eVGA GeForce 7900 Reload?

[jgbishop]

According to an article at eVGA, there has been a "reload" of their 7900 series of cards. I've been looking at the 7900GT line and have narrowed it down to two brands: XFX and eVGA. But I do have a few questions:

1. What do people here know of this reload? I've read that the original cards had some problems ... does anyone have any proof that these have been fixed? Are the newer cards stable (that's mostly what I'm looking for)?

2. The thing I like about the eVGA cards is their warranty allows for the stock cooler to be replaced. Don't 7900 GT cards run cooler than, say, a 6800 GT (which is what I have now)? I'm wondering if an aftermarket cooler is even necessary.

3. Many of the eVGA 7900 GT cards come factory overclocked (whereas the XFX card I looked at used a stock speed). Does the factory overclocking reduce stability? How does the heat hold up in these cases?

Thanks!

 

[mesick]

According to an article at eVGA, there has been a "reload" of their 7900 series of cards. I've been looking at the 7900GT line and have narrowed it down to two brands: XFX and eVGA. But I do have a few questions:

1. What do people here know of this reload? I've read that the original cards had some problems ... does anyone have any proof that these have been fixed? Are the newer cards stable (that's mostly what I'm looking for)?

2. The thing I like about the eVGA cards is their warranty allows for the stock cooler to be replaced. Don't 7900 GT cards run cooler than, say, a 6800 GT (which is what I have now)? I'm wondering if an aftermarket cooler is even necessary.

3. Many of the eVGA 7900 GT cards come factory overclocked (whereas the XFX card I looked at used a stock speed). Does the factory overclocking reduce stability? How does the heat hold up in these cases?

Thanks!

Well I can't answer all of your questions but I went from an Evga 6800GS to the XFX 7900GT PV-T71G-UDF7, the $229 one from newegg. Idle temps for 7900 are ~40C for me stock heatsink. Doesnt get much over 61 load. Being an EVGA fan as well, I would have gone with one but the deal was too much to pass up. About the OCing I think i got lucky because i hit 570/1600 with the stock heatsink, but it was just a single test, i leave it at the slightly OCed 470/1370.
hope that helps

 

[mrquin27]

My EVGA 7900 is idle right now at 35c

 

[monkey_knife_fight]

3. Many of the eVGA 7900 GT cards come factory overclocked (whereas the XFX card I looked at used a stock speed). Does the factory overclocking reduce stability? How does the heat hold up in these cases?

Thanks!

I've been a fan of eVGA for some time, and I recently purchased the 7900 GT KO Superclocked. Installed it, XP ran fine, but my PC would power off while gaming. I did some troubleshooting, and found out I had a bad GPU core. Only later did I find that eVGA has had several issues with this card. Anyway, the replacement card works great, but just a word of caution if you choose to buy a factory overclocked card from eVGA. Here's a good read from their forum:

http://evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17364

 

[Flopmouth_Fish]

1. What do people here know of this reload? I've read that the original cards had some problems ... does anyone have any proof that these have been fixed? Are the newer cards stable (that's mostly what I'm looking for)?

The original cards did have problems. I'm not sure if the problem was a fautly GPU core, bad memory, or inadequate cooling. What I do know is that eVGA had some pretty high overclocks on the reference cooler, which has a very small (and noisy) fan and heatsinks for only some of the memory modules. Their 7900GT KO has a much larger fan and cooling for all the memory chips.

2. The thing I like about the eVGA cards is their warranty allows for the stock cooler to be replaced. Don't 7900 GT cards run cooler than, say, a 6800 GT (which is what I have now)? I'm wondering if an aftermarket cooler is even necessary.

The 7900GT SHOULD run cooler than your 6800GT because the 7900 has a 90nm process, compared to the 130 nm for the 6800. I say should because of the issues with the inadequate cooling problem on some factory overclocked models. Also, if your 6800GT is the Leadtek PX6800GT, then it has one of the best stock coolers of any video card.

Does the factory overclocking reduce stability?

USUALLY a factory overclocked card will be as stable as a non-overclocked one, but in the case of the 7900GT, one never knows. At least the overclocking is covered by a warranty, so if the card fries, they're the ones giving you a new one.

How does the heat hold up in these cases?

The temperatures will be a little higher than stock, depending on how high the card is overclocked, and what kind of cooling is used. If the overclocked card has a superior cooler to the stock card, then the overclocked card might even run COOLER than the stock card. But if the two cards are using the same cooling, then the overclocked card will most likely run warmer.

 

[jgbishop]

Thanks for the suggestions. Does anyone else have any?

 

[mrquin27]

look at the reviews on newegg, me and someone else i know have the new ones and they have no problems

 

[Vile]

If I had to choose a 7900GT today I'd go for this one

It's cheap and it's the 'new' version of the 7900GT. It shouldn't give you any artifacts nor problems of any sort.

 

[NiNcotine]

Im looking at th 7900gt... and some of em have RoHS on the end of the name. what does that mean? yeah yeah, im a noob.

 

[Vile]

The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) 2002/95/EC was adopted in February 2003 by the European Union. The RoHS directive took effect on July 1, 2006, but is not a law; it is simply a directive. This directive restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment. It is closely linked with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) 2002/96/EC which sets collection, recycling and recovery targets for electrical goods and is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of huge amounts of toxic e-waste.

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