Inno3D GeForce 7950 GT

Overclocking:

We overclocked the Inno3D GeForce 7950 GT using NVIDIA’s coolbits registry hack. This should give an indication of how well this video card overclocks, but please bear in mind that your own mileage may vary. We cannot guarantee that manufacturers aren’t sending us samples that overclock particularly well.

Inno3D’s stock clocks for the GeForce 7950 GT are the same as NVIDIA’s reference clock speeds of 550MHz on the core and 1400MHz on the memory.

We managed to overclock the memory all the way to 1608MHz – a 200MHz increase (effective). With the memory at that speed, the core remained perfectly stable all the way up to 598MHz – an increase of 48MHz. At these clock speeds, we were able to play a variety of games, including Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Counter-Strike: Source, Oblivion and Battlefield 2. Inno3D’s card overclocked much better than XFX’s 7950 GT Extreme, but then that doesn’t come as much of a surprise when you consider that XFX’s card is passively cooled.

Final Thoughts...

Inno3D’s GeForce 7950 GT is another good implementation of NVIDIA’s GeForce 7950 GT and it comes in at a decent price point too. At around £199.74 including VAT, it appears to be one of the better-priced GeForce 7950 GT cards on the market that come with 512MB of memory. On top of that, it comes complete with a decent cooling solution that is almost silent. XFX’s GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme is slightly faster than Inno3D’s card and is also completely silent, and the price premium seems to be just about worth it – you’re going to have to spend an extra £20 to get the XFX card.

We quite liked NVIDIA’s GeForce 7950 GT, and it appears to have settled at a decent price point. By comparison, ATI’s Radeon X1900XT 512MB seems to be about £245 including VAT, which is another £25 on top of XFX’s silently cooled GeForce 7950 GT 570M. Another thing to factor in is that the cooler on most Radeon X1900XT’s is loud and is going to need replacing if you value your ear drums, adding a hidden cost into the equation.

Meanwhile, ATI’s Radeon X1900XT 256MB can be had for around £170 including VAT if you go for Connect3D’s model. Again though, you’re going to have to change the cooler if you value your sanity. On the plus side, the Radeon X1900XT 256MB will allow you to turn HDR and anti-aliasing on at the same time in Oblivion, and most other games will run incredibly well.

For many of you, the question will be: buy now or wait for a DirectX 10 compatible card? The answer comes down to how often you upgrade your video card, and what games you are looking to play. If you are looking for more performance in current generation games, and are happy to spend another £200-300 when next generation hardware arrives, then both ATI’s Radeon X1900XT 256MB and Inno3D’s GeForce 7950 GT 512MB will suit your needs well, depending on the resolutions you’re looking to play at.

The decision will also come down to the games you’re looking at playing, because some will obviously benefit from the larger memory quantity on the Inno3D GeForce 7950 GT, while others will benefit from the advanced capabilities that come with the Radeon X1900XT 256MB.

However, if you are looking for something to last you twelve months or more then arguably you would benefit from waiting to see what benefits DirectX 10 brings to the table.