Gainward 7950 GX2 is the wanna-have top-end card

WE GOT HOLD of an Nvidia retail 7950 GX2 card and played a little with it.

Nvidia dropped the price to a reasonable sub $/€ 600, or around £400 in the UK, so now this card really goes after ATI's X1900 XTX as a single card rather than an attack on Crossfire X1900 XTX systems.

To make it even more difficult for ATI, Gainward and Nvidia cut the price further at press time, down to €525, while ATI dropped the price of a single X1900XTX to €399 to stave off the attack from Nvidia's new beast.

The Geforce 7950 GX2 is not much more that a shorter PCB Geforce 7900 GX2 card. Nvidia didn't notch up the wildest success with its Quad SLI systems powered with two 7900 GX2 cards but the new card is the way to fix it. The PCB is significantly shorter and now this card can fit in most computer cases out there. This was not true of the 7900 GX2.

Nvidia is using two mobile Geforce G71 cores running at rather modest 500MHz core. Each core has 512MB of memory running at 1200MHz. We've seen faster speeds than this but you have to consider that you have two chips to do the job and those two manage to outperform the single-chip cards no matter how fast are they clocked.

Gainward's card looks pretty much like the reference card. Let's face it, no-one makes much difference on the higher-end cards as Nvidia tightly controls their production. Gainward's BLISS 7950GX2 PCX comes in a nice and recognizable box. Gainward works hard on its BLISS brand and it is slowly regaining some of its old pride. We didn't have any troubles testing the single card in our standard Asus A8N 32 motherboard but Nvidia doesn't want anyone test pairs of these cards as Quad SLI, as the driver is simply not ready.

We also noticed that once you turn optimal frequency on, the card overclocks to 550+ MHz core and 1400+ MHz memory. We knew that there is overclocking headroom in this mobile core powered Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX but we didn't know it will be that much. This can also make your cooler louder as it will simply have to work a bit harder to cool the card. We compared this card against previous Geforce 7900 GTX card and its SLI older brother.

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
Driver 91_29_forceware_winxp2k
Driver 84_21_forceware_winxp2k_whq

Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	107.1	106.7	104.1	89.4
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	105.2	105.5	105.0	103.9
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	102.4	102.6	101.9	98.6
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	104.7	91.4	73.5	48.3
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	105.2	104.3	100.9	78.6
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	101.8	99.6	92.8	70.1
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	83.79	83.42	77.52	51.55
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	80.72	80.03	80.58	78.24
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	83.16	81.71	82.46	74.96
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	146.6	143.7	140.3	126.0
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	144.5	143.9	142.4	129.0
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	136.5	137.8	134.2	129.5
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	140.3	130.0	117.1	84.6
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	143.1	135.6	129.0	118.8
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	137.7	130.4	125.5	109.1
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	122	103	78	54
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	124	119	110	85
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	121	114	103	75
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	91	66	47	30
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	114	104	80	55
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	113	96	71	46
?	?	?	?	?
Battlefield 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	99.24	98.15	86.45	60.95
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	96.36	94.92	94.70	90.65
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	94.49	92.77	92.76	79.45
?	?	?	?	?
Battlefield 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	99.97	96.39	80.83	56.15
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	95.18	94.87	94.58	88.10
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	93.37	92.21	91.38	76.45
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	132.5	116.7	85.5	61.2
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	127.4	124.3	123.4	104.7
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	126.0	121.9	115.7	87.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	21844	182.6	148.5	130.5
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	35223	308.4	255.2	231.2
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	28774	251.0	208.9	177.2
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	5375.4	14847.8	63.8	497.4
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	10597.7	28840.0	109.5	880.7
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	8196.6	22440.6	87.2	406.3
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game2
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	10660	44.0	33.5	52.7
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	13431	47.1	36.9	89.3
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	12372	46.4	36.0	72.6
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS/VS complex
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	6239.9	14959.7	421.3	84.2/66.7
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	12307.4	29609.3	810.7	164.5/128.5
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	9406.7	22735.3	639.6	128.8/94.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	5273	?	?
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	7171	?	?
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	6558	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	2568	20.593	22.208
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	3908	32.380	32.747
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	3522	28.506	30.187	?
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	2465	22.165	27.141
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	4110	39.782	42.421
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	3444	30.716	38.166	?
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz	1100	0.346	0.560
NVIDIA 7900GTX 650/1600 MHz SLI	1098	0.346	0.558
Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX 500/1200MHz	1094	0.344	0.556	?

