DailyTech - First Retail GeForce 7950GX2 Shows Up

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Hardware First Retail GeForce 7950GX2 Shows Up
Sven Olsen (Blog) - May 29, 2006 9:31 AM

18 comment(s) - last by rushfan2006.. on Jun 6 at 2:59 PM

NVIDIA's reference GeForce 7950GX2 design

Inching our way to QUAD SLI

Gigabyte and ECS are already gearing up for the GeForce 7950GX2 launch on June 6, 2006. The GeForce 7950GX2 is a dual PCB video card that takes two low clocked GeForce 7900 series GPUs and joins them together with a 48 pipe PCIe bridge. The card uses a single x16 PCIe interface to connect to the motherboard.

ECS, certainly not known for high end video cards, lists the card as the N7950GX2-1G. Gigabyte lists the card as the GV-3D1-7950-RH. Neither site lists clock frequencies, although NVIDIA's internal presentations have claimed each GPU will have a clock of 500MHz with a memory frequency of 600MHz. Manufacturers tell us that all of the GeForce 7950GX2 cards available at launch are actually NVIDIA designed reference boards.

NVIDIA already delayed the launch of the card once, and removed the support for QUAD SLI.

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Much more gooder?

By dice1111 on 5/29/2006 12:50:52 PM , Rating: 2

Has there been any posting of real world benchmarks yet? I'd really like to start seeing some numbers soon. I'm in the market and HTW!

(HTW: Hate the Wait <- lets see if that catches on)

RE: Much more gooder?

By Maximilian on 5/29/2006 1:02:04 PM , Rating: 2

Wonder how much power it takes up. Probably the same as 2x7900GT's but who knows. Could be less.

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RE: Much more gooder?

By plimogs on 5/29/2006 2:26:16 PM , Rating: 1

Hmmm, H ate T he W ait? How about H ate T o W ait? I think that might be somewhat better, H ow ' B out Y ou?

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RE: Much more gooder?

By Griswold on 5/29/06, Rating: 0

RE: Much more gooder?

By dice1111 on 5/29/2006 3:35:05 PM , Rating: 2

MUCH more awesomer! <- actually in daily use BTW

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RE: Much more gooder?

By dice1111 on 5/29/2006 3:36:23 PM , Rating: 2

"The Wait" ; The period or time waiting for anything that has been announced with a release date which is close enough to wait for, but aggravating because you want to purchase/watch/eat it immediately. Applies to people with very little patience.

Uses; “The new Conroe chips from Intel are coming soon, but I need a new PC now! I really Hate The Wait!”

“Dinner is going to be so good and I’m so hungry but it’s not ready yet! The Wait suxx0rz!”

"The Wait" - Dice1111 *runs out to copyright*

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RE: Much more gooder?

By CryptoQuick on 5/29/2006 5:29:14 PM , Rating: 2

Don't Hate The Wait!
Seriously, don't let The Wait bring you down. :(

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Remember!

By nangryo on 5/29/2006 12:35:27 PM , Rating: 2

Just a reminder for who want to buy it. Although it only single slot... It still needs SLI capable mobo to use it.

It basically just more easy, less hassle to use SLI solution.

Happy hunting ^^

RE: Remember!

By shabby on 5/29/2006 5:46:49 PM , Rating: 2

And that sucks, if you'd be able to use this on any pcie mobo i'd definetly consider it.

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RE: Remember!

By rushfan2006 on 6/6/2006 2:59:23 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Just a reminder for who want to buy it. Although it only single slot... It still needs SLI capable mobo to use it.

Not that anyone is coming back to read this since its a week old article, but just clarifying that the guy above is dead wrong. You do NOT need an SLI mobo -- that's ONE OF THE MAIN POINTS of the card! DUH!

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Still confused....

By Goty on 5/29/2006 2:16:08 PM , Rating: 2

I'm still confused as to what the use of this card is. Since there's no SLI connector, you can't use these in a Quad-SLI setup, can you? If not, then what's the point? It would make more sense to jsut go buy two full speed cards and get what I would assume would be better performance.

