The last gasp of the Dx9.x cards. Both Ati and nVidia are milking their existing architectures for all the $$ they can get. Anybody contemplating a purchase of a current 'performance-level' video card should hold off for about 6 months. Let the dogs see the rabbits in the Dx10 lineup. Better informed is better decision-making. The only exception being those who are transitioning from an AGP system to PCIe and there they should go for maximum bang for buck in the < $200 range just as a stop-gap until Dx10 cards are available in real volume with wide performance selection ( and maybe in second-generation too ) by the middle of next year.... only 9 months away now....

Here is the last paragraph of Anand's roundup of the latest video cards, including the 7950GT:-

"With DirectX 10 and Microsoft Windows Vista on the horizon, we're hesitant to recommend dropping a lot of money on a GPU upgrade right now if you don't need it. DirectX 9 hardware should still remain useful for years after the DirectX 10 launch, but unless you really have a lot of disposable income and are willing to upgrade GPUs again in six months, our advice would generally be to stick with current generation cards costing $300 or less. Such cards offer more than enough performance for the vast majority of users, and even if DirectX 10 won't be a factor in the short term, DX10 class cards will be able to handle DX9 class games all the better. We expect high end cards built for DX10 to well exceed the performance of DX9 hardware even under current games."

Right on the money, and no doubt Anand has already had an early peek at what the future has in store. Note that he said "stick with" implying that you already have hardware performing at a reasonably satisfactory level.

The real question to me is why not go for the X1900XTX instead of the 7950GT? If the Nvidia card comes out at 299, the XTX can be had for 20$ more from Newegg, and it beats it in almost every test and game, and some by a goodly margin. As for the actual 7950 to X1900XT 256 comparison, I saw an X1900XT at Newegg for 239$. I don't know if that was a screwup on their part or not, I haven't looked this morning, but at that price, it's a far better value than either the 7950 or the 7900GS if you ask me.

I'm personally buying an X1900XTX tomorrow, especially since they just dropped in price by 30$ yesterday. To me, this card is the best value for what I want, and I think it beats out all the recent Nvidia additions for performance in the price range.

Nvidia's new control panel isn't that quick either. I prefer the old way.

The x1900xt 256MB for $240 is definitely my pick for a mid range card. The x1900xtx ran with the 7900gtx for got sakes. no way am I gonna recommend a cut down version of the 7900gtx - ala 7950gt - when the x1900xt/xtx is the same price or cheaper!

The 7900gs is nice, as you can get them for $180 after rebate. The x1900AIW is sweet too if you count the tv tuner, and overclocking.

Scott, is it possible to have mouse-over charts that show non-SLI/Crossfire results as the default display, but include SLI/Crossfire results when the mouse is hovered over the chart? There are just way too many numbers to read these charts easily - splitting the charts into with/without SLI/Crossfire would make them easier to read for most people who wil neve rhave SLI or Crossfire, but still provide the info for those who need it. (Alternatively, could you cross-hatch or differently-colour the SLI/Crossfire results, so that we can visually exclude them?)

Finally, and since I am in nitpicking mode - do we really need four significant figures on FPS charts, when those numbers probably move around by 1% or more every time you measure them? 117fps tells us all we need to know; 117.4fps is misleadingly accurate!

Anyway, don't mean to sound churlish - as always it's a fantastic review, great details, love your work :-)

The problem you speak of about people being drawn late on the screen and things 'sorta jerk' I've experienced since about the R8500 series. It happens to me in Ravenshield with my R9700, x800XL, and x1800XT. I've also found that it happens in CSS as well. If I turn fast enough glancing at a corner it won't draw the people hidden in the corner if they're partially obscured. This drove me up the walls because I thought my eyes were going but they aren't.

It's nice that someone else has actually noticed this. I posted on this in the forums but people though I was cooky. Looks like they're just trying to cheat their way out of more performance and it's starting to show as their technique becomes more

Also about image quality. I've noticed on my friends computers after I install drivers the image quality defaults to 'high' instead of 'ultra' on Geforce cards. By default the image quality is lower then that of Radeons.

Vrock: "Too much pontification over something so trivial is silly."

Pontification? Maybe. Trivial? Why else are we here, reading this?

In my opinion, we are seeing way too many SKUs come out in short periods of time. Harkening back to kvndoom's excellent point about availability of desired cards, I think it is just a little ridiculous how many different cards have come out in the last year or two.

If you are a graphics card company (say, Atidia™), you are vying for my dollars. The recent past has shown you competing head to head with your competitor (NVi?), in a heated race to release your latest and greatest, while matching the other guy price point for price point. The technology is largely the same; you might get higher FPS in Pac Man 2007, but the the other guy's similarly-priced card wins in Defender XIV even with anti-aliasotropic enabled.

I say, enough already. Not only does this lead to silly product names like Z37000XTGTRO Ultra MegaBalls Sharptooth Thunder Extreme OC, it means these guys are spending as much time and money trying to beat the other guy as they are trying to develop quality products. They're more concerned with bolting on another feature than with improving the ones they squeezed in last time around.

So, Mr. Atidia, here's what you do. Take some (most) of those greenbacks we've been feeding you, and instead of using them to be the one with the flashiest box on the shelf, put some (lots) into R&D, and QC. I would have much more faith (figuratively and financially) in a product from a Good Company that comes out with Good Stuff every now and then at a Good Price, than the one that will be "obsolete" before it gets delivered, and hassles me with sketchy drivers.

If Atidia had four (maybe five) releases per year when they came out with a suite of cards that were a combination of updates along with a new card or two, and they had actually spent all that time since the previous release working on quality and efficiency, I think it would pay off in spades. GPUs are as complicated as anything else in any computer, and I don't think it could be debated that if they had more time to develop and test them, they would have a product with enough performance and quality to keep the general public satisfied and us nerds happy until the next round. Enough of releasing a minor update every Thursday.

[sidebar]
When we gonna see socketed video cards?
[/sidebar]

I know they would love to sell each of us a new card on a weekly basis, but how many of you wouldn't be impressed by a TR review that starts out with, "OK folks, it's been four months, and NVi definitely came through again. These cards are dual core, rock solid, very fast and (as always) have a five year warranty. Power draw is down a little, still just one slot, and the control panel offers every option we could've asked for. The newest card introduces a great new feature called QuasiView, which will be rolled into the rest of the line in the next round in January. We had a hard time finding a flaw with this card, and the price is an unexpected bonus."

"That's all it takes really, pressure, and time." And in this stage of the game, all (both?) of the video card companies could use a major shift in the way they Take Care Of Business, in a well-supported, consumer-beneficial and serious way. My faith in your company can be had relatively cheaply: I want to plunk my cash on a product which I KNOW went through spirited development and adequate QC. Save me the headaches, and I'm a customer for life.

Rant over, thanks for reading. Yeah.

I like that passive cooler. I like it a lot.

1900xt for $240 FTW

*Sniper hugs his 7900 GT*

No thanks nVidia.

so when will SLI let me run dual monitors easily?

D**n it!!! So the 7900GT is going out? How the bloody hell can Nvidia call SLI "futureproofing" when the freaking cards get discontinued long before they're even obsolete? By the time I would need a second 7900GT, would I even be able to buy one? Probqbly not! I DEMAND a cross-family SLI driver that will at least let all 79xx cards work together, all 76xx cards work together, etc. I'm sick of this.

well, newegg is selling the radeon 1900XT 256MB for $239.00. I think that slightly changes the conclusion of this article. Thats higher performance for $60 less than its competitor.

This card is amazing when you look at the ammount of performance you get and how few watts this things soaks up. Just to run an R580 card most of us are talking about a psu upgrade whereas the 7950GT at full load only soaks up 24 more watts than the 7600GT. The passively cooled version from XFX is also mighty tempting.

I only wish the 7950 were competitively priced - at $250 they would be a steal, but there are so many good deals on X1900 cards right now that the $320 these things are running is almost ludicrous. This is how things should look:

7600GS - $100
7600GT - $150
7900GS - $200
7950GT - $250

Then drop the GTX/GX2 and bring on the G80!

"At $329, the XFX GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme lists for nearly 50 bucks more than the expected price of the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB, but for that price you get a card with 512MB of memory, a copy of a GRAW,and one heckuva conversation piece in that cooler."

I have this image of Scott's coffe table covered with strange graphics cards...

The XFX card has ASUS written all over it... and unsurprisingly so, as they have been bought over by ASUS recently.

X1900XT seems to be a really nice performer at the given price point. And the ability to do HDR with AA is a considerable factor.

7950GT ain't too bad....it's going for $430 down here in Oz, while the X1900XT 256MB goes for $405....on the other hand, the 7900GS goes for $280 down here, so I totally agree with Damage when he said that the 7900GS is currently the "best value in graphics"….the power of a 7800GTX for $280...I'm sold!

Also, a lot of the video filter effects I use in Adobe After Effects render in real time on Nvidia cards only…other wise, I would most probably wanna grab an ATi card…

Hell...I'm still using a friggin' GF4 Ti4200 128MB lol :P

7900GS in SLi is damn tempting too…

By CCC he means the Catalyst Control Centre.
Its main problem is that it opens slowly...other than that it works pretty well.(its quicker with Vista )
As for the noise...its easily fixed by adding a Zalman VF900 as I have for my X1900XT.
Its a far better cooler than either ATI's or NVidia's offerings on similar cards.The XTX you are getting is a kick ass card..enjoy!

Personally, if I had to buy a PCI-E video card right now, it likely would be an ATI card, as my 7800GS still feels like it's missing more then 'just' a few pipelines. SLI and Crossfire don't really matter much to me. If I was handed a second card i'd just plug in another monitor.

Good review.

Edited for clarity. tsoulier makes a good point.

If a rapper were to buy a graphics card, I'm sure they would get that XFX ;)

Nice try Nvidia, but with the X1900XT 256MB beating it in most games at a lower price to boot I dont think its gonna be that attractive unless ur a diehard NVidia fan or you like a bit of background noise to keep you company :)

Please digg if you enjoyed the review:

http://digg.com/hardware/GeForce_7950_GT_debuts_with_passive_cooling