Bare in mind that two 7900 GTX cards costs at least € / $ 800+ while the single Gainward 7950 GX2 costs € 525 in retail so you can expect that SLI 7900 GTX can win many of the benchmarks. We think you should focus on 7950 GX2 as on a single card that should compete X1900 XTX and 7900 GTX not the SLI or Crossfire systems.

In Doom 3 Gainward card runs slightly slower than 7900 GTX and SLI 7900 GTX but just for a frame or two but at 20x15 it runs almost 10 frames than a single 7900 GTX card. SLI 7900 GTX is still five frames faster but we expected it.

Once you turn the FSAA and Aniso on you can clearly see that 7900 GTX stays behind. It runs up to 22 frames faster than a single 7900 GTX while the SLI can be up to eight frames faster. Gainward 7950 GX2 runs up to thirty percent faster than a single 7900 GTX card. Far Cry with 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso shows the similar picture. Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX is even faster than SLI 7900 GTX but the difference is within two frames. At the higher resolution 7900 SLI wins by four frames but 7950 GX2 runs 24 frames, more that thirty percent faster than a single 7900 GTX card. We learned from the past that Quake 4 loves higher frequencies and both 7900 GTX and SLI 7900 GTX are faster than a 7950 GX2 card. At the highest resolution Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX wins by 0.5 frames but still holds the crown. It runs three frames faster than 7900 GTX card but you can clearly see that this card cries for FSAA.

Once you turn the FSAA and Aniso in Quake 4, 7950 GX2 matches or runs faster than 7900 card. It runs 24 frames faster at the highest resolution or should we say some twenty five percent. 7900 SLI runs slightly faster than both but it is also more expensive as well.

FEAR is still the way to torture the games. You can clearly see the difference at the higher resolutions as at any resolutions from 12x10 it runs faster than 7900 GTX. It runs up to 24 frames faster. Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX is up to twenty eight per cent faster than a single 7900 GTX card.

You turn the 4X FSAA and 16X Aniso and you will make those cards squeal. A single card stays behind and runs up to 30 frames slower than the Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX. It is more than thirty percent faster. Dual 7900 GTX in SLI will win the game and runs up to nine frames faster than a single 7950 GX2 card.

Battlefield 2 runs slightly slower at 10x7 than 7900 GTX but only for a five frames. At 12x10 it loses by six frames but it wins the last two by six or at 20x15 for significant nineteen frames. Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX can keep up with SLI up to 20x15 where it loses by 10 frames. Battlefield 2 with 4X FSAA and 8X Anisotropic is faster on 7900 GTX in first two resolution while it loses at the highest two. Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX runs up to twenty frames faster but as in previous case 7900 SLI beats them both. It is slightly faster in first three resolutions while it wins significantly at 20x15.

In Serious Sam 2 Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX loses at 10x7 from 7900 GTX for six and a half frames but at 12x10 wins by five and at 16x12 runs dominantly faster by 20 frames and at the highest 20x15 runs 26 frames faster. In this particular game Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX runs forty three per cent faster.

3Dmark 03 runs faster on SLI so no suprises there but 7950 GX2 runs some seven thousand marks faster. Things are much more tight at 3Dmark05 where 7950 GX2 loses by only a thousands to two 7900 SLI cards but ends up around 1700 marks faster than a single 7900 GTX.

Things are close in 3Dmark06 as there is a 700 marks difference between 7950 GX2 and second placed 7900 GTX card. 7900 GTX SLI ends up 600 marks faster than 7950 GX2 but shows a nice performance. Shader 2.0 and 3.0 tests just confirms the story.

In Short
This is without a doubt the fastest single card on the market. Sometimes you need to turn on the FSAA and Aniso to reveal its secrets but you won't get much more performance for the price. At €525 the Gainward BLISS 7950GX2 PCX should tie up a nice slice of the high-end market. It is simply faster than the 7900 GTX and it won't be much behind SLI 7900 GTX cards.

There's no point yet buying two of these cards as there is still no driver for it but it should be ready by the end of the summer. You can tweak the existing driver to make Quad SLI work but the performance is simply not there, at least not at this time.

Nvidia and Gainward did a great job with this card and this is the first higher-end card that distances itself from ATI's leading offerings. It is affordable and runs faster and I can easily recommend it. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic