NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS and 7950GT - Two New NVIDIA Cards

Recently, NVIDIA introduced the GeForce 7900GS and the GeForce 7950GT.  The 7900GS offers a more affordable alternative for those interested in getting a 7900 GPU.  Priced at right around $200, it’s about what you can expect to pay these days for an upper mainstream card.  The 7950GT offers a card between the 7900GT and 7900GTX models, creating a more balanced and gradual product line.  The specifications of the 7900GS and 7950GT are below, compared with the previously existing 7900GT and 7900GTX.





GeForce 7900GS specs (7900GT specs):
Core clock: 450MHz (450MHz)
Pixel pipelines: 20 (24)
Memory: 256MB (256MB)
Memory interface: 256-bit (256-bit)
Memory bandwidth: 42.2GB/s (42.2GB/s)
Fill rate: 9 billion pixels/second (10.8 billion pixels/second)
Vertices/second: 822.5 million (940 million)
Approximate price: $200 ($250)





The only real difference between these two cards is that the 7900GS has less pipelines, which lead to lower fill rates and vertex rates.





GeForce 7950GT specs (7900GTX specs):
Core clock: 550MHz (650MHz)
Pixel pipelines: 24 (24)
Memory: 512MB (512MB)
Memory interface: 256-bit (256-bit)
Memory bandwidth: 44.8GB/s (51.2GB/s)
Fill rate: 13.2 billion pixels/second (15.6 billion pixels/second)
Vertices/second: 1.1 billion (1.4 billion)
Approximate price: $300 ($400)





And here the only difference is clock speed (for the core and the memory, which is indicated by the higher bandwidth).  The lower clock speed in the 7950GT drops the fill rate and vertex rate.  If you compare the 7900GT with the 7950GT, you’ll notice that clock speeds and memory are the two differences, and each one gives the 7950GT a little more performance than the 7900GT.




The 7900GS and 7950GT give you more options, with a card that meets almost everyone’s budget.  The 7900GS brings the 7 series of cards down to the $200 price point, while the 7950GT gives you the option of buying something better than the 7900GT but not quite as expensive as the 7900GTX, as well as putting a second card with 512MB of memory on the market.