The GeForce 7900GS is Nvidia's New Mid-Range

Tech Details

The performance gains come from a faster and updated core compared to the GeForce 7800GT. The GeForce 7900GS has the same number of processing units as the GeForce 7800GT, with 7 vertex shaders, 20 pixel shaders and 16 ROPs. The differences come from manufacturing: while the GeForce 7800GT is based on the G70 processor manufactured on a 110 nm process, the GeForce 7900GS is built on the G71 processor that is manufactured at 90 nm.

This difference, along with the optimizations inherent in the newer processor, allow for higher clock frequencies. The Nvidia design specification for the GeForce 7900GS has the vertex shaders running at 470 MHz, the rest of the core at 450 MHz, and the memory at 660 MHz (1.32 GHz DDR). That is an increase of 30 MHz on the vertex shaders, 50 MHz on the core and 60 MHz for the memory (120 MHz DDR).

More To Come: GeForce 7950GT

The other card that has been announced is the GeForce 7950GT, which by the looks of the naming current convention might make one think the card has two processors. It is, however, an upgraded version of the GeForce 7900GT. It has all of the same core components as the 7900GT, but runs them 100 MHz faster, so the vertex shaders operate at 570 MHz, the rest of the core at 550 MHz, and the memory at 700 MHz (1.4 GHz DDR). While we will follow up with results of the GeForce 7950GT, we are excited to see another card enter the market - all of these improvements trickle down performance and cost savings onto consumers.

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NVIDIA GeForce Reference Specifications
Row 0 - Cell 0 7950GX27900GTX7950GT7900GT7900GS
Process Technology90nm90nm90nm90nm90nm
Processor CoreG71G71G71G71G71
Number of Processors21111
Number of Transistors per Processor278M278M278M278M278M
Vertex Frequency (MHz)500700570470470
Core Frequency (MHz)500650550450450
Memory Clock (MHz)600800700660660
DDR Rate (MHz)12001600140013201320
Vertex Shaders (#)168887
Pixel Shaders (#)4824242420
ROPs (#)3216161616
Memory Interface (bit)256256256256256
Frame Buffer Size per Processor (MB)512512256256256
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) per processor38.451.244.842.2442.24
Vertices/Second (Millions)200014001140940822.5
Pixel Fill Rate (# ROPs x clk) in Billions/sec1610.48.87.27.2
Texture Fill Rate (# pixel pipes x clk) in Billions/sec2415.613.210.89
RAMDACs (MHz)400400400400400
Bus TechnologyPCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI Express
Row 20 - Cell 0
Row 21 - Cell 0 7800GTX 5127800GTX7800GT7800GS AGP7600GT
Process Technology110nm110nm110nm110nm90nm
Processor CoreG70G70G70G70G73
Number of Processors11111
Number of Transistors per Processor302M302M302M302M178M
Vertex Frequency (MHz)550470440375560
Core Frequency (MHz)550430400375560
Memory Clock (MHz)850600500600700
DDR Rate (MHz)17001200100012001400
Vertex Shaders (#)88765
Pixel Shaders (#)2424201612
ROPs (#)16161688
Memory Interface (bit)256256256256128
Frame Buffer Size per Processor (MB)512256256256256
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) per processor54.438.43238.422.4
Vertices/Second (Millions)1100940770562.5700
Pixel Fill Rate (# ROPs x clk) in Billions/sec8.86.886.434.48
Texture Fill Rate (# pixel pipes x clk) in Billions/sec13.210.32866.72
RAMDACs (MHz)400400400400400
Bus TechnologyPCI ExpressPCI ExpressPCI ExpressAGP 8XPCI Express