GeForce 7900 GT head-to-head

Overclocking:

We overclocked the two GeForce 7900 GTs using NVIDIA's Coolbits registry hack. The BFG Tech card overclocked pretty well considering its stock clock speeds are so low compared to the XFX XXX Edition. We were able to overclock it from its default 475/1360MHz clocks up to a very impressive 570/1780MHz - that's a 20% core overclock and a 30% memory frequency increase.

The XFX GeForce 7900 GT XXX Edition comes clocked at higher speeds by default and still uses the same cooler, so we weren't expecting it to clock much further than the BFG Tech card. It managed to overclock from 560/1650MHz to 590/1800MHz. This equates to a 5% core clock increase and a 9% memory clock improvement. Over the reference clocks, the XFX card was capable of a 31% core improvement and a 36% memory speed increase.

Value:

We found the BFG Tech card available on Overclockers UK at £246.69 including VAT. That's not a bad price compared to other GeForce 7900 GTs that are available at the moment. Scan is also stocking this card, but its priced out of the market a little at £280.81 including VAT.

The XFX GeForce 7900 GT XXX Edition is unavailable at the moment, but XFX tells us that Scan will be receiving stock on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. The card is currently listed to sell at £269.08 including VAT. We understand that the card is in high demand, so Scan is likely to sell out very quickly. Savastore is also listing the card for less at £247.22 inc VAT, but we're not sure how soon they will be getting a shipment of cards. If you're prepared to wait for the better price, you should get it at Savastore.

Final Thoughts...

We thought that the GeForce 7800 GT was a great card, but the GeForce 7900 GT is even better! There are a wide range of clock speeds available from board partners - we've only scratched the surface here and we will be looking at more GeForce 7900 GT cards from ASUS, eVGA and Leadtek soon.

The other thing that we've not addressed in this review is the performance of ATI's Radeon X1800XT 256MB, which is priced comparatively to the GeForce 7900 GT. We can't say that we've not tried to get one of these cards in though. They're readily available in the channel, but none of ATI's board partners seem to have them available for the purposes of reviewing - we've tried to get hold of one since before CeBIT but they all seem to be stuck in the channel. That's a bit of a shame, as we would've liked to see how it performs against the GeForce 7900 GT.

However in saying that, we think that the performance of these cards will hold up well to the Radeon X1800XT 256MB as both of these 7900 GTs are faster than a reference clocked GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB card. If you own a GeForce 7800 GT or Radeon X1800XL, it makes for a viable upgrade path if you're wanting to improve your frame rates without spending too much money, as you should be able to get a reasonably good return on your second hand card.

XFX's GeForce 7900 GT XXX Edition card is incredibly fast and if you can get it for the price on Savastore, the deal is verging on pornographic. Even at £270, it's a great deal. Having said that, there are many other cards in XFX's range that are even cheaper, so it depends whether you feel that the additional cost for a pre-overclocked card is worth it.

The BFG Tech card is a good price and its main benefit is the fact that it comes with a full worldwide lifetime warranty that works incredibly well. Also, if all of BFG Tech's GeForce 7900 GT OC's overclock anywhere close to the speeds that we achieved with ours, you're getting a damned good deal for your money. We actually think there is a lot more headroom in these cards too if you can find a better cooler to fit it.