EVGA signature 7900 GT is faster than 7900 GTX

EVGA made quite some noise about its Signature edition cards. It is a rather nice marketing gimmick for anyone that wants the best of the best.

It gets even better, as it is not as expensive as you might imagine. You can go out and buy a 7900 GT card for roughly $275 and this very special card will cost you just $360. Trust me, it is worth every single cent.

You won't believe how big the box is. We remember that Gainward and Asus made the biggest boxes but this one actually outscores them. The box is by far the biggest that we ever seen. It is rather nicely designed and signed by three chaps with a nice silver EVGA logo in the middle. With this card you achieve top priority in technical support and superior customer care. In case something happens to your card EVGA will send you a new one that will come within 24 hours, it claims.

The card is tested and certified to rock at 600MHz core and 1600MHz memory. The package includes a nice photo manual, a driver CD, two DVI dongles, power cable, an S VIDEO cable and an HDTV cable. We can say you will get a royal treatment.

The card is equipped with a nice EVGA cooler and has dual DVI and a TV out. It is interesting to note that the card uses a normal 7900 GT PCB probably redesigned to support such a high speed.

Benchmarketing
We used :
Asus A8N32 Deluxe Nforce 4 SLI X16 motherboard
Athlon FX 57 2800 MHz 90 nanometre San Diego core
2x1024 MB Corsair XMS-3500LL PRO memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Akasa AK913 EVO 33 Athlon 64 cooler
Silverstone Strider ST60F, 600W ATX 2.0 SATA

Nvidia Forceware 84.21_forceware_winxp2k_whq

Once we removed the cooler we discovered that the card actually uses Samsung 1.2 ns K4J55323QG-BC12 memory. It can maximally work at 1800MHz but we managed to overclock even more than that. The memory actually works at 1850MHz without any problems. The cooler is a little bit different from the reference one as it covers the memory chips as well. I guess that you have to cool the memory at such speeds.

We decided to compare this card with a default clocked 7900 GT that runs at 450MHz core and 1320MHz memory. Then we decided to pull up faster 7900 GTX card that works at 650MHz core and 1600MHz memory. But, guess what, we played with the overclocking and managed to overclock the 7900GT Signature EVGA to 665MHz core and 1850MHz memory.

As both the 7900GT and 7900 GT cards actually use G71 core we imagine that if you clock them both at the same clock that you will reach the same performance. Well, we were right, as the 7900 GT Signature edition at 665MHz core and 1850MHz memory definitely can run faster than the much more expensive 7900 GTX.

Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	105.3	101.7	90.8	68.0
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	107.1	106.7	104.1	89.4
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	105.6	105.2	100.5	83.5
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	105.8	105.2	102.9	89.5
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	95.0	73.7	55.1	35.5
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	104.7	91.4	73.5	48.3
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	102.4	86.3	68.5	43.8
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	104.4	92.7	76.4	51.0
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	84.21	79.52	59.30	36.40
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	83.79	83.42	77.52	51.55
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	83.51	83.46	73.96	45.73
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	83.60	82.80	79.64	52.30
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	145.9	139.1	128.9	98.7
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	146.6	143.7	140.3	126.0
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	147.9	142.3	137.7	120.6
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	148.5	145.7	141.1	127.4
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	134.1	116.6	94.2	64.1
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	140.3	130.0	117.1	84.6
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	139.2	129.2	112.5	80.6
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	141.2	133.5	120.9	90.6
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	102	79	57	39
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	122	103	78	54
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	119	98	73	51
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	125	106	81	56
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	70	50	34	22
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	91	66	47	30
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	86	63	44	27
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	95	72	50	31
?	?	?	?	?
Battlefield 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	99.51	98.54	88.09	65.38
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	99.24	98.15	86.45	60.95
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	98.46	92.96	72.81	44.78
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	97.96	94.13	80.02	48.91
?	?	?	?	?
Battlefield 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	92.79	72.17	54.71	34.68
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	99.97	96.39	80.83	56.15
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	97.39	90.02	70.13	41.55
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	94.54	95.52	74.36	45.22
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	119.4	115.4	93.6	65.6
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	133.5	133.2	127.1	95.9
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	133.4	132.8	122.5	89.2
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	133.3	133.2	128.6	99.3
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	109.3	87.3	61.6	41.5
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	132.3	116.7	85.4	61.2
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	131.3	109.9	79.5	52.9
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	132.4	121.1	90.1	60.2
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Nature
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	16848	134.0	111.9	96.4
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	21844	182.6	148.5	130.5
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	20646	171.1	139.6	121.5
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	22622	191.4	154.7	132.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	4408.6	10388.5	44.5	356.1
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	5375.4	14847.8	63.8	497.4
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	5389.4	13711.3	58.2	457.0
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	6243.0	15305.9	64.3	505.3
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game3
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	7809	34.0	23.7	37.8
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	10660	44.0	33.5	52.7
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	9920	41.5	30.9	48.7
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	10891	44.8	33.9	54.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS /VS complex
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	5181.4	10536.1	298.6	59.9/45.5
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	6239.9	14959.7	421.3	84.2/66.7
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	6324.8	14092.3	389.7	76.7/61.0
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	7338.1	15657.3	435.5	87.6/67.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	4062	?	?
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	5273	?	?
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	4994	?	?
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	5403	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	1777	14.261	15.359
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	2568	20.593	22.208
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	2363	18.985	20.394
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	2625	21.096	22.657
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	1770	15.873	19.534
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	2465	22.165	27.141
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	2305	20.738	25.361
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	2585	23.256	28.444
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
NVIDIA 7900GT 450/1320 MHz	1100	0.346	0.560
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	1100	0.346	0.560
7900GT Signature EVGA 600/1600MHz	1100	0.346	0.559
7900GT Signature EVGA 665/1850MHz OC	1100	0.346	0.559
?	?	?	?	?

Doom 3 shows EVGA 7900 GT at 665 MHz core and 1850 MHz clock can reach the speed of Geforce 7900 GTX. It stays a frame or two slower but it can match it at 20x15. Overclocked signature card is twenty frames faster in 20x15 from the non overclock default Nvidia 7900 GT. Even when you turn the FSAA and Aniso on you can clearly see that EVGA 7900 GT signature edition outperforms 7900 GTX. It is not much but it can get up to three frames faster.

Far Cry with 4X FSAA and 8X aniso shows that the overclocked signature card can stay up to two frames faster than the default clocked 7900 GTX. At 2048x1536 overclocked signature card is 57 percent faster than 7900 GT default.

In Quake 4 overclocked signature card stays on a top but just for a frame or two. The 600 / 1800 MHz EVGA signature card is as always just slightly slower up to five frames in this case.

As this card deserves at least 4X FSAA and 8X Anisotropic filtering you can see that it really fits it in Quake 4. It is up to six frames faster than 7900 GTX at default clock. The overclocked Signature card is almost 50 percent faster than the default 7900 GT.

FEAR really likes the overclocked card and runs up to 23 frames faster than the default 7900 GT card. Once you turn FSAA 4X and 16X Aniso you can get up to 25 frames or 25 percent faster performance. It always outperforms 7900 GTX card.

Battlefield 2 was a mystery to us as it actually was running slower than the default clocked 7900 GT card. Once you turn the FSAA and Aniso on the 7900GT Signature EVGA card overclocked to 665/1850MHz is again the king of the hill. It runs up to 20 frames faster than the default card.

Serious Sam 2 can run up to 34 frames or twenty seven per cent faster. The difference can get even more drastic when you turn the FSAA and Aniso on. It runs up to 33 per cent faster and can score playable 60 frames per second even at 2048x1536 resolution. It is almost always faster than 7900 GTX.

In 3Dmark03 the signature card is almost 4000 marks faster than the default 7900 GT, while the overclocked card is almost 6000 marks faster, it is even 800 marks faster than the 7900 GTX. It runs 2100 marks faster than the default 7900 GT while the overclocked card runs 3100 marks faster. The overclocked card is some 800 points faster than 7900 GTX.

Overclocked card owns 3Dmark05 score. It is 200 points faster than much more expensive 7900 GTX card, and 3000 marks faster than the default clocked 7900 GT card.

In 3Dmark06 signature card runs 930 marks faster, some 22 percent faster than the default clocked 7900 GT. The overclocked signature card is 200 marks faster than 7900 GTX and 1350 marks or 25 percent faster than 7900 GT default.

Overclocked card wins all testes including Shader model 2.0 and set of 3.0 and HDR tests.

In Short
We can clearly say that this is definitely the fastest 7900 GT card that we have come across. It will outrun even the more expensive 7900 GTX in many cases. You will get a royal treatment as EVGA customer support will be there for any single problem you might have. So even if the card brakes on you, you will get a new one on the next working day, at leas in the USA.

It might be a great deal for $370 as it will outperform 7900 GTX cards that costs $500 or even more. Of course you can get those cards in Euroland as well. You get the cool box and a fast card what more can you ask. Can it actually get better than that? Well I guess it can, you an get two of those cards and overclock them and get some even more smashing results for $750 for both cards. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic