Nvidia 7900 GT and GTX Card Mini Roundup Review
Game Tests - F.E.A.R.
Published: 18th May 2006 | Source: XFX | Price: |
It has volumetric lighting, soft shadows, parallax mapping and particle effects, with a slow-motion mode that really taxes today's top of the line GPU's. I fully patched version the game with the latest patch. I played three two-minute runs on a taxing part of the game with plenty of action, using slow-motion for the full time whilst firing at enemy soldiers and using grenades that produce a cool "blast" contortion effect when blown up.
The settings used are as follows:
Here are the minimum, maximum and average FPS for the cards:
As you can see the X1900XTX and the 7900GTX can play at very nice settings, although the 7900GT's do very respectably.
F.E.A.R. is a little of a slower playing FPS and so even the 18FPS that the Club3d gets minimum is easily good enough to play the game. I am just going to summarise how each card played F.E.A.R. briefly.
XFX 7900GT 256
The XFX card played FEAR very smoothly. The minimum frame rate was very nice and gave a slightly more smooth experience than the Gainward card. This is strange as I would have thought that the extra 256mb would mean that it would run at this high resolution faster than the XFX. Obviously the pure speed of the memory on the XFX is a good advantage on this card.
Gainward 7900GT 512mb
The Gainward again produced a good game playing experience in F.E.A.R. The lowest FPS was 20 which is both perfectly suitable for the game and also looks very nice at this res. An average FPS of 58 is perfectly good for playing this game. I was a bit suprised that the XFX outstripped the Gainward in this test: but this is a trend that I am beginning to see already.
Club3d 7900GTX 512mb
As expected the Club3d 7900GTX played this game at a very high res. The X1900XTX outstripped this card in terms of minimum FPS but suprisingly the nVidia cards average frame rate was quite a bit better giving a better experience overall. The Club3d card is a 7900GTX chip clocked quite a bit higher than the other two card and I think the GT's stood up pretty well in this game.
F.E.A.R. is a little of a slower playing FPS and so even the 18FPS that the Club3d gets minimum is easily good enough to play the game. I am just going to summarise how each card played F.E.A.R. briefly.
XFX 7900GT 256
The XFX card played FEAR very smoothly. The minimum frame rate was very nice and gave a slightly more smooth experience than the Gainward card. This is strange as I would have thought that the extra 256mb would mean that it would run at this high resolution faster than the XFX. Obviously the pure speed of the memory on the XFX is a good advantage on this card.
Gainward 7900GT 512mb
The Gainward again produced a good game playing experience in F.E.A.R. The lowest FPS was 20 which is both perfectly suitable for the game and also looks very nice at this res. An average FPS of 58 is perfectly good for playing this game. I was a bit suprised that the XFX outstripped the Gainward in this test: but this is a trend that I am beginning to see already.
Club3d 7900GTX 512mb
As expected the Club3d 7900GTX played this game at a very high res. The X1900XTX outstripped this card in terms of minimum FPS but suprisingly the nVidia cards average frame rate was quite a bit better giving a better experience overall. The Club3d card is a 7900GTX chip clocked quite a bit higher than the other two card and I think the GT's stood up pretty well in this game.
Most Recent Comments
Excellent Review Kemp, keep it up 
Sam
Sam
Yup, nice work 
Lovely, now i'm dying for my Asus 7900 512MB GTX 
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Originally Posted by name='MonkeyMeow'
Lovely, now i'm dying for my Asus 7900 512MB GTX
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the problem of the gainward is the same i have on my 7800 so that happend after i overclocked it and i think i f**ked the ram, btw great review all the text must have taken you ages to write
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Originally Posted by name='limqareb'
the problem of the gainward is the same i have on my 7800 so that happend after i overclocked it and i think i f**ked the ram, btw great review all the text must have taken you ages to write
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Thanks guys - glad you like it
Nice job as always kemp, I just got a XFX 7900GT for a customer, they are very pleased with it
Awesome review mate
Nice review Kemp One question...did you notice any kind of high pitch whine coming from any of the cards at any time? There is a thread going over at XS about this and apparently there are some cards that have an IC that gets VERY hot and starts to whine. The thread can be found HERE. Anyone else with a 7900 series card noticed this? It took a little listening to find it on mine since it is already loud in the room that my comp is in but it is there. I ended up just putting a memory heatsink on it and the 120mm fan in the side of my case takes care of the cooling on it.
One question...did you notice any kind of high pitch whine coming from any of the cards at any time? There is a thread going over at XS about this and apparently there are some cards that have an IC that gets VERY hot and starts to whine. The thread can be found HERE. Anyone else with a 7900 series card noticed this? It took a little listening to find it on mine since it is already loud in the room that my comp is in but it is there. I ended up just putting a memory heatsink on it and the 120mm fan in the side of my case takes care of the cooling on it.Hmm I have been noticing a loud pitched whine coming out of this one yes. didn't notice it during the review though
Just me or is there 2 page 6s? :s
And 10 and 11. May be my browzer...
And 10 and 11. May be my browzer...
Ham, your not alone
Fixed, just Kemp accidentally re-submitting the same pages after checking them due to a PM from a spelling whore no doubt.
We'll get it sorted. This is due to WC making me go through the entire review. If I submit a page without making changes another page 
I don't read loads of reviews on any site tbh, however I do think that is the best review/comparison I have read. I enjoy a good comparison and all cards are well described, analysed, well pictured with easy to follow results. It's all very well laid out and this must have taken a lot of time. Fair doos mate 
Thanks mate that's really appreciated. It did take up quite a fair amount of my spare time but hopefully it'll help out a few people who are wanting to make a decision on what to buy.
Kemp: Could you look and see if you can find where the whining is coming from?
I aint getting any right now plus i have to go to bed but I will do tomorrow mate ok
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Originally Posted by Kempez
Thanks mate that's really appreciated. It did take up quite a fair amount of my spare time but hopefully it'll help out a few people who are wanting to make a decision on what to buy.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
I aint getting any right now plus i have to go to bed but I will do tomorrow mate ok
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
We'll get it sorted. This is due to WC making me go through the entire review. If I submit a page without making changes another page
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Anyways, nice review man
Awesome, awesome review!
Good job Kemp!
Good job Kemp!
Please note that I have amended this review conclusion after discussion with Gainward.
Thanks
Thanks
What was changed? I didn't notice anything or did I just miss it?
EDIT: NM I found it...I am just blind
EDIT: NM I found it...I am just blind
good review; solid testing method, I like it, thumbs up.
would have loved to see 7900GT 256Mb vs 512Mb shoot-out between XFX and Gainward with both memory/GPU speeds the same; interesting to see how they stack up.
guess that I'll have to check myself
Sparkle 512Mb vs Club3D 256Mb
would have loved to see 7900GT 256Mb vs 512Mb shoot-out between XFX and Gainward with both memory/GPU speeds the same; interesting to see how they stack up.
guess that I'll have to check myself
Sparkle 512Mb vs Club3D 256Mb
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