The 7950GT is fifteen to sixteen percent faster.

Quake 4 is again dominated by the 7950 GT card at first with three frames only but at 20x15 it manages to score almost 20 frames - or nineteen percent - faster. The 7900 GT is surprisingly seven frames faster at 10x7 just because of CPU limitations while at 12x10 it already scores twelve frames faster, at 16x12 it's fourteen frames faster and finally, at 20x15, is eleven and a half frames faster or eighteen percent.

Fear likes the higher clock and it benefits a lot from overclocking. Already at 10x7 it is sixteen frames faster. At 16x12 is twelve frames faster and 20x15 is eight frames faster. In Fear, the 7950GT is twenty percent faster. In the same game with 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso 7950 GT is ten frames faster at 10x7, again ten at 12x10, six at 16x12 and five at 20x15. It is again twenty percent faster.

Far Cry without effects only shows the difference at 20x15 where Leadtek 7950 GT runs thirteen frames or nineteen percent faster. FSAA and Aniso effects at 12x10 makes the difference and 7950 GT is eight frames faster, at 16x12 is eleven frames faster and at 20x15 is nine frames faster. It is up to twenty one percent faster.

The new card clearly dominates in Half Life 2, all effects on. It averages fifteen frames faster in all resolutions. It is twenty-one percent faster than the old card, six month older to be precise.

Serious Sam 2 shows a difference from 12x10 onwards where is nineteen frames faster, at 16x12 it is almost twenty frames faster and at 20x15 it is fourteen frames faster. On average we are talking about twenty percent difference.

In Serious Sam 2 it is twenty frames faster at 10x7, eighteen at 12x10, thirteen at 16x12 and twelve at 20x15. Again it is twenty percent faster than the older card.

In Short
On average Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH is about twenty percent faster than the older 7900 GT reference card. Time passes by and only six months after the original introduction of 7900 GT we now have much faster 7950 GT. Leadtek did a good job including some cool bits and bobs and two rather playable games, oneof which we use as our benchmark and really like it.

For $269.99 in the USA, €275.49 in Europe and £199.74 including VAT in the UK we think it is a great buy. The only downside is that this is a DirectX 9 card but as I said before DX 10 mainstream is still at least six months away. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic