There has certainly been a lot of activity in the past two months, as both major graphics makers keep their products fresh while awaiting the arrival of DX10 parts. These new cards are only modifications of existing platforms - such as the Radeon X1950XTX with GDDR4 - or repackaged cards such as the GeForce 7900GS with lower performance and a lower price tag to match. While these cards may not be anything new, they mean that this a fantastic time for gamers and performance enthusiasts - they can get more for less.
The GeForce 7950GT was announced on the same day as the GeForce 7900GS, but was not available until the 14th of September. As we mentioned at the time of that announcement, the current naming convention might make one think that the card has two processors, but it is merely an upgraded version of the GeForce 7900GT.
While we did not receive our GeForce 7950GT test sample in time for the official benchmark release on the 14th, we have been able to finish our tests. We are always excited to see new cards that bring better performance at a lower price. New cards continue the trickle down higher performance and cost savings onto consumers, something that benefits all those looking to buy a new card.
While the GeForce 7950GT has higher reference clock speeds than the GeForce 7900GT, the marketplace has many other versions of the GeForce 7900GT. The version we have in the lab is the XFX PV-T71G-UCP7, which has a core clock speed of 550 MHz and a memory speed of 815 MHz (1.63 GHz). The fastest models we can see from online retailers have a core running at 520 MHz.
