![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , September 19, 2006
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
XFX GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme
How does a factory overclocked passively cooled XFX GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme compares to an ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB video card? How about comparing it to a less expensive ATI Radeon X1900 GT? 24” LCD experiences at 1920x1200 included.
Introduction
On September 6th, 2006 NVIDIA unveiled a new lineup of GPUs based on GeForce 7 series technology. This new lineup included the announcement and launch of the GeForce 7900 GS and the announcement, but not hard launch, of the GeForce 7950 GT. Instead, NVIDIA decided to unveil the specifications on the GeForce 7950 GT at that time but were announcing that the video cards based on that GPU wouldn’t actually hit shelves until September 14th. In fact, they requested that everyone hold off on releasing evaluation analysis until September 14th since that is when the video cards were going to be available.
This was a bold and welcomed decision to actually want us all to wait until the product was actually a reality on the shelves. We’ve seen many announcements in the past where we have released reviews, yet we fail to see much product until weeks later. It seems that NVIDIA is very committed to the true nature of a “hard launch” and this is a good thing for everyone. Hopefully we will continue to see this trend with their next generation of GPUs.
If you aren’t familiar with the specifications of the GeForce 7950 GT GPU please read this evaluation. On the first page you will find a detailed description of the GeForce 7950 GT. We will summarize here.
The GeForce 7950 GT is the same G71 GPU that you will find as the GeForce 7900 GTX. It contains 24 pixel shader units, 8 vertex units and 16 raster operators just like the GeForce 7900 GTX. To meet the $299 price point the core and memory frequencies have been lowered from GeForce 7900 GTX clock speeds. The GeForce 7950 GT has a default GPU frequency of 550 MHz and a default memory frequency of 700 MHz (1.4 GHz DDR). The memory configuration however is equipped with 512MB of GDDR3.
At $299 the GeForce 7950 GT is in direct competition with the newly announced ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB video card. The ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB has the exact same specifications as the ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB video card except that the memory has been cut in half to 256MB. It sure will be interesting to see how these two video cards compare considering one has 512MB and the other 256MB. We will be sure to test on a 24” LCD at 1920x1200 where more memory can make a difference on video cards.
XFX GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme
For evaluation we are using a full retail boxed XFX GeForce 7950 GT 570M Extreme based on the GeForce 7950 GT GPU. As the name implies this video card is factory overclocked, i.e. the clock speeds are set higher than the NVIDIA reference clock speeds by the factory and fully under warranty. It is guaranteed to work right out of the box. There are two models actually, one that has reference NVIDIA clock speeds and the one we are evaluating today that is factory overclocked. The part number for the NVIDIA reference clock version is PV-T71J-YHF9 and has an MSRP of $299. The video card model we are reviewing today which is the 570M Extreme is PV-T71J-YHE9 and has a higher price tag, $329.99
The interesting part about this video card is that it is a completely silent solution. That’s right, it uses a 100% passive cooling system, there are no fans on this video card and it is still a single-slot solution. It then becomes very impressive when you consider this and then consider it is also factory overclocked at the same time. The GPU frequency comes at 570 MHz (hence the 570M on the box) which is a 20 MHz overclock over the reference speeds. The memory comes clocked at 730 MHz (1.46 GHz) which is a 30 MHz overclock over reference speeds. Modest overclocks to be sure, but consider this is 100% silent and passively cooled and these clock speeds are guaranteed and this video cards starts to look very impressive indeed.
This box is much bigger than the GeForce 7900 GS we encountered. There is unfortunately no window on the back to physically see the video card. There is however a picture of the video card on the back of the box so you can get an idea of what you are buying. You will also notice on the box it lists one full version game that it comes with, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter which is a very recent game.
Here she is folks, just as beautiful as ever. There is no question that XFX video cards currently look like gaming enthusiasts video cards. The XFX GeForce 7950 GT uses a black PCB, black heatsink, and neon green trimmings. In these pictures you can see that the passive cooler is made up of one large heatsink on the front of the card and one finned heatsink that wraps around the back and is heatpiped directly to the GPU plate. It is still a single-slot video card. SLI support is also standard with this video card and external power is required through the 6-pin PCI-Express port.
You can see in the above pictures how the heatsink system works. There are two heatpipes that are connected to a copper heat plate on the GPU. These pipes transfer heat to the large finned heatsink that wraps around the video card. This heatsink doesn’t actually move, it is pinned in place and is very sturdy. The larger heatsink on the front of the video card also works to transfer heat from the GPU and memory modules. We found no problems during operation with this video card; in fact, it ran cooler than we thought it would for it being passive.
This video card does support dual dual-link DVI ports for running digital 2560x1600. Inside the box you will find a quick install guide, a larger user’s manual, and a chart that shows you what the multimedia ports mean. This particular video card has a HDTV and HDCP support. So for all you HDCP enthusiasts out there here is another video card to add to your list for HDCP support out of the box. The package also includes a full version of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.