RE: Still confused....

By fungry on 5/29/2006 11:47:32 PM , Rating: 2

it kind of saves the room though, by stuffing into a dual slot but 1 PCIe slot. plus, this is probably not for the very high end as it is clocked lower then the 7900GT/GTX. So its probably between the mid and high end consumers.

Gotta look for the target audience.

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RE: Still confused....

By nrb on 5/30/2006 6:29:49 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
I'm still confused as to what the use of this card is.

It is faster than a single 7900GTX, but slower than a pair of 7900GTs in SLI. It is also more expensive than a single 7900GTX, but less expensive than a pair of 7900GTs. (The latter is not just because of the cost of the card: it uses less power too, so, although you do need an SLI-capable motherboard, you don't have to break the bank buying a 500W power supply, which saves a few more pennies). It also takes up the same amount of space in the computer as most single high-end graphics boards - one actual connector, and two slots. The 7900GTX and X1900XTX take up the same amount of space. SLI takes up twice as much.

Bascially it occupies a point on the price/performance scale in between what was previously the fastest single card and full-blown SLI. It's for people who want SLI but can't quite afford it.

I suspect it probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for quad-SLI, though. Quad-SLI is considered necessary for ultra-high-end, penis-substitute systems. This is basically the quad-SLI product cut down a bit and unable to actually do quad-SLI. Nvidia looked at the quad-SLI boards and thought "hmm, is there any other gap in the market where we could use something like that?" - then decided to use it for this. If there hadn't been a quad-SLI product to begin with, they probably wouldn't have bothered.

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HUGE

By Nocturnal on 5/29/2006 12:29:18 PM , Rating: 2

That is a mammoth of a card. I wonder how hot that thing gets?

RE: HUGE

By Gigahertz19 on 5/29/2006 12:36:13 PM , Rating: 2

Probably not too hot which is why it is two low clocked GeForce 7900 series GPUs joined together with a 48 pipe PCIe bridge instead of two highly clocked ones.

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Is it just me?

By exdeath on 5/30/2006 10:27:22 AM , Rating: 2

Or is it always "too little too late" with the high end video cards from nVidia?

By the time a much sought after card finally nears release, nobody cares anymore! Case in point, everyone wanted a 6800 Ultra Extreme edition card and when it was finally readily available nobody cared because the 7800 cards. Then the 7800 512MB cards were highly sought after and only after they were made obselete by the 7900 did they finally show up in any reasonable quantity.

Who is going to buy this GX2 now that the 78xx line is on its last legs and due to replacement?

They need to bring out stuff like this when a new card series is introduced, at the start of its life cycle, not at the end!

Nothing but a cheap ploy to sell off a few more 7800 chips before the new cards come out.

RE: Is it just me?

By Rampage on 5/31/2006 1:23:51 AM , Rating: 2

This is a great card at a great time.

No need for DX10 cards with poor DX10 performance considering Vista is delayed again and again.. looking at 2007 now or later?

Then give games even longer (beyond a choice few like crysis).. prob looking at 2009/2010 till all the major game engines (Doom/Source/UnrealEngine) are DX10 based.

That will be the time to worry about next gen cards.
Today, DX9 rules and will for years to come beyond a few tech demos.

Buying a very fast DX9 card like this, with the possibility of Nvidia opening up QuadSLI in the future is a great idea.

The time to buy DX9 cards is NOW.. when there are actually DX9 games to play.. not when the R300 was released.

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Runnin' Hot?

By shecknoscopy on 5/29/2006 2:23:40 PM , Rating: 2

I guess what I'm worried about is trying to install after-market cooling. Sure, the second PCB GPU'd be easy, but I'm guessing Zalman's not going to have a solution for that guy sandwiched between the two boards any time soon. I've never had a card which didn't see a performance boost from installing aftermarket cooling, so it's naturally on my mind...

Oh, and dice1111: I'll totally co-opt HTW. Hate To Wait; Love the Waiter. Praise Jeebus!

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates